The art of getting it all just right
I ADORE food and love wine, but have never claimed to be an expert on either, writes Anna Brosnan.
Yet, for me, the biggest head-scratching conundrum, when it comes to culinary fare, is how to pair food and wine together.
I have always tended to make food I like and buy wine I enjoy but fitting it all together remained a mystery.
So, in London recently, my husband Payat and I headed to the city’s hub of wine expertise, Vinopolis, where we attended a special masterclass named Welcome to Food and Wine.
The two-hour session was led by experts Tom Forrest and Melanie Reeve, who took the attending foodies through a course of six tasting dishes and explained why some wines went with them and some...well, didn’t.
I had visited Vinopolis before to visit one of the self-led wine and spirit tasting tours, but this was the first time I had ever attended one of the centre’s special masterclasses. And what I learned was a real revelation.
Melanie taught us how subtle aspects such as the tannins of red wine and the acidity of certain wine types can affect flavour when it comes to food.
Our initial dishes had already been placed in front of us when we entered the room, while others were cooked in front of us by Tom.
Starting with a cabernet sauvignon, merlot and syrah blend, Grande Reserve De Gassac, we were taught how to appreciate the aromas of the wine before tasting it to discover the full flavour and tannin level. This was then matched with a tasty chicken liver pate made with butter, garlic, onions, smoked bacon, chilli pepper, lemon grass, kaffir lime and bay leaves, as well as Cognac. Despite the huge mix of flavours, the wine worked perfectly, suddenly tasting fruitier in the mouth.
A high alcohol content, we were taught, will make the heat of spices explode, so this should be borne in mind when choosing a wine accompaniment for anything with a little heat.
Next came a pairing of a New Zealand Mount Brown wine made with the pinot gris grape. A dry wine with an aromatic hit of pineapple, this worked amazingly well with our dish of pear which had been roasted with cinnamon and covered with dolcelatte cheese and double cream. The pear helped to accentuate the fruits in the wine, but somehow the drink also brought out the creaminess of the cheese and flavour of the cinnamon.
After two beautiful pairings, next stop was a Mount Horrocks Wine from the Clare Valley, which had a terrible mineral aroma I can only compare to flint, steel or rubber. This was then paired with two types of sushi, using smoked salmon, avocado and wasabi with spring onion in one and raw tuna in the other. Never having been a fish eater, I don’t know whether I hated the wine or food more. So I’m not really sure if they went together.
Fortunately, the tasting event picked up and the rest of the dishes were beautiful. We matched an Italian Montepulciano d’Abruzzo wine and a French onion soup with Gruyére cheese.
Then came a French chardonnay, Pouilly-Fuisse, which had a lovely hint of citrus, matching in well with a Moroccan tagine of chicken, olives, preserved lemons, chopped onion, garlic, ginger and coriander.
I always usually avoid drinking wine with pudding, but we were presented with a perfect match in the form of a Muscat de Beaumes de Venise and a very rich cranachan pudding made with cream, honey, orange, orange juice, toasted oats and whisky infused with orange.
We were advised that acidity in the wine works to balance out sweetness, so a pudding must always be as sweet or sweeter than the wine it is matched with for it to work properly.
By the end of the masterclass I was left with a lasting conviction that – far from a load of wine snobbery based on nonsense – food and wine matching is a very real discipline and, when done the right way, it can really work.
n Vinopolis can be found in Bank End, just a few minutes walk from the London Bridge tube station.
n Welcome to Food and Wine sessions cost £60 per person are run every few weeks.
n Vinopolis’ other forthcoming masterclass events include a cocktail making masterclass (£69), which will be held on March 1.
n Talks by TV wine expert Oz Clarke also form a regular feature of the Vinopolis calendar.
n For more information visit www.vinopolis.co.uk
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