Inspiration: wines to drink with a vegetarian Christmas dinner

Nut roast: Orange wine | Southern Rhône reds | Xinomavro (Naoussa)

Roasted vegetables platter: Chianti Classico | Douro reds

Mezze: Pinot Noir | Mencía (Galicia) | Pétillant naturel

Cheese board: California Chardonnay | Aged Riesling | White Rioja

Scroll down for wine recommendations

For most, Christmas dinner revolves around the idea of a standout meat dish at the centre of the table. Yet this is no longer the rule for everyone; many of us have now switched to vegetarian or vegan diets and it’s hard to hold a celebration without having to accommodate different, meat-free preferences.

Rather than a hindrance, this should be seen as a great opportunity to bring new flavours to the festive table and think of wine pairing possibilities that go beyond the ‘which wine shall I have with turkey’ dilemma.

Best wines to drink with nut roast

The go-to replacement dish for that rebellious vegetarian/vegan friend or relative was, for a long time, the infamous nut roast.

Infamous because many vegetarians will tell you there are a number of more exciting, less obvious and easier-to-cook alternatives (more on that below).

Having said that, a good nut roast is indeed delicious and usually ends up being eaten by everyone! Its crunch and smokiness can actually be compared to that of lamb, namely when spices and herbs are also a central part of the recipe.

The comparable smokiness of an orange wine will be a great fit, as will the herbal profile of a Vacqueyras from the southern Rhône or the trademark tapenade aromas of a Naoussa Xinomavro.

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Choosing wines for vegetarian Christmas: the beauty of simplicity

The truth is that the best vegetarian dishes, while bound to delight even the most avid meat-eater, are simple and based on only a handful of ingredients.

If you’re not vegetarian yourself, pleasing the vegetarian guest is all about integrating the veggie dishes as part of the whole meal, so that everyone can enjoy them – and their accompanying wines, of course.

A nice selection of delicious roasted vegetables, brought to life by the smokiness of the grill, the complexity of spices and the depth of a good olive oil, is a great dish in itself with a dollop of labneh or sprinkled with feta. It also makes a great side for a turkey or meat roast.

And those roasted veggies will handle – and ask for – a structured red, with firm tannins and good concentration, as much as the reddest of meats.

So don’t be afraid to pour the same wine that you’ve selected for the turkey, lamb or ham. A dry Douro red, a Chianti Classico or a Hungarian Kekfrankos will likely do the trick.

Wines for vegetarian mezze

A mezze spread, with delightful dips, a colourful selection of olives, spiced nuts, marinated aubergines and marinated beetroots, is also something you should consider.

It makes a great aperitif selection but also allows guests, vegetarian or not, to nibble throughout the meal.

Pair it with a refined Pinot Noir or a Mencía from Galicia; their fresh minerality will allow you to appreciate the diversity and subtlety of flavours.

Another great option alongside mezze – especially at the start of a meal – would be a refreshing and delicious pétillant naturel wine, also known as pét-nat. The structure, broad palate and restrained effervescence of a pét-nat will deliver such a great balancing act.

Photo by Jez Timms on Unsplash

Cheese, real or fake, but never with red wine

Well now, there’s no Christmas without a proper cheese selection is there?

Although cheese and wine pairing is usually, and outrageously, associated with red wine, it is best to look elsewhere in many cases.

The tannins bind with the fats in the cheese and prevent the full appreciation of all those complex and delicious flavour compounds that the best cheeses have.

Look to structured, medium-to-high acid white wines and this complexity really comes to life. Try a robust California Chardonnay, an aged Mosel Riesling or a white Rioja and you’ll be a little closer to heaven.

Orange wines will again be a good option, because the intensity and high acidity will enhance the umami characters in the cheese. But, once again, you should avoid skin-contact wines with too much tannin.

For vegans, the choice of non-dairy ‘cheese’ is increasingly appealing and diverse.

These are usually made with fermented seeds and nuts, helping them to develop texture and flavours that are, well, very cheesy.

The same wines that pair well with cheese will therefore also be great companions to their vegan counterparts. But it’s worth pointing out that, when considering vegan diets and guests, you will need to make sure that the wine itself is vegan-friendly!

The golden rule: always have good fizz within reach

It’s worth stating the obvious here: always have a good bottle of sparkling wine close by. Not only is it the trademark celebratory drink and the best crowd-pleaser, but it is also the ultimate food pairing wine.

Think past the world of oysters and canapés, because the right fizz can be perfect with a variety of dishes, from roast chicken to pasta with leeks or even cheese.

So it’s worth investing in some good bubbles, which would work equally well as an aperitif or alongside some of the main meal’s dishes. Sparkling wines are often an ideal option when vegetarian dishes take centre stage.

Try an English sparkling rosé with a plate of creamy pasta or a sparkling Vouvray with a nut roast.

And if you’ve never tried a cheese platter with a late-disgorged Champagne, full of toasty aromas and pastry-like flavours, you’d be mad not to have a go.

Ten wines for your vegetarian Christmas meal:

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Seven wine styles to drink with pork:

White wine

• German Riesling
• Condrieu  (Viognier)
• Chenin Blanc

Red wine

• Pinot Noir
• Grenache / Garnacha (red or rosé)
• Aged Barolo (Nebbiolo)
• Sicilian Nerello Mascalese

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Red or white wine with pork?

‘Rich whites and juicy reds tend to work well’, said Decanter Rhône correspondent Matt Walls. But, there are no hard and fast rules for pairing wine with pork.

Nutritional studies class pork as a red meat, despite its relatively light appearance and a renowned advertising campaign by the US National Pork Board entitled ‘the other white meat’.

Jean-Baptiste Lemoine, dining room manager and director of wines at The Goring in London, said it’s important to consider:

• the cut of the pork;
• the way it’s cooked;
• the sauce you are serving it with.

Wine with pork belly and suckling pig

For tender, melt-in-the-mouth suckling pig, Lemoine advised drinking lighter styles of red. These include Spanish Mencia, Nerello Mascalese from Sicily, Pinot Noir from cooler regions or Chilean Carménère.

Riesling with a touch of sweetness can work well for white wine drinkers, he said.

This is also a good option for pork belly and was listed as one of the top 25 food and wine pairings by Fiona Beckett in a previous article for Decanter.com.

‘Roast pork belly works best with a wine that has a high level of acidity plus a touch of sweetness,’ Beckett wrote.

‘Cue dry German Riesling, especially if apple is served alongside. It provides welcome freshness, cuts through the fat and doesn’t detract from the crispness of the crackling.’

She also suggested a young red Burgundy, returning to the Pinot Noir theme above.

Red wine to drink with roast pork

A combination of fresh acidity and juicy red fruit can also work well with roast pork, on the other hand.

Decanter’s Julie Sheppard previously recommended this Cabernet Franc from Mendoza, available at Sainsbury’s in the UK, for instance.

Roast pork beyond suckling pig can handle a slightly bolder wine, although fleshy, juicy fruit and bright acidity should generally work better than the sort of tannic heavyweight that might pair with a darker red meat like steak.

‘Roast pork calls for something that combines richness with acidity, whether it’s white or red,’ said Matt Walls.

As an expert on the Rhône Valley in particular, he advised turning to the Grenache heartland of Gigondas.

Can you drink white wine with roast pork?

For white wine lovers, ‘Condrieu [Viognier] can be a brilliant match for pork roasted with herbs like Oregano or Marjoram,’ Walls said.

He added that it’s also worth considering Pinot Noir from warmer climates, plus fresher styles of Chardonnay or Chenin Blanc from either the Loire Valley or South Africa.

Some styles of white Rioja can also be delicious with roast pork. Decanter’s Amy Wislocki recommended this ‘intense, toasty, oily and nutty’ example from Allende, which also shows ‘incredible length’.

Wine with pork sausages

Walls returned to the Grenache theme when considering a wine for pork sausages. ‘For a classic bangers and mash, I tend to reach for a young Grenache-based wine like a southern Rhône.’

Grenache-based blends with lots of juicy fruit and depth could be a winner with barbecued sausages too.

A high-acid red like Barbera, meanwhile, can match well with the fattiness of a sausage pasta dish, especially if tomatoes have added extra acidity to the meal.

Rosé wine with BBQ pork

Dry rosé wines could be a good bet for BBQ pork, whether pulled or cooked as a chop.

However, the meat might overpower some of the more delicate styles.

The Goring’s Lemoine suggested a Grenache rosé, particularly the more full-bodied styles from Spain, where the grape variety is known as Garnacha.

Aged Barolo wine with roast ham

Are you lucky enough to have any bottles of top Barolo, Bordeaux or white Burgundy quietly ageing away in your cellar?

Then the serving of a roast ham – whether at Christmas or any other time of year – could be a great excuse to pull the cork on a treasured bottle, said Lemoine.

He said the softer tannins and complexity of these wines after a few years of bottle age will work well with the meat.

This article was first published in 2019 and has been edited in November 2023, including with the addition of new wine reviews (below).

Reviews by our experts: inspiration on pairing wine with pork

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Attending a dinner party is supposed to be the relaxing end of the guest-host trade-off. You can simply show up while the host organises all the minute details to make the gathering a memorable one. Yet, before settling in for a hosted evening, there’s one detail that requires your attention – choosing the perfect bottle of wine.

Wine as a thoughtful gift

With so many styles, regions and labels to choose from, this can often trigger social anxiety. Does my host like white or red? What are we having for dinner? How many people will be there? These are all questions that arise in anticipation of finding the perfect bottle. Instead of asking them rhetorically, sommelier and founder of The Hue Society, Tahiirah Habibi says you should actually ask them.

‘Get as much information about the host and event as possible, that way you can tailor your selections,’ she says. ‘Cultural identities, commonalities, celebrations and food preparation can really help you understand your host’s wine preferences and they will appreciate the effort.’

Of course, there are times when you can’t secure these details – maybe the host hasn’t chosen the menu or perhaps you are a guest-of-a-guest and aren’t able to ask the host. In that case, there are a few ways to go about choosing the best bottle.

Credit: d3sign / Moment via Getty Images

Choose a wine with a personal meaning, says Vincent Morrow, MS and beverage director at PRESS Napa Valley. ‘Wine is meant to be shared and if all else fails, bring a bottle that means something to you.’ Morrow shares he often presents a Riesling that he and his fiancée helped produce in the Pfalz region of Germany. ‘It is a stunning wine by itself, but the story means so much more to us.’

Along these lines: ‘Something that you’re excited to try will be exciting for whom you share the experience with,’ says Abe Zarate, sommelier at The Modern in New York.

A guest can also look at the occasion to help narrow down the choice. Even if you don’t know the host or the minutiae of the hosted event, is it in celebration of a birthday or a holiday?

Wines for the right occasion

For instance, Thanksgiving is an opportunity to bring a unique bottle to the table, says Jeremy Shanker MS, corporate wine director of Mina Group. ‘Have a little more fun with it,’ he says, noting the challenging amalgamation of flavours on a Thanksgiving plate. Chenin Blanc matches the caramel in sweet potatoes, the tartness of cranberry and savoury items like turkey.

Understanding the occasion, Shanker advises, also applies to birthdays, in which case he says there is a line where a bottle could be considered too cheap. ‘If you’re gifting somebody a bottle of wine, you might as well do it right,’ he says. This doesn’t necessarily translate to spending more money, as you can gift somebody a bottle that isn’t readily accessible or that they wouldn’t find at their local bottle shop, like a grower’s Champagne instead of Veuve Clicquot, he notes.

Zarate agrees with the swap: ‘Value wines outperform expectations in quality while offering an element of surprise,’ he says, offering a look at producers of great renown. ‘These days, they are likely to be working with lesser known or underrated regions and grapes.’ Zarate considers white Burgundy producers – instead of opting for their Grand Cru bottle, they might make an Aligoté, Bourgogne Blanc or even have a project in places like Oregon and California.

The price is right

On that note, what is the appropriate price tag for a gifted bottle? This is all dependent on the above and your relationship with the host, but on average, Habibi suggests a range of $20 to $50, which can be increased around the holidays to between $30 to $100. ‘I would try to avoid overly extravagant or inexpensive wines,’ she adds, re-emphasising the key of tailoring your choice to the host’s preferences and the context of the gathering.

Morrow agrees: ‘Don’t spend beyond your comfort level and risk also feeling resentment should they not like it.’

When it comes to presentation, context also plays a role: ‘The way that you package the bottle hints whether it’s a gift or whether it’s being opened that evening,’ says Shanker, who says if he was presented with a bottle of Champagne in a gift box or a bottle of wine in a bag with tissue paper, he’d assume it’s a gift and put it aside.

