Weekly Wine: Stilton Stunners

Huzzah! It's National Stilton Week!

For me that means only one thing: going out to find the creamiest, saltiest, yummiest stilton on the market, cracking open a cheeky bottle to go with it, and indulging until I get the cheese sweats.

What goes with stilton? Well, forget the usual cheesy culprits - stilton is in a class of its own and most bottles that say 'a perfect match for cheese' on the label will whimper and retreat at the sight of this blue menace. Nearly all red wines simply won't come up the scratch - they're too dry, and too tannic (grippy).

What you need to do is match salty with sweet, and creamy with smooth.


The Exception that Proves the Rule

According to wine buyer and wine GOD Marcel Orford-Williams, a young, gutsy, fruity red might just work (less powerful tannins and the fruit acts as a sweetener) and Marcillac fits the bill quite nicely. It's not a name you see very often, but Domaine Cros is king of this wine and Slurp do a nice bottle for £11.90.

Real Sweeties

The absolute classic match is Sauternes, but they can be pricey little buggers. A half-bottle from Asda of some fairly tasty but not exactly top of the market stuff is £10.07, but as usual I am being all sneaky and cunning: Saint Croix du Mont is an appellation right next to Sauternes that makes similar wines without the hefty price tag. Cambridge Wine do a brilliant example - a whole bottle for £11.99 and enough left over to enjoy with various puddings (it'll keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks.)


Get Fortified

The other classic match is port - I used to wrinkly my nose at the thought of it, but with food like this port is an absolute smasher. Taylor's are one of the A-listers and Majestic do a cracking 2005 version for £13.99 - it's a treat.

You can also go with decent aged Amontillado - rich and sweet without being cloying, it stands up well to stilton's strong flavours. Sainsbury's Taste The Difference Amontillado is twelve years old and - unless you're a sherry snob - should fit the bill nicely, which is pretty cool for £7.99.

Lastly, but very much not least, is Madeira. Yes, I know, my elderly relatives drink it too, but that doesn't mean it isn't awesome. Henriques & Henriques are one of the best names in the business and the discovery of their 10 year old Malmsey made my Christmas a couple of years back. Majestic do a 50cl bottle for £16.99 and once opened you don't have to worry about drinking it all up quickly: it would quite possibly outlive hamsters.


Total Weirdos
If you want to veer away from tradition altogether, The Wine Society has a couple of wildcards. They like to give smaller producers a chance, and in doing so they bring us Samos Anthemis from Greece for £6.95 per half and Bleasdale's Wise Old Tawny from Australia for £10.50. Both are rich dessert wines - decadently smooth, full of flavour and sticky-sweet. Your slab of stilton will love it, and I reckon you will too.

Will you be indulging in some stilton this week, and if so: how do you eat yours? Let's talk all things cheesy in the comments, or on Twitter and Facebook.
 

Photo taken from Keith Williamson's photostream under the Creative Commons License

Wine Weekly: Where To Find Value in Vino

This week, a few of you lovely ladies have been asking how much you need to spend on a good bottle of vino. It's a tricky one. So often we think the more expensive a wine, the better it is - but if you're eagle-eyed when wine-shopping you can find good quality even at the lower end of the market. You don't even need to spend over a tenner if you don't want to. Here are a few savvy hints to get the best bottle for your buck.

1. It's Not Always About What's Hot.

Exploring is fun, and in the wine world it often pays off. Yes, we know that the most fashionable wine is coming from those timeless French, Italian and Spanish names we all recognise, as well as New World countries like Australia and New Zealand, but they know they're hot too, so they can afford to charge more.

Try grabbing a bottle from a less popular country and see what you find. I'm currently loving Greece, Portugal and Hungary. The bottles might look scary because they don't list grapes or names that you often hear, but the quality is still there in most cases.

For instance, Waitrose are currently selling Tinto da Anfora 2007 from Alentejo in Portugal for £5.99 (you can see what the bottle looks like here but you'll have to pick up the 2007 vintage in store). I had a glass or two last night over dinner, and loved the dark berry fruits and spice. It was dangerously gluggable.

My latest steal and new favourite sweet treat is the Greek wine Samos Anthemis. I picked up a bottle for £11.95 from The Wine Society (you have to join as a member to order, but I think it's worth it) and utterly adored the rich, Christmassy aromas and smooth, honeyed palate. I've decided that for that price, it's definitely going to be my mince pie wine this year.

2. If They Put Their Name To It…

Most supermarkets do a selection of 'own-label' wines these days. It can seem cheap, but their buyers often spend a long time sourcing a reputable producer to work with, and want to find the best quality possible if they're going to put their own name on the bottle. It can be a good way to find a benchmark example of the region at a friendly price.

Tesco's Finest Chianti Riserva is spot-on as Chiantis go. It's typically cherry-filled with classic savouriness that makes it a smashing red for Italian food. And at £5.99 in-store until the beginning of October (normally £7.99) it's a very 'everyday' price.

I'm also a huge fan of Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Chilean Sauvignon Blanc for £5.99. Very drinkable, very balanced, with typical knock-you-socks-off fruitiness (oh, the gooseberries and lime!) - Sainsbury's wine-buyers did a good job here.

3. Go Off The Beaten Track

If you really do want to stick to countries you know, then veer away from names you recognise to find the best value. Ex-Sommelier and awesome wine virtuoso Frances Bentley recommends seeking out the quirky: if you like Sancerre from the Loire, for instance, then Menetou-Salon is a nearby alternative at much nicer prices (for instance I'm a fan of this one from Majestic for £10.99).

