Pairings | Sauternes
The best food pairings for Sauternes
Sauternes is a famously luscious sweet wine from the Bordeaux region of France but what kind of food should you pair with it? This post deep dives into what you should eat with Sauternes, both sweet and savoury.
The best wine to pair with rhubarb
You might be surprised to learn that rhubarb is a great ingredient to pair with wine. Generally dessert wines have to be sweeter than the dessert they accompany and rhubarb has a natural tartness that makes that easier to achieve especially when it’s served with wine-friendly cream as in a rhubarb fool, pannacotta or a creamy rice pudding.
Wine (and other) pairings for peaches and nectarines
Being surrounded by peaches and nectarines at the moment has reminded me what a brilliant match they are for a glass of dessert wine. And, surprisingly, even for a red!
The best wine pairings with Roquefort cheese
Roquefort cheese is unusual in having such a frequently recommended wine match (Sauternes) that you may wonder if it’s worth drinking anything else but depending how you serve it there are a number of other options.
My top wine pairings with strawberries
I’m sure you’re enjoying a bowlful or two of strawberries at this time of year. But what to drink with them?
The best food and wine pairings for Valentine's Day
If you're planning a special meal for Valentine's Day you may be wondering which wine to pair with your menu. I've picked some favourite Valentine's Day foods and suggested some matches that should work well with them.
The best pairings for apple desserts
Apple tarts are one of the most flattering desserts to match with sweet wines but what do you drink with other apple-based desserts?
The best wine and liqueur pairings for trifle
There’s no doubt about it, trifle is tricky when it comes to drink pairings. If it includes booze already do you serve more on the side? And what kind of booze should that be?
What to pair with Epoisses (and other stinky cheeses)
What on earth do you drink with Époisses and France’s other famous stinky washed-rind cheeses such as Pont-l'Évêque, Maroilles, Munster and Langres? The problem is that the more mature and stinky you like your cheese, the tougher it will be on any wine you pair with it.
Cheese soufflé and old Sauternes
OK, OK. It wasn’t just *any* Sauternes but a bottle of 2003 Chateau d’Yquem and not just *any* old cheese soufflé but a Stinking Bishop double baked soufflé with hazelnuts and Comté sauce with pear, apple and ginger chutney
Wine of the week: a cut-price Sauternes
If you’re unsure what to buy it’s always tempting to go for a big name but when you find you’ve got an equally good option at half the price it’s mad not to go for that.
Scallops with Sauternes butter and oaked white Bordeaux
One of the treats I’ve lined up during lockdown is to have a weekly takeaway from a local restaurant, both to give me a break from cooking and hopefully help keep them in business and my first was a meal from one of my favourite Bristol restaurants littlefrench.
Foie gras and Sauternes
While I no longer eat foie gras myself (as explained here) for the French there is no other way to celebrate the réveillon, or New Year’s Eve.
Sweet Bordeaux and savoury food
Last week, the Union des Grands Vins Liquoureux de Bordeaux, the body that represents Bordeaux sweet wine producers, hosted a tasting of wines from six of the appellations they represent to partner savoury and sweet dishes at a lunch at le Cercle restaurant in Chelsea.
Chocolate and orange cake and Chateau Climens
I’ve always considered Sauternes is too delicate a wine to pair with chocolate unless it’s accompanied by something like passionfruit with which it chimes in but it turns out if the wine is old enough - and good enough - it can handle even a chocolate cake.
Chateau d’Yquem with Gorgonzola and a pressed apple terrine
OK, I don’t expect you to have a bottle of Chateau d’Yquem to hand, let alone a 1999 or 1989 vintage but this would work with any mature or not-so-mature Sauternes or similar sweet Bordeaux
Roquefort and Loupiac
With just over three weeks to Christmas - and even less time to order the Christmas wine if you haven’t already done so - it’s time for us laggards to focus on what we’re going to be drinking and that’s what I’m going to be doing this week.