You also don’t need to go over the top, says Habibi. ‘Wrapping it nicely with a ribbon can enhance the presentation. Including a personalised note as to why you made the selection is a great touch.’

If you show up with no bag, it’s a clue to open it at the gathering, but by no means an expectation. ‘If it doesn’t get opened, then you leave the bottle. Don’t take it with you,’ stresses Shanker.

Though you can follow any of the aforementioned tips, perhaps the best advice is when all else fails, bubbles save the day. ‘You can’t ever go wrong with Champagne,’ says Shanker.

Credit: Luis Alvarez / DigitalVision via Getty Images

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Six wine styles that pair well with beef:

• Cabernet Sauvignon

• Grenache or ‘GSM’ blends

• Malbec

• Shiraz

• Aged Nebbiolo (Barolo)

• Traditional white Rioja

Search Decanter wine reviews to find the perfect bottle

Choosing a wine to drink with roast beef

It’s hard to beat a delicious bottle of red wine with hearty roast beef on a wintry afternoon, whether it’s Christmas Day or simply a relaxed Sunday lunch.

Classic fuller-bodied reds, such as Bordeaux blends led by Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot, Châteauneuf-du-Pape from the southern Rhône or Australian Shiraz, are often considered go-to wines that can match the flavour intensity of a roast beef dish.

Yet balance is important in any great wine. A refreshing dose of acidity can work wonders, particularly if you also have a range of trimmings on the dinner table.

A bit of bottle age can bring depth and complexity, too, as Decanter’s Natalie Earl noted after tasting this Château Brane-Cantenac 2010 from the Margaux appellation.

‘It’s showing nice maturity already, with savoury saddle leather spice enhancing red plum and bright cassis fruit – a natural partner for roast beef,’ she said.

Pairing wine with beef also offers plenty of scope for experimenting and personal preference.

If you’re thinking about a more precise wine and beef match, consider the following:

• cut
• age
• cooking time
• accompaniments.

Surprise the wine connoisseur in your life this Christmas!

Red wine with beef: what makes the cut? 

‘The easiest way to pair wine with beef is to think about matching the flavour intensity of your wine with your beef,’ said Mark Quick, wine director for Hawksmoor steakhouse restaurants.

‘The fat in your cut is where all of the flavour is locked up,’ he told Decanter.com in December 2020.

‘More fat equals more intense beefy flavour. For example, a fillet would be one of the leaner cuts and usually have a very subtle flavour, on the other end of the scale would be a heavily marbled rib-eye.’

Leaner cuts, like fillet or topside, can be beautifully melt-in-the-mouth tender but could also be overpowered by a wine that is too bold.

‘You could be better off going with a lighter and more subtle drop,’ said Quick.

‘For example, a red from the Jura, a Pinot Noir from anywhere, or there are some very good lighter Garnachas [Grenache] coming out of the New and Old world nowadays that work very well too.’ He highlighted Dani Landi, ‘La Uvas de la Ira’, as a particular favourite.

Malbec lovers could look towards fresher styles from Altamira and Gualtallary in Argentina’s Uco Valley, as previously suggested by South American wine expert Patricio Tapia, a Decanter contributor.

A leaner cut of beef served rare or pink might also benefit from a red that puts bright, juicy fruit front and centre, yet still with enough depth to match the flavour of the meat.

Fat and tannin: a match made in heaven

Fattier cuts of beef, such as rump, fore rib and shin, have a deeper flavour than leaner cuts.

Quick said that the higher the fat content of the beef, the higher its capacity to pair with richer wines that have bolder tannins.

Fat content washes away tannin in your mouth and vice-versa, he said. ‘That’s what keeps you coming back for more of both your wine and your steak.’

Drinking Barolo with aged beef

If you’ve gone for dry-aged steak or beef, then think about how long the meat has been aged for.

‘Heavily aged beef possesses a gamey, sometimes cheesy characteristic that marries extremely well with old wines,’ said Quick.

How about wine with a few years of bottle age? ‘An aged Barolo or red Burgundy would be epic,’ said Quick. ‘It could be the perfect excuse to drink that bottle that has been staring at you.’

Sauce may affect your choice of wine to go with beef

Many of the classic sauces with beef hold pretty strong flavour themselves. How about meeting that peppercorn sauce head-on with the peppery notes of a Syrah/Shiraz, for instance?

Roast beef with red wine sauce or jus might work better with a red that showcases riper fruit, while a traditional gravy has more savoury elements to it.

When it comes to sauce, Hawksmoor’s Quick said, ‘Ignore all of my advice about avoiding big, powerful, tannic wines with lean cuts if you are going to pour sauce all over your steak. You are essentially covering your steak in butter or beef fat anyway, so should revert to the advice about fatty steaks in this instance.’

Can you drink white wine with beef?

It might be considered a faux-pas in some circles, but personal taste is important – and several sommeliers say some white wines can work well with beef.

If you’ve got a lovely caramelised crust on your meat then a white wine with nutty flavours can be brilliant, said Quick. ‘Look for extended oxidative ageing,’ he said, suggesting Jura or traditional white Riojas.

He also highlighted Sherry as a potential match here. ‘If that’s what you are into, [it] would work wonders,’ he said.

Oloroso, for example, is a Sherry style known for its nutty complexity.

Tasting notes: Inspiration for pairing wine with beef this Christmas

The wines below have been recently reviewed by Decanter experts.

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Classic styles when pairing wine with turkey:

• Full-bodied Chardonnay, such as those from Burgundy or California
• Pinot Noir
• Mature Bordeaux, Rioja or Barolo
• Beaujolais (Gamay)

Remember that turkey is not a powerful meat

When pairing wine with turkey, remember that this is a white meat with a low fat content, which is why it can dry out if not cooked carefully.

Your wine matches should ideally be either a full-bodied white wine or a medium-bodied red, with low or medium tannin and relatively high acidity.

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Pairing wine with turkey: a visual guide

Click on the turkey and wine pairing graphic below to see a full-size version.

Tips on matching turkey with wine. Credit: Annabelle Sing / Decanter

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The basic rules of pairing wine with turkey

Let’s talk about tannins

Fine tannins are great in a balanced wine with some bottle age, but too much mouth-coating tannin could also ruin all those hours you’ve spent in the kitchen.

There is likely to be a dearth of fat on the plate in general, leaving little to soften tannins in a big, bold, young wine.

This can accentuate the harsh feeling of tannins in the mouth, eclipsing other flavours. The saltiness of the turkey can also make tannins taste more bitter.

It may seem strange that classic wine choices include those with relatively high tannin levels, such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot blends from Bordeaux.

This, however, is where several years of bottle age come into play. Tannins will soften and integrate over time in the best wines.

Embrace acidity when pairing wine with turkey

A roast turkey dinner is often full of flavours and complexity. Sides like cranberry, bacon, parsnips, stuffing and Brussels sprouts are just some of the dishes vying for attention.

A wine with medium or high levels of acidity should be able to cope better with these myriad flavours.

Red wine with turkey

Taste is personal and there are many options out there, but but Pinot Noir is often seen as a great match for turkey dinners.

Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir from bolder Burgundy crus, such as Gevrey-Chambertin or Pommard, should work exceptionally well.

If you can stretch to the Grand Cru of Chambertin then you’re in for a treat, but there are also plenty of less expensive options out there. Try looking towards Fixin or Santenay, for example.

Some lighter styles of Burgundy Pinot, such as classic Volnay wines, may be overpowered by the range of flavours on your plate.

You can also look to other relatively cool-climate regions known for great Pinot Noir. These include Central Otago in New Zealand, Mornington Peninsula in Australia, The Finger Lakes in New York State or even Essex or Kent in the UK, too.

Pinot Noir is also a good pairing with cold roast turkey leftovers, according to food and wine expert Fiona Beckett. She previously recommended ‘a riper, more robustly fruity Pinot Noir from, say, California, Oregon or New Zealand’.

Beaujolais Cru

Gamay is arguably still underrated as a grape variety and yet it can produce red wines offering delicious depth, as well as drinking pleasure.

In its Beaujolais heartland, look towards the 10 ‘Crus’, and perhaps especially those known for making slightly more powerful styles, such as Morgon or Moulin-à-Vent.

Aged Bordeaux

Cabernet Sauvignon is in a completely different universe to what we’ve just talked about, with big tannins, big acidity and lots of luscious dark fruit.

Merlot, too, carries significant weight in its classic Bordeaux Right Bank form.

Yet the delicately poised balance of fruit, acidity and integrated tannins can still work wonders with your turkey dinner, if tertiary aromas from a few years of bottle age have started to develop around the edges.

Last year, Decanter revisited the Bordeaux 2012 vintage 10 years on from the harvest, and Jane Anson selected a fine collection from the 2000s that are beginning to drink wonderfully.

Aged Barolo or Chianti Classico are other classic reds to consider with turkey.

Mature Rioja can combine those lovely, earthy, mushroomy aromas with bright red fruit and medium-weight tannins. There are also plenty of relatively good value options.

Be wary of choosing a wine with too much oak influence, however.

White wine with turkey

Chardonnay

A full-bodied Chardonnay can be an enchanting accompaniment to your turkey, especially with traditional sides like bread sauce.

The best examples exude oaky richness that can give sweet spice notes. Creamy lactic acid also really helps out with a meat that can sometimes be on the dry side. A backbone of acidity brings balance to the flavours.

Good Chardonnays, in general, are found in the similar geographical areas to good Pinot Noir.

White Burgundy will work well at almost all levels.

Those lucky enough to be able to choose a Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru, Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru or a Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru are unlikely to be disappointed.

The high levels of minerality and acidity in these wines help to cleanse the palate, allowing you to wade through all the trimmings effortlessly.

The Mâconnais is an area to explore for relative value options, particularly for anyone who enjoys riper fruit notes on their Chardonnay.

Other wonderful examples can be found in Australia, from Victoria to Adelaide Hills and Margaret River, or in California from Napa Valley to Sonoma’s Russian River Valley and Santa Barbara County.

Don’t overlook South Africa, home to this ‘fresh and spiky’ Chardonnay from Storm, or New Zealand, such as this fantastic value, ‘silky and pure’ offering from Wairarapa.

Tasting notes: Wine with turkey suggestions

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For centuries, pubs have been the backbone of our society, hubs and sanctuaries for connecting people and communities. There’s something so quintessentially British about sitting in a pub garden in the sunshine, or in a comfy chair next to a roaring fire, I don’t think it can be replicated beyond our shores.

It’s been 10 years since my first cookbook Proper Pub Food came out, and this new book invites you into my Pub Kitchen today. It’s a continuation of that first book and a celebration of how far we’ve come as a culinary nation. British pub food has become so strong over the past decade or so, and it’s been really exciting to see.

I’m so proud to be part of such an eclectic and continually evolving food scene. Wherever you are in the country, you can find fantastic local gastropubs with super-tasty dishes on the menu.

Onglet steak with green peppercorn sauce

Onglet (also called beef skirt or hanger steak) is prized for its flavour, but you’ll need to time the cooking carefully as it can become tough if overdone. The steak goes really well with this peppery, creamy sauce flavoured with brandy, herbs and spinach. The brilliant, vibrant colour is also something truly special.

Serves two

Ingredients

• 2 onglet steaks (200g each)
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp butter
• salt and freshly ground pepper

For the green peppercorn sauce

• 1 banana shallot, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp green peppercorns
• 2 tbsp brandy
• 100ml beef stock
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 heaped tsp Dijon mustard
• 2 sprigs tarragon, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp chopped chives
• 75g baby spinach (2 large handfuls), roughly chopped
• 200ml double cream

Method

1. Take the onglet steaks out of the fridge 30 minutes before you intend to cook, to bring them to room temperature. Drizzle them with the olive oil and season.
2. Heat a medium non-stick frying pan over a high heat. When it is smoking hot, place the steaks in the pan and cook for 2-3 minutes on each side, depending on their thickness. You want a deep brown crust on each side and the steaks should still be springy to the touch.
3. Take the pan off the heat and add the butter to it. Baste the steaks with the melted butter for 2 minutes, keeping the pan off the heat. Transfer the steaks to a warmed plate, spoon over half of the pan juices and set aside to rest in a warm place.
4. Meanwhile, place the frying pan back over a medium heat, add the shallot and sauté for 2 minutes. Stir in half the green peppercorns along with the brandy and simmer until the liquor is totally reduced. Now pour in the beef stock and simmer until it is reduced by half. Add the Worcestershire sauce, mustard, herbs, spinach and half of the cream. Stir well until the spinach is wilted.
5. Transfer the sauce to a small food processor and blitz until smooth. Pour this back into the pan and add the remaining green peppercorns and cream. Stir well over a medium heat for 1 minute then remove from the heat. Pour any resting juices from the steak plate into the cream sauce and stir well. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
6. Carve the onglet steaks into thick slices. Spoon some sauce on to the warmed serving plates and pour the remaining sauce into two small jugs. Lay each sliced steak on the pool of sauce. Serve at once, with the extra sauce, chunky chips and/or green beans.