Or if Spain does it for you, bypass Rioja for wines from areas like Ribera del Duero or Valdepenas. Marks and Spencer do a super Ribera del Duero with great complexity of flavour for £10.99.

4. Be Restaurant-Savvy

It's always tough deciding what to choose in a restaurant, especially with the mark-ups being so high. Super sommelier Oliver Brandenburg says the best thing to do is ask: staff love giving personal recommendations, and they should also be happy to let you try a wine before you decide. He reckons New World wines are good value if you want something fruity and consistent, and especially likes Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon at the moment.

Frances tells me the more you spend, the better the value. House wines and lower-end choices have bigger mark-ups, so if you can afford to spend an extra fiver or so it's usually worth it. Experiment with odder choices - restaurants often test quirky wines on their list to see what's popular, and Frances reckons Lebanese, Turkish and Portuguese wines are pretty hot right now. Or, if you want to be a little safer, she also thinks hidden treasures can be found in Southern French wines, plus Alsatian and Spanish whites. The key is not being afraid to ask.

You can ask me too, if you like! Send any wine questions our way in the comments, or on our Twitter or Facebook pages.

Image taken from Mikkel Juel Gregersen's photostream under the creative commons license.

Weekly Wine: From Dry To Sweet

We all love a good glass of vino (or four) and the beauty of wine is that everyone's tastes are different, so giving wine advice should be a much easier job than it is. I always say you should be quaffing whatever tickles your fancy, but sometimes it's nice to know the sciencey bit behind matching different wines to different things.

I thought I'd start with a straightforward one: dry, medium and sweet wines. A wine's sweetness has a huge impact on its character and what you can eat with it to make it that bit tastier.

So what is a sweet wine? It's easy to mistake a wine that is lip-smackingly fruity as being 'sweet', but if you focus on the sugariness of a wine you should find it easier to work out its sweet-factor: try drinking it with a sticky toffee pudding, for example, and you'll soon realise if your wine is dry or not - the flavours just won't match and the wine will become harsh and unpleasant.

A wine's sweetness is based on how much 'residual sugar' it has: winemakers either add sugar to their wine, or (much more commonly) try and keep as much of the natural sugar from the grapes as possible (by harvesting the grapes later so they are more shrivelled and concentrated, or by stopping fermentation to prevent all the sugar from converting into alcohol, but that's just me being a geek so don't worry too much).

Dry wines

Most of the wine we glug on a daily basis is dry, which is good because if we drank sweet wine with the same enthusiasm I'm pretty sure none of us would have any teeth left. Dry wines match the greatest variety of foods, so before I wax lyrical all day about all my favourite pairings let me just give you two perfect examples which are scrumptious to try:

1. Goats cheese and a dry French sauvignon

Goats cheese needs a dry white wine to match its high acidity, and it's strong flavours are best matched with the pungency of a sauvignon blanc. Loire sauvignons are a bit more subtle flavour-wise than their New Zealand counterparts, and this Touraine Sauvignon from Laithwaites is a perfect example. It's £9.99.

2. Dry rose with summer salads

Any summer barbecue or picnic has a wide range of salads and nibbles, and it's not surprising that dry rose is so popular at this time of year, as it's a super accompaniment to this kind of food. Again, it all comes down to the crispness of the wine that matches the acidity found in summer salads. A good Provence rose is bone-dry and is elegant and balanced, so it won't fight too much with the mish-mash of characteristics found in this type of food. Waitrose do a lovely, light-pink example for £6.40 a bottle.

Medium wines

Medium wines are too often overlooked as being unsuitable for food, but that little bit of sugar can prove to be the best thing some dishes could ask for.

We already match sweetness with savoury dishes all the time - what do we love with pork? Apple sauce. What do we slather all over gammon? Honey glaze. I'm getting a bit drooly just thinking about it. And I love nothing more than having any pork dish (even cocktail sausages - I kid you not) with an off-dry riesling from Germany. They're so appley and fresh, it's like they're made to offset the saltiness of pork. My favourite is The Society's Saar Riesling from The Wine Society at £8.95 - you have to join as a member to order though.

The same works for chicken too, especially in fruity oriental dishes. I very much heart eating these kinds of things with an off-dry rose such as Rose D'Anjou from the Loire region of France, and Marks and Spencers do a smashing version for £5.99.

Off-dry red wine is not particualrly common or popular, but I've yet to find a better match for chocolate desserts: it has just the right amount of richness, and isn't so acidic that it clashes with the bitterness of chocolate. The Australians make an absolute cracker: Bleasdale Sparkling Shiraz is £19.75 from Formula Wines and is awesome with chocolate cake.

Sweet Wines

There's so many types of sweet wine, it can be a bit overwhelming knowing where to start.

A lighter dessert (something fruity or gently creamy) needs a similarly light sweet wine - anything too heavy can make the dessert seem less sweet. I'd try something like Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise, and Berry Bros stock a delicious one at £17.85 for those special occasions.

More lustrous sweet wine is an ideal match for exceptionally salty cheese like stilton as they counter-balance each other - Tesco Finest Sauternes is £12.99 per half, and this will be perfect. It can seem surprising, but sweet red wine can do the job just as well and is often less expensive. Nuy Red Muskadel from South Africa is £10.99 from Corks Out, and is my cheeseboard's best friend.

So there you have it. I'll be back next week with more winey-goodness, so if you have a question about wine then give us a shout on Twitter or Facebook!

Image used from Naomi Ibuki's photostream on flickr under the creative commons license.