What to match with the world's best Bordeaux-style reds
The Bordeaux wine region produces a multitude of top class red wines that these days tend to be blends of four main grape varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot.
Tipsy cake, roast pineapple and Chateau d’Yquem
Let’s face it, I don’t get to drink Chateau d’Yquem every day so what else could last week’s match of the week be than this stellar pairing I had at Dinner at Heston Blumenthal?
Plum and Frangipane Tart
If you feel like baking this weekend here's a recipe from Christine McFadden's massively useful book Flour, a guide to how to use all the many new flours on the market.
Emily's peach and almond tart
One of the things I love about social media is that it's just that: social. You make friends with people through exchanging tweets and 'liking' their images on Instagram.
Coconut & Mango Yoghurt Cake
Rukmini Iyer's 'Roasting Tin' series has been a huge success so the sweet-toothed among you will be thrilled that there's now a book devoted to desserts and cakes - The Sweet Roasting Tin. I chose this recipe on the grounds that it would double as either. I reckon it would be a particularly good finale to a curry night.
Matching sweet wine and Sichuanese food
Can Tokaji – the great dessert wine of Hungary, and one of the sweetest wines in the world – go with Chinese food, asks Margaret Rand? And if it can, would you want it to?
What to eat with your favourite wines this Christmas
Although we wine writers like to think we might be able to encourage you to be more adventurous in your wine choices this Christmas the truth is you’re probably going to stick to the wines you're familiar with.
8 great drinks to match with Stilton
No Christmas would be complete without a slice of Stilton or its unpasteurised cousin Stitchelton. But what to drink with it?
French apricot tart and Cérons
On Saturday we celebrated the 50th wedding anniversary of some good friends - a rare occasion which deserved (and got) several splendid bottles including a magnum of Gosset Champagne and another of one of the best of our local winemakers down here in the Faugères, Domaine des Estanilles (a magnum of the 2002 Château des Estanilles which was drinking superbly)
Epoisses and marc de Bourgogne
Epoisses has to be one of the most difficult cheeses to match, not least when it gets to the almost liquid stage shown in this photo (a stage too far IMHO)
Cru classé Bordeaux and rack of lamb
Just as last week’s match of the week was a classic - so is this week’s: the main course we had at Oliver Peyton’s National Gallery Café at a dinner to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Circle of Wine Writers.
An Irish cheeseboard for St Patrick’s Day
With all the fuss about oysters and Guinness and boiled bacon and cabbage you may overlook what must be one of the best ways of celebrating St Patrick’s Day: an Irish cheeseboard.
When should you drink Yquem?
Not a question I normally have to trouble my head about, I admit but which was prompted by an extraordinary wine dinner I went to last week at The Don in St Swithin's Lane.
Food and Bordeaux: What they served at the gala dinner at Mouton Rothschild
I make a point of not going to Vinexpo, the biennial wine fair in Bordeaux (too hectic, too noisy) but it does mean you miss out on the occasional treat like the gala dinner that was held at Château Mouton Rothschild to celebrate the opening of their new chai.
Does great wine need to be aged?
It’s been an article of faith as long as I’ve been writing about wine that you need to age the best wines in your cellar. We sniff at consumers who buy and crack open a first growth as unsophisticated but maybe they’re the ones who know best?
Warm fig and almond pudding with Château Coutet Barsac 1996
I think I’m a bit fixated with figs at the moment. Last week’s match of the week involved them and so does this week’s but it’s a totally different affair.
Scallop tartare and sauvignon blanc
What on earth do you do when you have a line-up of some of the best wines in the world in front of you? Do you attempt to match them or reflect more the mood, the company and the time of year? Or, given that they're indisputably the hero of the occasion, do you just go with the sort of food the kitchen does well anyway?
Apricot soufflé and Coteaux du Layon
Why don’t more people make souffls these days? I include myself in that. They’re not that difficult, look so impressive and are such a lovely match for a dessert wine.
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