Extract taken from Pub Kitchen: The Ultimate Modern British Food Bible by Tom Kerridge (£27 hardback, Bloomsbury Absolute, September 2023)

The wines to drink with onglet steak with green peppercorn sauce

The key to this pairing is not so much the cut of beef as the sauce. Green peppercorns may stand out as the headline ingredient but there are many other flavours: brandy, beef stock, mustard, tarragon, chives, spinach and – and this is significant – quite a lot of cream, which will temper the spiciness of the peppercorns. I’d be tempted to go for a full-bodied red Burgundy from a warm vintage or a similar Pinot from elsewhere – Oregon, maybe, or Central Otago – but you could serve a fleshy Bordeaux – maybe a St-Emilion satellite. (I tend not to field peppery Syrahs with peppercorn sauces as one cancels out the other.) If you wanted to play to the cut’s humble origins you could serve a rustic red like a Marcillac or maybe even a Mencía. I wouldn’t be averse to a good cool-climate Chardonnay either, particularly with the tarragon, mustard and cream, though that may well offend traditionalists. An occasion, though, where you can serve white wine with red meat.

By Fiona Beckett

Wines selected by our Decanter experts

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Wine tasting experiences can offer a range of opportunities, from the basics of wine education to exploring the vineyards and cellars of favourite producers. Below, you’ll find an array of tasting options that might make the perfect gift.

Educational tastings

An introduction to wine tasting: Unlocking the Secrets of Wine with Joseph Phelps

Wine tasting can be confounding and intimidating to the uninitiated, with its technical jargon and opaque traditions. But the new Unlocking the Secrets of Wine experience at Joseph Phelps aims to demystify wine’s most perplexing questions through a unique tasting experience – think of it as a way to fast-track your wine education. Attendees will learn what common wine terms mean, the proper way to store and serve wine, the elements of food pairing and more while tasting through Joseph Phelps’ Napa and Sonoma offerings. Guests should plan for 90 minutes for the experience ($150 per person) and are advised to book well in advance as the experience only runs on certain days of the week.

Off-road in the Finger Lakes: UTV tasting at Heart and Hands

The Finger Lakes is an often-overlooked region for exceptional wines, but the world is catching on to the many gems it offers. One unique way to explore the region is the Utility Task Vehicle (UTV) Tour & Tasting with Heart and Hands Wine Company. Co-founder Susan Higgins will take up to four guests on a bumpy UTV tour of her limestone-laden vineyard and explain the winery’s viticultural practices. Following the in-depth tour, guests will go through a tasting of six wines paired perfectly with six matching small bites. The tour costs $65 per person and lasts 90 minutes.

Hiking among the vines at Knudsen Vineyards. Credit: John Valls

Hike among the vines

A weekend-only tasting event at pioneering Willamette Valley producer Knudsen Vineyards offers guests a unique outdoor experience. Picture exploring the vineyards and then tasting the wines from those historic blocks over a picnic-style lunch. The Knudsens were among the first families in the Willamette to plant Pinot Noir in Oregon’s Dundee Hills. Guests will walk among the old vine blocks, taking in 50 years of wine-growing history, and then taste wines from the vineyard parcels they visited before a hearty lunch at the estate. The hikes go ahead rain or shine, so appropriate footwear is recommended for this two-and-a-half to three hour experience, which costs $95 per guest.

Creating a unique wine

Iconic Washington State winery DeLille Cellars offers guests an opportunity to make their own unique blends based on some of the winery’s most prized lots. DeLille makes some of Washington’s most sought-after wines from vineyards on Red Mountain and in the Yakima Valley, including historic old-vine sites. Guests will be treated to a blending seminar from one of DeLille’s team before creating their own blends. The cost is $145 per guest.

Wine and food experiences

In pursuit of the finer things: Three Sticks caviar experience

The stellar wines of Three Sticks need no accompaniment, but everything is better with caviar. The Caviar Experience at Three Sticks is offered seasonally, from October to January. The tasting is held in partnership with San Francisco’s The Caviar Company, whose different varieties of caviar are paired with single-vineyard wines to showcase how one enhances the other. For $150 per club member and $175 per non-club member, this luxurious culinary experience is a well-priced gift for anyone on your nice list.

Creative pairings

For adventurous foodies, Sequoia Grove in Napa Valley’s Rutherford appellation offers a tasty way to explore the versatility of Cabernet Sauvignon. Sequoia Grove was a pioneering Cabernet house, established in 1979, and has since established unique programming, including a famed ampelography class for those who want to level up their wine knowledge and the A Taste for Cabernet Experience.

The gastronomic experience eschews predictable, classic pairings like steak with Cabernet for more offbeat options. Sequoia Grove’s single-vineyard and reserve wines accompany chef Britny Maureze’s multi-course menu, with culinary creativity that will open guests’ eyes to new approaches. The 90-minute experience costs $150 for non-wine-club members and $100 for members.

The culinary gardens at Wheeler Farms. Credit: Sara Anne Risk

A three-course culinary lesson

Wheeler Farms, owned by Napa Valley’s famed Araujo family, offers a perfect gift for your favourite foodie. An acclaimed wine brand in its own right, Wheeler Farms is also home to chickens, an apiary, a large garden and fruit trees, all of which are included in their culinary programme, a homage to the agricultural history of the valley.

The Estate Tasting and Cooking Demonstration begins with a tour of the expansive gardens and the winery itself, followed by an up-close cooking demonstration with chef Tom Harder doing what he does best at the kitchen table. The four-course lunch and cooking demonstration is paired with Wheeler Farms wines, including Sauvignon Blanc, rosé and a number of unique Cabernet expressions. The experience lasts three hours and costs $350 per person for two-person parties, including a gift from the kitchen.

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The Thanksgiving table includes a myriad of dishes and flavours, starting with appetisers to graze on as guests arrive. The buffet lineup of traditional dishes typically includes roast turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, casseroles and cranberry relish. Plates are filled with these favourites, and in one bite, you might get turkey, stuffing, potatoes and gravy. So, how do you pair wines with this array of flavours?

A good starting point is to remember that the Thanksgiving table may not be the time to pour standout, robust wines. Nor is it the time to fret about wine pairings with particular dishes. The goal is to serve a lineup of light-bodied, versatile and easy-drinking wines that can work with the multitude of flavours on the table. And most importantly, select wines that are likely to please your guests’ varying palates. Thanksgiving is a time to break bread and enjoy a hearty, home-cooked meal with those closest to you. Your wine selections accentuate this holiday tradition, not the featured attraction.

Pairing principles

Below are simple wine and food pairing principles for the Thanksgiving table and throughout the year. A good starting point is understanding what’s happening in the glass and on the plate and how those things can create an experience greater than the sum of its parts. These guiding principles of wine and food pairings are evergreen and are meant to enhance a delicious meal with tasty wines and fine company.

Wine and food pairings are more fluid than definitive. Tradition says that specific foods call for particular wines. Things such as oysters and Chablis or steak and Cabernet Sauvignon. With Thanksgiving mains, many point to Pinot Noir as the ideal pairing for a simple roasted turkey. Those combinations are examples of successful pairings, but other options exist. Oysters and sparkling wine (particularly Champagne), steak and Syrah, and turkey and Chardonnay work just as well.

Think less of the food or protein and more specifically of the preparation. When it comes to the turkey, is it deep-fried or roasted? With sweet potatoes, are they baked in a sweet casserole or roasted with pancetta? The preparation method or sauce may drive what wine will work best.

Food made with acid-based sauces (such as tomatoes, vinegar or lemon) goes well with Sauvignon Blanc, unoaked Chardonnay, or Pinot Noir. Rich sauces work best with high-acid wines to refresh or with rich, full-bodied wines to really step into the richness. If there’s any spice on the table, such as a spicy sausage stuffing, lower-alcohol wines with some residual sugar (like Riesling) will work well.

Thanksgiving wine pairing. Credit: The Good Brigade / DigitalVision via Getty Images

Matching food and wines with similar weights and richness is one of the keys to pairing success. To do this, one must think of food and wine, both existing on a spectrum. Light-bodied wines with light dishes and full-bodied wines with rich or spice-driven dishes. So with lighter vegetable dishes, such as green bean almondine or shaved Brussels sprouts salad, an acid-driven white blend might work best. For a baking spice-dominant sweet potato casserole, an oaky red blend with spicy, toasty notes would pair well.

When thinking about wine pairings for Thanksgiving, think about if you’d like to balance or accentuate the flavours on the table. For rich dishes such as buttered mashed potatoes, mac and cheese or candied yams, you can balance the richness and fattiness with a high acid, palate-cleansing white such as Riesling or Pinot Gris. In contrast, accentuate and step into the richness with a full-bodied, creamy Chardonnay.

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The Garden Cookbook is all about the pleasures that fruit and vegetables can give you; its aim is to put them at the centre of every meal. It’s also a practical guide to all that is wonderful in the edible plant kingdom. It’s not a vegetarian book, although it contains plenty of recipes that have nothing but vegetables in them. Fruit and vegetables lend themselves to simplicity: the less you do to them, the better. Food cooked this way is alive with the flavour of its raw ingredients.

If you’re lucky enough to have access to any outdoor space, growing fruit and vegetables is a wonderful thing to do. Yes it’s time-consuming, but it is, I believe, a way to be happy, involving a little thinking, some physical work and some creativity. Harvesting and cooking from the garden is one of the greatest pleasures in life.

In the kitchen, stuffing things often feels a step too far, but once you’ve made this, you’ll realise how quick and easy it is to do, and that the chestnut filling can turn an ordinary bit of meat into something that’s very delicious.

Serves four

Ingredients

• 1 pork fillet
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 150g pancetta or streaky bacon
• several garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 225g spinach, chopped
• freshly grated nutmeg
• bunch of sage leaves, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp breadcrumbs
• salt and black pepper
• 15 prunes, stoned and roughly chopped
• 15-20 chestnuts
• 6 full slices of prosciutto for wrapping the fillet
• 8-10 baby onions or shallots
• 2 glasses of white wine
• 1 tbsp redcurrant jelly
• 2 tbsp crème fraîche

1. Preheat a medium oven (180°C/350°F/gas 4). Make a cut along the length of the pork fillet, without cutting it in two, and open it out. Put the pork between two sheets of cling film and beat it out until it is at least twice the size.
2. Chop the onion and sauté it in the olive oil with the pancetta or bacon and garlic for a few minutes until the onion is softened. Add the spinach, nutmeg, sage and enough breadcrumbs to absorb any liquid given off by the spinach. Season and take off the heat.
3. Stuff the length of the pork fillet with this mixture. Add the prunes and chestnuts, scattered through, and roll it up. Wrap the roll with the prosciutto and tie at intervals with string.
4. Brown this for a couple of minutes all over in the pan in which the stuffing was made and then put it in a shallow ovenproof dish with the baby onions or shallots – whole if small, cut in half if large – and cover with the white wine.
5. Roast in the preheated oven for 40 minutes then remove the meat from the roasting dish and keep it warm. Scrape up the juices from the dish, add the wine (or some stock) and allow it to bubble up and reduce a little before adding a little redcurrant jelly and the crème fraîche. You can add more chestnuts at this stage. Pour this sauce over the meat.

Sarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook (repackaged edition) was published in August 2023 (£35 Bloomsbury)

Sarah Raven is a teacher, broadcaster, has a gardening podcast (Grow, Cook, Eat, Arrange) and runs a mail order plant nursery. She is the author of many books on gardening and cooking.

The wines to drink with chestnut-stuffed pork fillet

Pork and chestnuts may be headlined in the title of the recipe, but there’s quite a lot going on in the way of other ingredients including spinach, sage leaves and prunes along with a white wine, crème fraîche and redcurrant jelly sauce, which could nudge you in the direction of a white wine rather than a red.

