Find a perfect match for any seafood meal

Isuppose for most people, matching food and wine is largely about what you happen to have in the house, and yet it’s a subject that seems to attract a lot of attention when I do my occasional #AldiWineClinic on Twitter. Being one of those tiresome people who takes wine reasonably seriously, I tend to think ahead about what I’ll be eating and I thought I’d share some of my favourite regular matches for seafood and fish.

When it comes to crab, my go-to wine is Riesling, usually a dry Australian one from the Clare Valley. With Dublin Bay prawns I try to opt for a Vouvray, Chenin Blanc from the Loire with just a little sweetness, although I don’t often pull this one off. Lobster, on the other hand, is easy: white Burgundy is yer only man, and at any price level (Meursault if someone else is paying). The same can be said for seared scallops that have not been gussied up too much.

Smoked salmon — especially the stunning wild stuff from Sally Barnes at Woodcock Smokery in West Cork — pairs beautifully with the austere dryness and salty tang of a manzanilla sherry but a dry German Riesling is no hardship either.

Fish and chips, as I mentioned recently, is another good partner for dry sherry but I find the saltiness can push one’s sherry consumption to an alarming volume. The best match, for me, is Champagne or, failing that (as is often the case) Cava. Prosecco is just too sweet.

I am a sucker for smoked haddock, ideally from O’Connell’s in Cork or from Duncannon in Co Wexford. Simply poached with crumbled black pudding (Inch House of Jane Russell’s, perhaps) and a softly poached egg, or combined with tomato, scallion, cream and topped with crisp breadcrumbs as ‘smokies’, my ideal partner is an off-dry Riesling, probably German.

I came to oysters late in life but I’ve never looked back. Chablis is supposed to the perfect match but I prefer a more affordable good Muscadet sur Lie.

Oily fish, for me, needs the laser-like cut of Grüner Veltliner from Austria. There’s something about the combination of acidity and pepperiness that seems to work exceptionally well with mackerel. I’m not sure about fresh sardines as I just don’t like them.