As soon as you start adding capers and curry dressing to a dish, you need to think carefully about the wine to go alongside.
It is a fallacy to think that spices in a food dish will ruin a wine, in fact many hot and spicy recipes work really well with (the right kind of) wine. The thing to bear in mind is that chillies and strong spices tend to numb the taste-buds making it harder to detect the intricacies of flavour in more delicate wines. So, choose something young, bold and inexpensive and you won’t go wrong. Save the expensive, more mature claret for the leg of lamb at the weekend.
The most obvious wine matches are those with an aromatic note which will echo the spices in the dish. Think Gewurztraminer, Viognier, Gruner-Veltliner or a good Pinot Grigio. If you’d prefer a red, go for a lighter wine without overly bold tannins such as a Beaujolais or a nice Dolcetto from the north of Italy.
Here are a few to consider this weekend…
Morande One to One Gewurztraminer 2017 (Majestic, £8.99). Gewurztraminer can so often be cloying and overly floral. Not so with the Morande, this is an ideal introduction to the grape, and very food friendly. It’s also great value for money.
Definition Gruner-Veltliner 2017 (Majestic, £10.99). This is the leanest of all the white recommendations this week with a lovely minerality and a nice crisp, clean finish. It has the youth and the character to stand up to the dish.
Tolloy Pinot Grigio 2017 (Inverarity One to One, £10.49). Made in the mountains of Sudtirol and Alto Adige in the very, very north of Italy, this is what Pinot Grigio should taste like and seldom does. It will change your opinion of the grape, not to mention your shopping habits.
Pintao Viognier, Colchagua Valley 2017 (M&S, £9.50). This is wonderfully aromatic with a good, lush tropical fruit note on the palate. It’s perfectly balanced and ideal with Giovanna’s grub.
Saint-Amour Dominique Piron 2015 (M&S, £14). Beaujolais is my go-to red with fish such as tuna and monkfish as it has good acidity and softer tannins than say, a Bordeaux. I’d pop this one in the fridge for twenty minutes or half an hour before serving. Enjoy!
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