Given the sweetness from the chestnuts, prunes and redcurrant jelly, I’d go for a wine that has a touch of sweetness itself – Alsace or New Zealand or Oregon Pinot Gris, for example, or an old-vine Chenin Blanc. A Vouvray or Montlouis, would be a good choice, too, though I would stop short of the demi-sec style. New World Pinot Noir from, say, Martinborough or the Mornington Peninsula would probably be my red of choice, but given the sage, and if you wanted a contrast to the sweetness, you could go for a young Chianti Classico or a riper, more forward Sangiovese from the Maremma. A Merlot-dominated Right Bank Bordeaux should work as well.

By Fiona Beckett

Wines selected by our Decanter experts

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We’re sitting round the table at the Pazo Señorans winery and my neighbor, the winery’s export manager Javier Izurieta Romero, passes the crab. You get a different flavor from each part of the body, the claws, the brown meat and the legs, he explains earnestly. And my goodness, he’s right. The texture, too. It’s the best crab I’ve ever eaten.

The accompaniment is the winery’s Albariño . Our hosts don’t go so far as to pair different wines with each component of the crab, but you feel they might well have done – so seriously it is seafood taken in Galicia.

It’s impossible to visit this wild, rugged coastline without gorging on it. ‘People think of Spain as sunshine and beaches, but it’s an Atlantic cuisine rather than a Mediterranean one,’ says Spanish food importer Monika Linton, author of Brindisa: The True Food of Spain . ‘It’s actually much more like Ireland or Scotland.’

The most iconic dish is octopus a la Gallega, or ‘octopus Galician-style’ (see recipe below), also known as pulpo a la feria, for which the locals have a real passion. It’s a relatively simple dish – octopus prep aside – of boiled octopus dressed with olive oil and pimenton and served with boiled potatoes.

Credit: Carol Yepes / Getty Images

Octopus has to be tenderised before you eat it, a daunting procedure that involves plunging it in and out of a cauldron of boiling water. Even the locals resort to buying it frozen.

When visiting Galicia you might also be offered percebes (prehistoric-looking barnacles that rather resemble a dinosaur’s toes), another local speciality that is perhaps more of an acquired taste – but Albariño can make pretty much anything taste good.

Other seafood dishes in Galicia that you might well find elsewhere in Spain are oysters (there is even a Rua das Ostras in Vigo), scallops – their shell the symbol of the Camino de Santiago – often served gratinated, deep fried squid, and irresistibly fat, juicy prawns (we were served them warm with alioli and cold with mayonnaise during the same meal). Not to mention the impossibly tender razor clams swimming in garlic-laced oil. Hake is a favourite for main course dishes, along with monkfish, which makes a great seafood stew. In Spain, monkfish tails are still affordable.

Abastos 2.0 (see below)

Rustic charm

Galicians are also great canners. Tinned fish is a real delicacy here, not in any way regarded as inferior to freshly caught. Go into any small wine bar, such as the Ribeira de Fefiñáns in Cambados, and you’ll find rows of colourful, beautifully designed tins that will then appear, freshly opened, as a tapa. Fast food, Galician-style.

Galicia used to be relatively poor so the food is more rustic than it is in the Basque Country, with its greater proximity to France. ‘It’s quite a traditional area – it hasn’t had the same influx of tourism as other parts of Spain, so a lot of the old traditions have been preserved,’ says Linton.

Another speciality is empanada. Not the small pasty-shaped version you find in South America, but generally cooked into a big round pie – or a thinner slice. The pastry is made with white wine then rolled out, covered with a layer of softened onion, tomato and red peppers and topped with fish, most commonly tuna but I had it with fresh sardines, which was delicious. A mussel filling is not unusual either.

It tends to be served as one of a selection of shared plates that are brought out in a seemingly never-ending succession at the beginning of a meal. Galicians are nothing if not hospitable.

Yayo Daporta. Credit: José Luiz Oubiña

Beyond seafood

Galicia is not just coast, though. Inland, in the regions of Ribeiro, Ribeira Sacra and Monterrei you’ll find much more meat. ‘Because of the abundance of outstanding seafood, I think a lot of people forget that Galicia is also home to some of the best beef in the country,’ says Beth Willard, DWWA joint Regional Chair for Spain, who visits the region regularly. It comes from grass-fed Rubia Gallega cattle, which are typically killed at 8-12 years – yes, that’s years, not months – and the meat develops a deep, savoury, almost gamey flavour. It’s made its way into many Spanish-influenced restaurants outside the region, too.

Pork is also hugely popular. The locals consume every bit of it – the ears, snout, trotters and tail. And being Spain, naturally there’s ham as well as chorizo and other charcuterie. ‘They can’t cure it like elsewhere in the country as it’s so wet, so it tends to be brined and smoked,’ explains Linton.

Even the simplest dishes are celebrated. ‘There are more than 300 gastronomic festivals in the Galicia region, with each town having its own celebration, such as the Fiesta del Cocido in Lalín [rather endearingly translated as a Stew Fair on the website fiestapopular.com],’ says Miguel Crunia of Fìon, an Edinburgh-based wine importer who was born and bred in the region and is a mine of information on Galicia. That seems a lot, I say to him. ‘I think it’s because people don’t tend to cook so much at home any more,’ he replies.

Local staples

Caldo gallego

Given the fertility of the region, vegetables also play a big part in the local cuisine, especially potatoes (or cachelos, as they’re known locally, typically served boiled) and turnip tops (grelos). One of the much-loved staples is caldo gallego, a soup with potatoes, beans and greens that from a Spanish point of view no doubt counts as vegetarian on the grounds of only including a minor amount of pork belly or bacon, more or less as seasoning. And who knew pimientos de padrón, a staple of almost every tapas bar these days, were Galician? (They originate from the town of Padrón in La Coruña.)

‘There are a lot of small farms and allotments, still in local hands and with a real attention to quality,’ says Linton. ‘We sell the Lourenzá faba beans, for example, which are grown by a mother and daughter who only produce 300 kilos a year. They’re amazing; they taste like clotted cream.’

Speaking of dairy, in contrast to the rest of Spain, the best-known cheeses are made from cows’ rather than sheep milk. They include the smoked San Simón da Costa and mild, semi-soft Tetilla.

As elsewhere in Spain, desserts tend to be simple, based on easily available ingredients such as eggs, sugar and almonds. The most famous is the almond-based tarta de Santiago, which generally has an image of the cross of St James outlined on the icing sugar-dusted top. It’s also worth looking out for a local cheesecake called tarta de requesón, pancakes (filloas) and cream-filled cañitas, Galicia’s answer to Sicily’s cannoli (and very delicious with the local liquor, Cumbre Iberica Licore Tostada, which they serve at Casa Boveda).

‘A lot of the desserts still use chestnut flour,’ explains Linton. ‘Chestnuts were survival food for a lot of people.’

But it’s the seafood she keeps coming back to. ‘It’s the cold, rough water, the mixture of saline and fresh water that makes it so incredible. It’s not just shellfish, it’s wow shellfish!’

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A black, self-taught wine expert, Stone explores six culinary hubs across the United States – from New York to San Francisco – with numerous stops in between. Each episode highlights signature dishes, unexpected wine pairings, and the story behind both along the way.

The episodes also showcase a food expert from the featured city, who accompanies Stone as they explore its culture, which naturally influences its food and wine scenes. In tandem with the regional expert, Stone challenges a number of preconceived notions surrounding food and wine pairings while simultaneously sharing bits of his personal story.

‘Street Somm is a show about how wine and food bring people of diverse backgrounds together,’ Stone said, stating that wine is treated more as a supporting character on the show rather than the protagonist.

‘The Tastemade team and I wanted to prioritise a diverse set of chefs and cuisines for this series. Not only highlight how wine can be paired with any meal but also to highlight the important backgrounds of the chefs,’ he added, emphasising that the rich cultural histories of each featured city have greatly influenced their modern dining scenes.

‘In partnering with an in-the-know local for each episode, I got to taste some of the best dishes in each city and learn how the chef’s personal background shaped their food – the same way my background has shaped my own wine journey,’ he said.

A Bronx native, Stone has built a career around merging his two passions in life together: hip-hop and wine. After a burgeoning rap career, Stone explored the intricacies of the fine wine industry, eventually becoming one of the founding directors of Wally’s Auctions back in 2013. In addition to creating the concept for Street Somm, he hosted The Original Wine & Hip Hop video and podcast series. Stone is also the founder of Cru Luv Selections, a New York-based wine branding and marketing agency dedicated to engaging hip-hop fans in the world of wine.

To make wine approachable to new audiences, Stone takes more relatable approaches to wine and food matching. Stone noted that there are a number of things to consider when pairing food and wine, including where you are and who you’re with. ‘Just like you may not enjoy drinking milk on a hot day, I don’t like a crisp Vermentino on a cold winter day,’ he said, adding that considering a wine’s texture is ‘equally important’.

‘An easy way to start is to experiment with similar flavours in the dish and the wine,’ he said, stating that although not all pairings will work, you never know what unconventional pairing you’ll discover along the way.

When asked how hip-hop plays into the show’s concept, Stone’s answer was plain and simple. ‘Hip-hop plays a part in anything you see me in,’ he said. ‘I’m a product of hip-hop, I live that culture through and through with everything – the way that I dress to the way that I speak to the narratives that I represent with my guides in each city.’

Stone revealed that in one episode, he even ‘comes out of retirement and spits some bars in the studio’. ‘I’m really looking forward to people’s response to that because I’ve always spoken about my background in hip-hop, but people have never gotten a chance to see it on display.’

Street Somm premieres on Monday, 25, September, at 7:00 pm EST on the Tastemade streaming channel.

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Pizza is one of Italy’s great culinary gifts to the world, with traditional pizza-twirling in Naples enshrined by UNESCO as a skill of intangible cultural heritage.

Beer is sometimes seen as a classic go-to for pizza night, but there are many mouthwatering wines that can work brilliantly with a range of toppings if you’re planning to celebrate ‘the art of the pizzaiuolo’.

Scroll down to see tasting notes for 15 wines to pair with pizza

Wine and pizza pairing: The basics

For a classic, wood-fired Napoletana pizza with tomato, mozzarella and simple toppings then think about a wine with good acidity and lots of bright fruit that will balance nicely against the acidity of the tomato.

If you’re keen to go for Italian reds, then that could be Barbera d’Asti, light styles of Sangiovese or even Frappato from Sicily.

You could also consider Gamay, either from Beaujolais or from other corners of the wine world, such as Oregon or Stellenbosch.

Pizza sets a relaxed tone and pairings can work best if you pick a wine ‘that isn’t trying too hard’, according to Helen Johannesen, a sommelier who runs the ‘Helen’s’ wine component of Los Angeles restaurant Jon & Vinny’s Italian.

‘I love pairing lighter reds like Gamay, rosé made from interesting varietals like Montepulciano, and even skin-contact wines (aka orange wines),’ she told decanter.com.

‘Obviously you can ball out with some killer Barolo or lusciously rustic Rosso di Montepulciano, but I think the ease and comfort might be lost.’

Prosecco: Sparkling wine with pizza?

‘I enjoy bubbles with pizza,’ said Emily O’Hare, sommelier, wine writer and Decanter contributor based in Siena, Tuscany.

‘Col fondo Prosecco works a treat,’ she said, suggesting Malibran and Ca’ dei Zago as producers to look out for.

O’Hare, who also runs retreats and courses accredited by the Wine & Spirit Education Trust, added, ‘Pizza is chewy (the dough) and creamy (the cheese) and topped with acid (the tomato sauce), so something crisp and textured and savoury makes the combination so refreshing.

‘It’s important to feel refreshed so as to keep on going with the eating.’

Wine with pepperoni or sausage pizza

A spicier topping such as pepperoni will dominate the pizza’s flavour and may be able to handle a wine with a bit more attitude.

A juicy Grenache/Syrah blend could be great, but watch out for too much tannin and oak.

In Tuscany, O’Hare said, ‘If I stayed regional and red I’d look for a young Chianti or Chianti Classico Annata and put it in the fridge or outside to chill, and I’d go for a pizza with sausage meat to handle the more tannic wine choice.’

Fruit-driven styles of Nero d’Avola, particularly from Sicily, have become a mainstay on several pizzeria wine lists in the UK and have the weight to pair with meat-based pizzas – although some poorer-made examples can lack balance, especially if served too warm.

‘White’ pizza with ricotta or mushroom

White pizzas change the nature of the pairing, because the acidity of the tomato is no longer such an issue.

