Pairings | Roast cauliflower

The best wine pairings for cauliflower

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on March 20 2023 at 07:24

There was once no point in thinking about wine in the context of cauliflower. It was a vegetable. It was bland - except arguably in cauliflower cheese - but now it’s roasted, fried, spiced and partnered by other exotic and flavourful ingredients.

It has become the focus of a meal and deserves its own wine matches.

So which should it be? It depends as usual how you cook it but remember it’s always a brassica with that slightly vegetal edge

* With a creamy sauce, in a cauliflower soup or in cauliflower cheese: smooth dry whites are the order of the day. Think unoaked or subtly oaked chardonnay like Chablis, chenin blanc, Soave, Gavi, dry pinot gris … Unless it accompanies a steak in which case stick to your usual red.

*As a caramelised cauliflower purée (very fashionable, often in the company of scallops.
White burgundy or a similarly posh chardonnay is bang on.

* Cauliflower cake
That marvellous creation from Ottolenghi’s Plenty More we’ve all been tempted to make or made. (I have for the record - right) Smooth dry whites again though maybe with a lick more oak. Or dry cider.

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