Fresh, dry white wines can work a treat. ‘I love having our ‘white lightning’ pizza, with pickled jalapeños & ricotta, with white wines grown in the volcanic soils of Sicily or Campania,’ said Johannesen.

It doesn’t have to be white wine, however. ‘My favourite pizza we make is the ‘super shroom’, that is a mushroom pie highlighted by rachera cheese,’ said Johannesen.

‘It’s drops a slightly funky beat, begging for some high acid Carignan or Zinfandel, or even a pet nat rosé with a tiny touch of residual sugar.’

Wine with pizza and lots of garlic

Garlic can be a very strong flavour. If you’re combining this with basil on a pizza, how about experimenting with skin-contact white wines, such as those made from Vermentino? They would ordinarily match up well with green pesto.

With so many toppings involved, wine and pizza can be a great avenue to explore and experiment with new pairing ideas.

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The ideal environment for enjoying well-aged Burgundy wine is quite often at home. The wine’s cellar conditions, provenance and service are assured and – given current market prices for Burgundy – it’s bound to be a bargain if you’ve cellared it yourself. These advantages beg the question, however, of what to cook to accompany it. I recently set out to experiment with friends in our apartment building. I love to cook. My wife and I met while studying at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris 30 years ago. I finished a few internships at Michelin-starred establishments in Paris and worked as a chef for 13 years in California, the Caribbean and Boston before hanging up my toque to pursue a career in wine in New York City. Despite taking on amateur status, however, I have never lost my desire to cook, and uncorking a great bottle of Burgundy from my cellar often provides the occasion to up my game a bit.

I have concrete thoughts about pairing Burgundy with food. I started my deep dive into the topic 15 years ago while working on my book The Original Grand Crus of Burgundy. It has, if anything, only accelerated since becoming the Burgundy correspondent for Decanter. While it is often true that the wine from a particular place goes well with traditional dishes from the same region, not every delicious Burgundy needs to be paired with a classic of the regional cuisine. Of course, I enjoy jambon persillé, escargots and boeuf bourguignon as much as anyone, but the greatest wines need something more than even the best renditions of these bistro classics.

I feel using fresh seasonal ingredients is essential, and when asked what we’re having for dinner, I usually respond, ‘I’ll know once I see what they have at the market’. Like many New Yorkers’, my kitchen is tiny, and I shop nearly daily for food. I have my preferred fishmongers, butchers and speciality stores, and New York is fortunate to have the Union Square Greenmarket for vegetables. On a recent evening, I made the rounds and persuaded my friends to let me cook in their well-appointed kitchen.

The right white wine

White Burgundy is incredibly versatile, but keep in mind the great diversity of styles. A crisp, mineral Chablis is perfect with shellfish or oysters, but to pair the same with a rich, buttery Meursault would be less than ideal. The dense, slightly oaky opulence of the Meursault (or Puligny, or indeed Chassagne-Montrachet) would be more suited to a roast Bresse chicken or sole meunière. However, the wine I had chosen for dinner on this occasion was none of the above.

I have long been partial to the Morey-St-Denis 1er Cru Clos des Monts Luisants from Domaine Ponsot. It’s from ancient Aligoté vines (see Charles’ feature on Aligoté), planted in 1911 just up the slope from grand cru Clos de la Roche. Ponsot harvests the meagre yield and vinifies them in older, neutral oak casks. The Aligoté grape retains a lively acidity that needs some time to come around. I purchased a case of magnums of this wine and had cellared it for more than a decade. A recent magnum shared convinced me it was drinking at its peak.

I opted to pair the 2008 vintage Monts Luisants wine with large, wild-caught sea scallops. These exotics are three times the price of the smaller ones dredged from the ocean floor, but they are worth a splurge. Luxurious last-of-the-season white asparagus matched the richness of the scallops. Still, the two rich ingredients needed something clean and fresh to accompany them, so I devised a broth to use the stalks and trimmings from a bulb of fennel, reserving the centre for another dish. A pinch of saffron gave the broth an interesting twist. The slightly exotic aroma of saffron responded to the aged character of the Ponsot. The wine was still youthful and mineral but showed developed aromas of dried apricot and candle wax. By way of contrast, I pulled a young Bourgogne Aligoté – the 2019 vintage from Goisot (2021, £20.95 Sip Wines) – to have with dinner tonight, as its laser-beam freshness will cut through the rich tuna tartare with avocado.

In general, bright, high-acid whites such as Chablis (eg Chardonnay from the higher elevation vineyards of Puligny and Chassagne) will respond well to shellfish and white fish that is steamed or poached, such as a classic steamed Cantonese grouper with ginger and chives. Fuller-bodied versions of Chardonnay, such as a premier or grand cru from lower on the slopes of Puligny or Chassagne (or a Corton-Charlemagne), would be delightful with richer dishes, particularly with cream sauce – think of quenelles of brochet (pike) with crayfish sauce, roast pheasant, braised sweetbreads or even lobster poached in butter, topped with Oscietra caviar.

Time to shine

Credit: Ilie Mitaru

Similar considerations apply to red Burgundy, where the effect of age can be even more pronounced. I purchased a case of magnums of the 1996 Volnay Champans 1er Cru from Marquis d’Angerville at auction over 15 years ago. Over time, I had worked my way through the entire case save one. Some of the magnums have been a bit tired, but the best of them shone with luminous beauty. A top Volnay in its youth will have velvety richness with black plum and cherry aromas. At a quarter-century removed, the flavours are more profound and earthier, with savoury notes of game, truffle, smoke and iron.

A few of the magnums had tipped over into soy sauce and mushroom, but on the evening concerned, we had a stroke of luck, and this was perhaps the best magnum of the entire case.

‘There are no great wines, only great bottles’, as collectors are fond of spouting, and this was undeniably among the greats. It was developed and mature, but with reserves of power to assure me that had I waited longer, I still would have had a pleasant surprise. The maturity I had noted convinced me we needed game, so I hunted (well, among several different butchers) until I found a couple of brace of squab. The rich, earthy meat of the young pigeon complemented the mature aromas of the wine; using dried cep mushrooms heightened this effect. If the wine were five years of age instead of 25, I would have suggested a seared duck breast with a blackcurrant sauce rather than the gamier, long-cooked squab. Mature Pinot needs a dish with abundant umami to do its best, in my view. I tend to like earthy, gamey flavours; fatty meats can also fit the bill. With the d’Angerville Volnay, other possible matches might include unctuous braised pork belly or, for a more traditional take, braised mutton chops with sauteed escarole. Roast meats such as the mutton or roast or grilled beef steaks, such as ribeye, could also show quite well with a slightly younger wine.

There are horses for courses and dishes for wines, but the most critical element of pairing mature Burgundy and food is to drink the wines you’d like to drink with the food you’d like to eat. If you follow that simple rule, you will always enjoy your dinner; ignore it at your peril.

Charred diver scallops & roast white asparagus, fennel broth & saffron

Credit: Ilie Mitaru

Serves four

Ingredients

• 12 large diver scallops per person
• 12-20 spears white asparagus, depending on size
• butter
• salt and pepper
• olive oil for frying

For the broth

• one fennel bulb
• three star anise
• 25ml anise-flavoured liqueur or absinthe
• mirepoix (chopped carrots/ onion/celery)
• bay leaf
• salt and pepper
• a small pinch of saffron

Method

1. Prepare the broth. Trim the top branches of the fennel bulb and coarsely chop. Save the rest for another use. Reserve a few sprigs from the top for garnish (or use other herbs on hand). Cover the chopped fennel, mirepoix and bay leaf with cold water and bring to a boil. Simmer for half an hour, strain, season with salt and pepper. The broth can be made ahead to this point. Before serving, soak the pinch of saffron in a small amount of the broth and incorporate at the last minute with anise liqueur.
2. Roast the asparagus. Peel the asparagus if needed and trim. Melt 10g butter in a pan and add the white asparagus, seasoning with salt and pepper. Roast (without blanching) it at 180°C/350°F/gas 4, turning occasionally to brown on all sides.
3. Finish. The scallops take just a moment. Remove the muscle from the side of the scallops and season with salt and pepper. Heat a teaspoon of olive oil over very high heat. Add the seasoned scallops and sear well on the top and bottom; remove from heat. Place the white asparagus in a shallow bowl with the scallops on top and serve, pouring a bit of the hot saffron broth into each bowl.

Wines

Domaine Ponsot, Morey-St-Denis 1er Cru Clos des Monts Luisants Blanc 2008 (2015, US$170 Total Wine & More)

Other possibilities:

Domaine Michel Niellon, Clos de la Truffière, Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Chaumées 2010 (2020, £81.68-£105 Christopher Keiller, Four Walls, Private Cellar)

Domaine René et Vincent Dauvissat, Chablis Grand Cru Les Preuses 2014 (2018, £315 Crop&Vine,TurvilleValley)

Squab braised with endive and ceps

Credit: Ilie Mitaru

Serves four

Ingredients

• four squab

For the braising liquid

• Mirepoix (chopped carrots/onion/celery)
• bay leaf
• salt and pepper,
• a dash of Cognac (optional)

For the garnish

• 50g dried ceps (porcini)
• eight Belgian endives (generally known/sold in the UK as ‘chicory’)
• fresh seasonal green vegetables
• 100ml inexpensive white wine for cooking
• butter
• salt and pepper

Method

1. Prepare the squab by trimming the neck and the wing tips. Remove the breast meat and the thigh and leg (keeping these two together). Chop the bones and reserve.
2. Heat the oven to 180°C/350°F/ gas 4 and braise the squab: in a sauté pan, brown the bones briefly in butter with a small amount of mirepoix and the bay leaf. Sear
   the meat on a high heat. Flambé with Cognac if desired. Reserve the breast meat; add the wine to the pan and reduce slightly before topping up with water halfway up the meat. Reduce to a simmer, cover with parchment paper and cook in the oven for 20 minutes.
3. Prepare the garnish: while this is cooking, cover the mushrooms with boiling water and let stand for 15 minutes. Drain, reserve the soaking liquid and coarsely chop. Cut the endives in half, sear in butter and roast cut side down in the oven. Prior to serving, cook the ceps in butter. Combine the squab meat, endive and ceps. Reduce the braising liquid if necessary, and strain over the squab and the garnish. Heat through, ensuring that the breast meat is cooked to your liking, and adjust seasoning. Serve with seasonal green vegetables – we used sautéed fiddlehead ferns (available in the spring in the US) from the market.

Wines

Domaine Marquis d’Angerville, Volnay 1er Cru Champans 1996 (2016/2018, £145 Handford)

Other possibilities

Domaine Thibault Liger- Belair, Nuits-St-George 1er Cru Les Saint-Georges 2015 (£170 Nemo Wine Cellars)

Domaine Méo-Camuzet, Clos Rognet Corton Grand Cru 2009 (2014, £230-£328 Bordeaux Index, Crump Richmond Shaw, Seckford Wines)

Credit: Ilie Mitaru

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The post Perfect Pairings for mature Burgundy appeared first on Decanter.

There are dozens of UK restaurants with excellent lists showcasing the wines of Bordeaux and Burgundy. Finding one with a good Rhône offering isn’t so easy, but if you’re craving for Cornas or longing for Lirac, here are some options with excellent selections. I’ve grouped them into three levels: gold, silver and bronze.

I considered a number of criteria: quality of producers, value for money, range, vintages on offer, and availability of mature bottles and rarities. I was only judging the Rhône offering; restaurants in the bronze section might be placed in gold if their entire list were under scrutiny.

This isn’t an exhaustive directory, but hopefully it will help guide fellow Rhône lovers to wines that interest them.

All prices shown are drink-in prices.

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The post Walls: Best Rhône wine lists in the UK appeared first on Decanter.

Even the savviest of wine lovers knows the sinking feeling that can come when perusing a restaurant’s wine list. My own personal bugbears include wines presented – quite literally – as a list, with no attempt to describe their essential characters or why you might like to order it, and prices that zoom up and down like a rollercoaster instead of helpfully ascending from low to high. The wine list lottery is enough to make you reach for a drink to calm the nerves before even selecting a bottle.

Restaurant reviews tend to concentrate on the food; few bother to talk about the wine. And yet what is served in the glass can affect the enjoyment of a meal just as much as what is served on the plate.

Too many wine lists, however, require blind faith in the selection process behind them – or else an encyclopaedic knowledge of grapes and regions, styles and vintages. The cynic in me wonders whether this is merely a ruse for the sommelier to push their most profitable bottles, though few things are as likely to kill repeat custom than upselling wines.

What’s more, all too often the restaurants with the most lauded wine lists are also the most expensive. Nothing wrong with that for those that can afford it, of course. But it tends not to encourage one of the greatest joys of wine: experimentation.

Instead, below we’ve selected the restaurants across the UK where imaginative lists have been assembled, with as much of an eye on affordability as enjoyment and – even if the wine list offers little by way of annotation – staff who have been thoroughly trained to offer knowledgeable and trustworthy advice.

Read on to discover where good value is matched by great choice and, if in doubt, check the wine list on the restaurant’s website beforehand.

Best value restaurant wine lists

The 10 Cases, London

Only ever buying 10 cases of wine for its ever-changing list – all available by the glass – and great food-matching too.

Askham Hall, Penrith, Cumbria

The family seat of the Earls of Lonsdale excels with classic Burgundy and Bordeaux from the family cellar; the Loire and South Africa are also strong.

The Black Bull, Sedbergh, Cumbria

Characterful, quirky and good-value wines from small, sustainable European producers, including regions less-travelled by many lists.

Chez Bruce & La Trompette, London

La Trompette

Both under the same ownership. Exceptional lists with lots by the glass, and some prices cheaper than retail.

The Drapers Arms, London

A fairly-priced list almost exclusively concentrated on artisan European producers all the more surprising for being in a pub.

The Felin Fach Griffin, Brecon, Powys

The Gurnard’s Head, St Ives, Cornwall

The Old Coastguard, Mousehole, Cornwall

This trio of Welsh and West Country inns is united by wines sourced from regionally specialised merchants, also available to take away for almost cost price.

Freemasons, Clitheroe, Lancashire

A list so well written that it could serve as a beginners’ guide to wine, with reds and whites divided into four styles each, playful descriptions throughout and something for all tastes and budgets.

Kitchen W8, London

Credit: Andrew Hayes-Watkins

A classically European list not priced as dearly as might be expected by the Kensington location, Kitchen W8 excels with a weekly changing selection of fine wines offered by the glass at cost price (£10 to £30).

The Newport, Newport, Fife

Masterchef: The Professionals winner Jamie Scott’s bistro boasts a fabulous list from a local merchant.

The Old Bridge, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire

The Wine Shop

Owner and MW John Hoskins offers 15 wines by the glass, 20 more from an Enomatic and wines with between £10-£20 added from retail price; the broad, style-led list is also available to take home from the Wine Shop next door.

Otto’s, London

Credit: Nic Crilly-Hargrave

Otto Tepasse eschews anything that one might find in the supermarket, instead selecting great vintages from classic French regions, and he’s usually on-hand to offer advice.

Park House, Cardiff

An impressively broad list of 1,500 bins, especially strong on Australia, at scarcely believable prices.

The Terrace Rooms and Wine, Ventnor, Isle of Wight

Some of the lowest wine mark-ups in the country on an accessible 350-bin list with almost nothing over £100 and wines selected to be at peak drinking drink now.

Tyddyn Llan, Corwen, Denbighshire

A 250-strong global list sourced from small wineries run by hands-on owners, offering interesting and affordable options alongside the classics.

Wild Flor, Hove, East Sussex

Not, overall, the cheapest list but wines for every budget and mood, helpfully grouped by grape.

Best restaurant chain wine lists

Brasserie Blanc 

Now 14 branches, and a short, helpfully annotated list that’s more carefully chosen than at many chains.

Carluccio’s 

Some less-obvious Italian choices, and you can buy from the shop to drink with your meal (£5 corkage applies).

Côte

Cote’s all-French wine list might not be the easiest to pronounce but the helpful annotation could not be any easier to understand.

Gaucho 

Gaucho Charlotte Street

The prices are a little steep, but it has a serious and unrivalled selection of Argentinian wines.

Hawksmoor

Hawksmoor Manchester

Each site has its own wine list but all favour a mix of small producers and big-name vineyards with a preference for the steak-friendly.

Hotel du Vin Bistros 

Local buying decisions are allowed, with sommeliers even buying wine at auction.

Loch Fyne Seafood and Grill 

Focused on whites to suit the mainly fishy cuisine; a well-composed list.

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The post Best affordable UK restaurant wine lists appeared first on Decanter.

Despite being known around the world surprisingly few people actually know much about Sherry. There are many styles, ranging from the driest of dry wines to the complex ultra-sweet, and each has its own unique character. There truly is a Sherry for every occasion, making it an excellent gastronomic wine.

All Sherry wines have three things in common. Firstly, they all come from the area around Jerez de la Frontera in southwestern Spain, possibly the oldest wine-making region in the country, where vines have been grown since shortly after the founding of Cádiz by the Phoenicians three thousand years ago. Secondly, they are fortified (to varying degrees), with extra alcohol added in the form of distilled grape spirit. Thirdly, they are aged through the solera/criadera system, a way of maturing and blending wines of different ages in a large number of oak casks. The barrels are not completely filled, allowing the wine to be either exposed to the air and aged oxidatively or aged biologically under a protective layer of yeast (called the ‘velo de flor’). 

Sherry wines are also becoming popular as a lower-alcohol base for cocktails, often replacing gin or vodka. Try using fino for a twist on a Bloody Mary: to make a Bloody Sherry add 75ml fino, 200ml tomato juice, a pinch of salt and pepper and a splash of Worcestershire sauce and hot sauce to a glass with ice and stir to mix. Or what about a Sherry Fizz? Fill a glass with ice, add 50ml amontillado, a splash of Italicus (or other citrus liqueur), lime juice and sugar syrup, then top with tonic water and stir to mix.

Tortilla and Sherry. Credit: Shawn Hennessey

Two more simple traditional cocktails to try at home are the Rebujito (fino or manzanilla in a tumbler of ice topped up with lemonade, garnished with mint sprigs) or a Sherry Cobbler (cream Sherry over ice with a slice of fresh orange). 

The best glassware for Sherry, if you can’t find a large ‘catavinos’, is a standard white wine glass filled approximately one third, giving the wine room to breathe. 

Here we take you on a virtual Sherry and tapas tasting. Much more than just an aperitif, the diverse range of styles and flavours of Sherry wines can take you through an entire meal from start to finish – and we include a few, possibly surprising, non-Spanish pairing suggestions. 

Fino

Manchego cheese and cold meats. Credit: a-plus image bank / Alamy Stock Photo

The name says it all – an elegant, crisp dry wine, one of the driest white wines in the world. The biological ageing process, under the protective velo de flor, means that the wine is not in contact with the oxygen above it in the cask; as yeast is a living organism and needs to eat, most of the residual sugars and glycerine are gone before the wine reaches the solera barrels (the level of the system containing the oldest wine). Its natural salinity and light acidity make fino a perfect partner for anything salty.

Pairings: Ibéricos are classic, as are cheeses, shellfish and baked or fried fish dishes, but fino is also an excellent match for ceviche or fish and chips. 

Try: Gonzalez Byass, Tio Pepe En Rama, Jerez, Spain, 2020

Manzanilla

Tortillita de camarones (shrimp fritters), a speciality of Cádiz, at Barra Inchausti restaurant. Credit: Shawn Hennessey

This wine of the sea can only be made in one town, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, nestled in a nook near the mouth of the Guadalquivir river. Due to its particular mesoclimate, temperatures don’t get as hot in summer or as cold in winter as in other Sherry-producing areas. As a result, the all-important velo de flor stays robust all year round, imparting its unique, distinctive characteristics to this delicate and nuanced pale dry Sherry.

Pairings: Tortillita de camarones, grilled prawns, clams in garlic sauce, cured or tinned fish, olives, seafood paella, white fish, sushi and sashimi.

Try: Bodegas Hidalgo, La Gitana Manzanilla En Rama 2023 Release, Jerez, Spain

Amontillado

Braised artichokes with jamón at Victoria Eugenia restaurant – usually difficult to pair. Credit: Shawn Hennessey

This is a Sherry that has lived two lives, starting off as a fino or manzanilla ageing under yeast before being switched to oxidative ageing. This makes for a very versatile Sherry with characteristics from both processes, and it is particularly good for pairing with ‘difficult’ vegetables such as artichokes and asparagus. In fact, amontillado matches well with anything you would normally pair with finos or olorosos, and it is also a great substitute for brandy in cooking.

Pairings: Braised artichokes with jamón, asparagus, spinach with garbanzos (chickpeas), charcuterie, mature cheeses, salted almonds, blue fish and spicy dishes such as curries.

Try: Williams & Humbert, Don Zoilo Collection Dry Amontillado 12 years old, Jerez, Spain

Oloroso

Rabo de toro (bull tail stew). Credit: Kyoko Uchida / Alamy Stock Photo

In days past, the gentlemen of Jerez would sprinkle oloroso on their handkerchiefs like cologne (‘olor’ means aroma in Spanish), and to this day it is still referred to as a ‘handkerchief wine’. Oxidatively aged, rich, round and robust, you will want to pair this fragrant dry Sherry with hearty meat dishes and stews or even your Sunday roast. 

Pairings: Braised oxtail, game, braised meats, onion soup, duck confit, sweetbreads, grilled tuna and strong cheeses.

Try: Bodegas Barbadillo, Reliquia Oloroso, Jerez, Spain

Palo Cortado

A creamy mushroom and idiazabal cheese risotto at La Brunilda restaurant. Credit: Shawn Hennessey

Known as the ‘mystery Sherry’, palo cortado can be most simply described as a more elegant oloroso that began life as a fino or manzanilla, typically made from the first pressing and finer grape juices. With no (or negligible) yeast contact, it is moved straight into oxidative ageing, resulting in a full-bodied yet delicate expression of this dry Sherry style.

Pairings: Mushroom and idiazabal cheese risotto, traditional rabbit paella, grilled octopus, tuna tartare, croquettes, mature cheeses and roast chicken.

Try: Cayetano del Pino, Palo Cortado Solera, Jerez, Spain

Cream

Figs with payoyo cheese and jamón de pato at Amara restaurant. Credit: Shawn Hennessey

Grannies everywhere have been blamed over the years for abusing cream Sherry by opening it and leaving it in pantries for months on end, but I for one would be happy to see the end of this trope, if only because all sherries can be ruined this way. Cream Sherry is a blend of approximately 75% oloroso and 25% Pedro Ximenes (percentages vary between bodegas): the result is a light, naturally sweet wine that pairs exceptionally well with either savoury or sweet dishes, from grilled foie gras to trifle.

Pairings: Figs with payoyo cheese and jamon de pato, paté, grilled foie gras, soft cheeses, lemon tart and fresh fruit salads.

Try: Equipo Navazos, La Bota 79 Bota NO, Cream, Jerez, Spain

Pedro Ximénez

Sharp and tangy blue payoyo goat’s cheese from Manolo Cateca. Credit: Shawn Hennessey

Christmas pudding in a glass. Naturally sweet due to the Pedro Ximénez grapes being picked late and then sun-dried, this is pure raisiny-figgy joy, and can pair with sweet or strongly savoury foods. The most classic dessert option is simply pouring your PX over a dish of vanilla ice cream (even better, soak some dried fruit in the Sherry first), and many agree that it actually makes a perfect dessert on its own. 

Pairings: Dark chocolate and dark chocolate desserts, cheesecake, fruitcake and sharp blue cheeses like Stilton or Cabrales.

Try: Morrisons, The Best Pedro Ximenez, Jerez, Spain

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Wine matching by Fiona Beckett. Wines selected by our Decanter experts. 

Most of us would, I think, agree that you don’t have to give the same thought to wine pairing when out on a picnic as you would for a formal dinner party. But that’s not to say you shouldn’t choose a wine that’s broadly suitable for the style of the dishes involved, especially if they have a distinct personality, such as those of Indonesian food. It’s also true that most picnics include more than one dish and take place outside, and this puts a premium on wines with bigger flavours than you might consider for an indoor occasion.

The other issue, assuming the summer weather gods are smiling, is keeping your wines cool: one good reason wine in cans is becoming such a popular and practical option now. Choice is more limited than with bottled wine, but with new entrants to the market such as Vinca and Vin du Can you don’t have to be short-changed on quality. Small (2.25L) wine boxes from companies including The BIB Wine Co and Laylo are also a good bet, but harder to keep chilled.

That said, for the more interesting and alternative choices, such as those I’ve outlined on the following pages, you’re better with a bottle, so get your cool bag ready and head off.

The following are extracts from recently published books, with the title and author of each referenced at the end of the recipe.

Pork satay with chilli, ginger & lime

Recipe from The Indonesian Table by Petty Pandean-Elliott (£24.95 Phaidon Press) 

Sate babi rica-rica

Rica-rica is a sambal [hot paste] from Manado, North Sulawesi. The name translates to ‘chilli’ in the local dialect and, as to be expected, this spicy condiment has fiery intensity. The spiciness is also attributed to the red ginger, distinctively coloured, local to Manado and smaller than your typical ginger. For this recipe, I have reduced the number of bird’s eye chillies, but you can add as many as 20 if you’re feeling adventurous. You can also try this dish using prawns, chicken or fish fillets.

Makes 12-14 skewers

Ingredients

Rica-rica

• 2 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
• 2 banana shallots, coarsely chopped
• 2-3 red bird’s eye chillies
• 2 large red chillies
• 20g ginger, thinly sliced
• 2 tbsp coconut oil or sunflower oil
• juice of 1 lime
• salt, to taste

Satay

• 600g pork tenderloin, cut into 2cm cubes
• 1⁄2 tsp salt
• juice of 1 lime
• 1 tbsp coconut oil

Method

1. Soak 14 long bamboo skewers in water for an hour. 2. To make the rica-rica, combine all the ingredients, except the oil, lime and salt, in a blender and whizz to a fine paste. Set aside.
3. Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Add the paste and sauté for 6-7 minutes. Season with lime juice and salt and sauté for another 2 minutes. Set aside.
4. To make the satay, season the pork with salt, half of the rica-rica paste and the lime juice. Mix well and set aside to marinate for 10 minutes.
5. Preheat a charcoal barbecue or a griddled (grill) pan over high heat. Thread 4 pieces of pork onto each skewer. Grill the pork for 5-6 minutes, brushing it with marinade and turning often, until cooked through.
6. Transfer the skewers to a plate. Serve as is or with steamed rice or a spiced vegetable stew and the remaining rica-rica.

Sweetcorn fritters with chilli & tomato sambal

Recipe from The Indonesian Table by Petty Pandean-Elliott (£24.95 Phaidon Press) 

Perkedel jagung dan dabu-dabu

Served as a snack or as part of a meal, these sweet and crunchy fritters are irresistible. Best of all, they’re unbelievably simple to make. Traditionally, the fritters are made with fresh sweetcorn on the cob, but you can substitute canned (or frozen) sweetcorn so long as you drain out all the water (this ensures a crunchy fritter). Makrut lime leaves infuse the fritters with a wonderful fragrance. Dabu-dabu is a fresh, versatile chilli-tomato sambal similar to tomato salsa. Traditionally, unripe green tomatoes are used, but regular tomatoes are acceptable. The sambal can be made in advance, but to preserve the tomatoes’ freshness, add the lime juice, salt and oil just before serving.

Serves 4

Ingredients

Fritters

• 250g sweetcorn
• 3 makrut lime leaves, centre stem removed and thinly sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, grated
• 2 spring onions (scallions), finely chopped
• 1-2 red bird’s eye chillies, finely chopped
• 500ml sunflower oil, for deep-frying
• 1 banana shallot, finely chopped
• 6 tbsp rice flour
• 4 tbsp cornflour (cornstarch)
• 1⁄2 tsp salt
• 1⁄2 tsp white pepper

Sambal

• 3 green or red tomatoes, chopped
• 2-3 red bird’s eye chillies, thinly sliced
• 1 banana shallot, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp coconut oil or extra-virgin olive oil, warmed
• 1⁄4 tsp salt
• pinch of sugar (optional)
• juice of 2 limes

Method

1. If using canned sweetcorn, drain well and squeeze out as much water as possible from the kernels. Transfer the sweetcorn to a food processor and blend for 10 seconds until a coarse purée.
2. In a large bowl, combine the sweetcorn, lime leaves, garlic, spring onions, chillies and shallot and mix well. Stir in the rice flour and cornflour. Season with salt and pepper. The batter should be thick but easy to mix. If needed, add 2-3 tbsp of cold water to thin it out slightly.
3. Heat the oil in a wok or deep saucepan over medium heat. The oil is ready when a cube of bread dropped in sizzles on contact and turns golden in 10-15 seconds (alternatively, use a thermometer and heat to 180°C/350°F).
4. Scoop a tablespoon of the mixture and flatten it slightly into a patty. Repeat with the remaining mixture. Lower 5-6 into the pan and deep-fry for 2-3 minutes each side until golden brown. Using a slotted spoon, transfer them to a plate lined with paper towels. Repeat with the remaining fritters. 5. Mix all the sambal ingredients in a bowl. Serve immediately or transfer to an airtight container, top with oil and store in the refrigerator for 2-3 days.

Pale smoked haddock scotch egg

Credit: Paul Gregory

Recipe extracted from For the Love of the Sea II, compiled by Jenny Jefferies (£22 Meze Publishing)

This is a wonderful recipe using delicious pale smoked haddock to make a scotch egg, as opposed to sausage meat. It’s lovely served with a homemade parsley mayonnaise for dipping.

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 300g pale smoked haddock
• 35g cream cheese
• 2 spring onions (scallions), finely chopped
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh dill
• salt and pepper
• 4 small eggs
• 100g plain flour
• 1 large egg
• 2 tbsp milk
• 150g breadcrumbs
• oil, for frying
• sea salt, to finish

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4 and brush a baking tray with oil. Place the smoked haddock on the tray and cook in the oven for about 10 minutes. Remove and leave to cool.
2. Once cool, flake the smoked haddock and remove any bones and skin. Place the fish in a food processor with the cream cheese, spring onions and dill. Blend until smooth and then season to taste.
3. While the haddock is cooking, boil the 4 small eggs in their shells for 5 minutes, then plunge them straight into iced water to prevent discolouration.
4. Once cool, peel the eggs and pat dry. Take a quarter of the haddock mix and flatten it in the palm of your hand – which ideally should be cold – then place an egg in the middle. Mould the haddock mix into a ball to completely cover the egg, then repeat with the remainder of the mix and eggs.
5. Leave the eggs like this to rest for up to an hour. Meanwhile, place the flour in one bowl, whisk the remaining large egg with the milk in another, and place the breadcrumbs in a third bowl.
6. Coat the rested scotch eggs in the flour, then the egg mix, then the breadcrumbs. Heat a deep fat fryer or a large pan half full of oil to 200°C/400°F and cook the eggs for 3 minutes until golden brown. Drain on kitchen paper to remove excess oil, then serve warm and enjoy with some parsley mayonnaise.

Freekah & herb salad with preserved lemon & black olives

Credit: Mowie Kay

Recipe extracted from Rice & Grains by Kathy Kordalis (£18.99 Ryland Peters & Small)

Roasted shallots with a touch of cinnamon serve as a bed for the freekah, crisp cucumber, tomatoes, olives and the intensely citrus yet mellow preserved lemon. For an extra element, crumble over some feta or add pan-fried halloumi.

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 8 shallots, peeled and halved
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• a pinch of ground cinnamon
• a pinch of dried oregano
• 200g freekah, rinsed
• 50g almonds, coarsely chopped and toasted
• 1 large cucumber, cubed
• 200g cherry tomatoes, quartered
• 1 small bunch each dill, coriander, mint and parsley, leaves picked
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• feta or pan-fried halloumi, to serve (optional)

Dressing

• 100g black olives, stoned and halved
• 1 preserved lemon, pith and flesh discarded, skin rinsed and finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 60ml olive oil
• a pinch of ground cinnamon (optional)
• freshly squeezed juice of 1-2 lemons, to taste
• 1 tsp honey, or to taste

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Spread the shallots on a small baking sheet. Drizzle with the olive oil, sprinkle with cinnamon and oregano and season to taste. Roast in the preheated oven for 40-45 minutes until tender and caramelised. 2. Meanwhile, bring 400ml water and 1 tsp salt to the boil in a saucepan over a medium-high heat. Add the freekah, stir, bring back to the boil and cover with a lid. Reduce the heat to low and cook for 25-30 minutes until the freekah is tender and the water evaporates. Drain and transfer to a bowl.
3. Mix the dressing ingredients in a serving dish, then add the shallots, freekah, cucumber and tomatoes and mix well. Check for seasoning, then add the herbs and scatter over the almonds.
4. Serve with the addition of crumbled feta or pan-fried halloumi, if you wish.

Borekas

Credit: Paul Gregory

Recipe extracted from Eat, Share, Love by Kalpna Woolf (£22 Meze Publishing)

Mini cheese pies

Eat, Share, Love is a collection of intertwined recipes and stories: global dishes from ordinary cooks all over the UK, alongside their compelling personal stories. The recipe
for these small savoury pastries was shared by Viviane Bowell.

Makes about 25

Ingredients

• 125ml sunflower oil
• 125ml unsalted butter
• 125ml water
• 1⁄2 tsp salt
• 550g plain flour
• 450g grated cheese (any mixture such as feta, cheddar, Gruyère and Emmental)
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 egg yolk
• sesame seeds (optional)

Method

1. Heat the oil and butter in a pan over a low heat until the butter melts. Add the water and salt, mix well, then add the flour gradually. Start with about 250g and mix in with a fork first, then start working it with your hand. Continue adding flour until you have a soft dough that holds together in a ball. Stop mixing as soon as the dough holds together. Cover with cling film and leave it to rest at room temperature for about 20 minutes. Do not put the dough in the fridge.
2. To make the filling, simply combine the grated cheese with the beaten egg. It should hold together, so if the mixture is runny, add some more grated cheese.
3. Take walnut-sized lumps of the rested dough and roll each piece into a ball. Press and squash between your palms until you have a 10cm round. Place a heaped teaspoon of the cheese filling in the centre of each round. Fold the dough over the filling into a half-moon, the traditional shape for borekas, then pinch the edges firmly together to seal the pies. Pinch, fold and twist the dough all around the edges or use a fork to seal them.
4. Place the pies on an oiled tray a few centimetres  apart. Beat the egg yolk with a few drops of water and brush this over the pastry. Sprinkle the borekas with sesame seeds if using, then bake at 180°C/350°F/gas 4 for about 30 minutes until slightly golden.

Passion fruit & raspberry cake donuts

Credit: Ella Miller

Recipe extracted from The Joy of Snacks by Laura Goodman (£16.99 Headline Home)

Cake donuts are made of cake batter and yeast, or ‘raised’ donuts are made of enriched bread dough – both are fried, unless ‘baked’ is specified in the title. Whatever your preference, I urge you to try these. They’re crisp and juicy outside and soft and fluffy inside. They’re perfect.

Makes about 8 donuts

Author note I’m sorry, you need quite a few non-negotiable things: round cutters (or donut cutters), spider strainer, thermometer, kitchen paper, a wire rack.

Ingredients

• 175g plain flour
• 11⁄4 tsp baking powder
• 1⁄4 tsp salt
• 75g golden caster sugar
• 120g sour cream
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 15g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 65g raspberries
• rapeseed oil, for frying (about 1.5 litres)

For the glaze

• 2 large passion fruits (or 3-4 small ones)
• 200g icing sugar
• 1-2 tablespoons milk

Method

1. Make the glaze first. Stir the seeds and juice from the passion fruits into the icing sugar and add milk a little at a time until you have a thin gloop. Passion fruits unhelpfully yield varying amounts of juice, but the main thing to know is that the glaze must be thick enough to envelop the donuts, but not thick enough that you could call it icing.
2. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.
3. In a jug or small bowl, whisk together the sour cream, egg, vanilla and melted butter until smooth and even.
4. Add half the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix with a spatula until only just combined. Repeat with the other half, but just before everything is combined, add the raspberries. Break them up as you add them to the bowl and work them very gently into the batter until there are no floury pockets. Interfere as little as you can while still getting the job done.
5. Leave the batter in its bowl and place it in the fridge for 10 minutes.
6. Now get your station sorted. Clear up and liberally flour your worktop.
7. Pour the oil into a deep saucepan so that it comes 5-8cm up the sides. Start heating it gently with the thermometer in it, bearing in mind you’re aiming for 180°C/350°F to fry.
8. Arrange several sheets of kitchen paper next to the fryer.
9. Take your batter out of the fridge and pat it to about 2cm thickness on your floured worktop. It’ll be really sticky and tricky to handle, so use lots of flour – don’t hold back.
10. Cut the donuts out, keeping their holes; I use an 8cm cutter for the donut and a 2.5cm cutter for the hole. Re-pat and cut more from the scraps. The less you handle the
dough the better, though, so if it comes to it, go for more holes and fewer rings. When the oil hits 180°C/350°F, fry 3 donuts at a time, prodding and turning them with your spider strainer, until they’re golden brown all over.
11. Move them to the kitchen-paper zone.
12. When the donuts are warm, not hot, place a wire rack over a plate or baking sheet to catch any glaze run-off. Stir the glaze. Dunk the donuts in the glaze and give them a good wiggle around, flipping them over and making sure they’re covered all over.
13. Transfer them to the wire rack. When the glaze has firmed up, they’re ready to eat.

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It’s 11.00am on a July day and it’s already hot in Gigondas. The cicadas are trilling in the plane trees that shade the village square. A busy day is looming for Alexandre Fréguin but he remains unfazed, looking relaxed in a smart shirt and sandals. Underneath the calm exterior however there’s a single-minded determination that would put the Terminator to shame. At just 34, he’s achieved more than most sommeliers manage in a lifetime.

Fréguin oversees the drinks program across the network of restaurants and bars in Gigondas that belong to the Perrin family, owners of Château de Beaucastel and Domaine du Clos des Tourelles. It will come as no surprise that they take wine very seriously here. The main wine list, which is shared across the sites, features 3,500 different wines, mostly from the Rhône.

From law to wine

Fréguin grew up in Aix-en-Provence and was initially destined for a very different career. ‘All my family went to law university; I had no choice whatsoever. My dad said, “you’re going to be a lawyer.” And that was that!’ After school, he dutifully enrolled.

‘My connection with wine happened late one night in a nightclub,’ Fréguin explains. He made friends with someone whose mother owned a small wine estate making rosé in Aix. The following morning, they met up to visit the estate and spend a day helping out around the winery.

It turned into a hobby; cleaning tanks, delivering wines, attending wine fairs…Alex was smitten. ‘I’m serving wine to people, I’m having wine for lunch, a little apéritif at in the evening – it’s the good life!’ Studying law began to look less appealing.

‘After two years of university, I went to see my dad and said “I want to work in the wine industry.” He said “fine, do it, but I’m not talking to you anymore.” We didn’t talk to each other for more than two years, not even at Christmas.’

If he was going to get back in his father’s good books, he was going to have to prove himself.

First steps on the floor

With little work experience, no qualifications and no income, Fréguin found reality starting to bite. He got a job at a neighbourhood bistro, where it quickly became clear that he’d lied on his CV, as he had no idea what he was doing. But he worked hard, and they got on well. Soon he felt like part of the family.

The next step was to enrol at culinary school. He excelled, and managed to secure work experience at a restaurant with a Michelin star. He abandoned his studies to concentrate on work, and by the age of 24 he was offered the role of head sommelier at one-star Michelin Les Loges, in the Cour des Loges hotel in Lyon.

Soon after he started there, the phone rang. ‘I remember exactly where I was,’ says Fréguin. ‘I hear you’re doing well,’ said his father, on the other end. They now have a warm relationship, and share a mutual passion for wine.

See Matt Walls’ southern Rhône 2021 full report

To England

‘I wanted to challenge myself, to go to the next level – to a two-star Michelin restaurant. To push my boundaries, to go abroad,’ says Fréguin. He successfully applied for a sommelier position at L’Enclume in the Lake District in the north of England.

‘When I first opened the wine list at L’Enclume, I realised I knew nothing. The list had wines from all over the world. I realised in France we have very good sommeliers, but these guys [in the UK] are way above! That’s what I loved about being in the UK, the diversity.’

The head chef was Mark Birchall. ‘At the time I thought he was horrible! Rough, always shouting,’ says Fréguin. ‘But he had a golden touch… it was impressive how sharp he was.’ Birchall was planning on opening his own restaurant, and told Fréguin he wanted him on board.

They opened Moor Hall in Ormskirk, Lancashire, in 2017. Within 18 months, it had been awarded two Michelin stars and numerous other accolades.

Competition time

The year Moor Hall opened was the same year Fréguin first entered the UK Sommelier of the Year competition. He’d never entered a competition of this nature before, so he was surprised to do so well. ‘I reached the semi-finals, but when I saw the other competitors, I freaked out! I couldn’t even say hello to them. It was Gerard Basset MW MS, Eric Zwiebel MS, Nicolas Clerc MS… all the people I admired. I wanted to die!’

The sommelier community in the UK is a supportive one, and his fellow competitors soon became friends and mentors. He entered the following year, and this time he claimed the title.

Soon after, he took a position at Chez Bruce in south London where he met his partner Virginie Ramit, with whom he has a son, Noah. They were already considering leaving London when the Covid pandemic struck, which cost them their jobs. Craving space, they decided to move back to their home country.

Le Bistrot de L’Oustalet. Credit: www.loustalet-gigondas.com

To Gigondas

On arriving back in France, Fréguin received an email from Charles Perrin who was looking for somebody to manage the drinks operation in Gigondas: the Perrins own the one-star Michelin L’Oustalet, Le Bistrot de L’Oustalet, and a wine bar and shop called Nez.

Originally Fréguin took the head sommelier position at L’Oustalet to see how good a fit they were. Now he supervises all three establishments, running a team of six sommeliers, though buying the wine is his main focus.

The head chef when he joined was Laurent Deconinck. ‘He’s the first chef I’ve met that is so into wine,’ says Fréguin, ‘’we could talk about wine until 3am.’ Deconinck left earlier this year to brew beer in the Alps, and his second in command, Thomas Boirel, has been promoted in his place.

Personal favourites

When it comes to his favourite appellations, ‘there’s no point lying – Gigondas is very exciting,’ says Fréguin. ‘Most domaines are family owned, we understand the importance of lieux-dits, from the 2023 vintage we’ll have white Gigondas, 100% Grenache will be allowed soon…We have altitude, north-facing slopes, a variety of soils – there are so many conditions to make exciting wines in an era of climate change.’

His favourite Gigondas estates include Domaine Santa Duc, Domaine du Gour de Chaulé, Moulin de la Gardette, Domaine Raspail-Ay, Domaine de Piaugier, Domaine des Bosquets and Domaine Cécile Chassagne. Other appellations on his radar are Cairanne and Vinsobres.

He’s also a big fan of southern Rhône whites, particularly Vacqueyras, and highlights Montirius and Domaine le Sang des Cailloux as top examples.

Other producers that he’s currently interested in are Pascal Chalon; St Jean du Barroux and Domaine Aymard in Ventoux; and Domaine Mas Saint Louis, Domaine Pierre André and Domaine du Bienheureux in Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

Next steps

Fréguin’s next step is to make his own wine. He has bought some fruit – mostly Mourvèdre – from Domaine Chaume-Arnaud in Vinsobres, and he bottled his first vintage last week.

But this is just a side project; for now, Fréguin is happy in his cellar of 30,000 bottles deep in the bowels of Gigondas, overseeing one of the best Rhône wine lists in the world. His father need never have worried.

Alexandre Fréguin is a judge for the Decanter World Wine Awards

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La Costiera Amalfitana, the Amalfi Coast, is also known as la divina costiera, ‘the divine coast’. This is no surprise to me because the whole area is magical, with its vertiginous terraces, historic churches and villas, pastel-painted villages clinging to the cliffs, all suspended between a clear blue sky and the sapphire waters of the Mediterranean. The Amalfi Coast is also where I was born and where I lived until I was 12 years old. Our home is Minori, one of the 13 villages officially included in the costiera. Even after we moved to the UK, we would travel back to Italy every summer to stay with my grandparents. To me it was, and still is, a paradise – even if it is a little busier now than it was during my childhood!

My grandmother cooked well, so she said, because she loved us well, and I treasure and cling to that thought. I also inherited my nonno’s love of lemons, and to this day, the very smell of lemons evokes the most wonderful memories, of heat and happiness, which is possibly the very essence of the Amalfi Coast and of Italy.

Spaghetti al limone

This is an iconic dish from the Amalfi Coast, with at least a thousand different variations – in essence, though, just five ingredients, and only 15 minutes to prepare.

Serves six

Ingredients

• 600g spaghetti
• 300ml double cream
• freshly squeezed juice of 1 lemon
• grated zest of three lemons
• 90g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

1. Cook the pasta in a large pan of boiling, salted water (only salt the water when it starts to boil) until al dente. This will very much depend on personal preference, so taste as you are cooking and stop when the pasta is cooked to your liking.
2. Drain the pasta, reserving 240ml of the cooking water.
3. Add the cream, lemon juice, zest and butter and mix very well. Add some of the reserved pasta cooking water to slacken the sauce if needed.
4. Season to taste and enjoy straightaway.

Ursula Ferrigno is an acclaimed and experienced food writer and chef, specialising in Italian and Mediterranean cuisine. She trained at the Auguste Escoffier School of the Culinary Arts and has taught at cookery schools in the UK and Italy, including at Leiths School of Food and Wine. She is consultant chef to Caffè Nero and appears regularly on BBC TV. The author of more than 18 cookery books, she has also written for Olive, BBC Good Food, The Observer and Taste Italia.

Cucina di Amalfi by Ursula Ferrigno was published in March 2023 (£20 Ryland Peters & Small). It details 75 recipes from the southern Italian region, ranging from antipasti and soups to bread, fish, meats and plenty of vegetables, coupled with essays on the traditions and food culture of the area, along with scenic photography.

The wines to drink with spaghetti al limone

On the face of it, this recipe couldn’t be easier, but lemon is always a bit of a tricky one. Do you go for a citrussy white like a Sauvignon Blanc, for example? In my view it’s too similar, so I’d personally opt for a more linear Italian white, such as a Greco di Tufo from Campania or a not-too-fruity Falanghina, both from the same region as the recipe.

The more interesting choice, however, would be a light red – a combination I first came across at the River Café in west London where they poured a Valpolicella with a similar dish. It’s enough of a contrast (a straight Classico, not a ripasso, I suggest) to bring something else to the party without overwhelming the delicate balance of the sauce. Bardolino and Frappato would be good alternatives.

The other interesting option at this time of year would be a Provence rosé, especially one with a significant proportion of Cinsault, which has a lightness and freshness that would chime perfectly with this dish.

By Fiona Beckett

Wines selected by our Decanter experts

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What kind of wine should you serve at a BBQ?

With the weather (hopefully) on our side, there are few things better than a barbecue in the sunshine accompanied by a delicious glass of wine.

Choosing a good bottle for your barbecue can really elevate the occasion, although for something a little less formal, there’s plenty to choose from in terms of alternative format wines.

Forget those days of washing down a burnt burger with warm Chardonnay or a ‘cooked’ red served in a plastic cup – choosing wine to serve at a barbecue needn’t be an afterthought.

Scroll down to see a selection of 18 great BBQ wines

If you’re going big on the spice, then you could lean towards fruitier reds or whites with a touch of sweetness, such as off-dry Riesling or Gewürztraminer for example.

Grilled salmon works well with a number of wines, from sparkling rosé to a light Pinot Noir or even a glass of chilled Manzanilla.

As outside temperatures warm up, you may be reluctant to opt for a more classic wine and beef pairing, such as a full-bodied red. Yet, a Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec or Shiraz could still work well providing it is served no warmer than room temperature.

Catering for vegans? Make sure the wines you serve are as vegan-friendly as the food they’re matching.

At a glance – suggested BBQ wines

Here are some wine pairings for classic barbecue dishes. For ease of use, we’ve overlooked the uses of marinades and sauces.

• Steak – Malbec, Syrah/Shiraz
• Burgers – Zinfandel, Grenache blends (like Côtes du Rhône), Cabernet Sauvignon
• Sausages – Tempranillo, Gamay, Pinot Noir
• BBQ chicken – Warmer climate Chardonnay
• Pork chops – Valpolicella, Barbera, Riesling, dry rosé
• Salmon – Rosé Champagne, Pinot Gris, chilled Pinot Noir
• Sardines – Albariño, Picpoul de Pinet
• Halloumi – Sauvignon Blanc, Sémillon, Assyrtiko
• Veggie Skewers – Chenin Blanc (fresher styles), dry rosé, Gamay

All-rounder BBQ wines

Choosing wine for a barbecue should be fun, with the emphasis on enjoyment of the occasion: it’s unlikely you’ll purchase 10 types of wine and impose strict pairing regulations!

There are some great all-rounder wines that tick many of the boxes needed for a great gathering with friends and family.

Styles to consider include:

• Malbec
• Pinot Noir
• Gamay
• Dry rosé
• Riesling
• Champagne and other traditional method sparkling wines, or a refreshing pét-nat

Great BBQ wine: 18 picks tasted by our Decanter experts

Search our expert wine reviews

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