Food & wine wisdom
Decanter contributing editor Fiona Beckett shares her food and wine pairing expertise
FAIR WEATHER FRIEND BOEUF BOURGUIGNON
The name of the dish suggests you need a bottle of Burgundy to make it, but as always such matters are contentious, with some writers – including Larousse – suggesting any red wine and others such as Richard Olney going for the real McCoy. My view is that inexpensive Burgundy is too light these days and expensive bottles far too grand to survive such a long cooking process. Maybe search out a less expensive Pinot from the Auvergne, say, or Languedoc, but don’t go for too sweet-fruited an example, because this is fundamentally a deeply savoury dish. Burgundy would still be my dream match, a bottle that is in its prime rather than its dotage – a Morey St-Denis or a Pommard maybe, or perhaps a mature Felton Road or Rippon Pinot Noir from Central Otago, NZ. But don’t skimp!
TRICKY CUSTOMER PUMPKIN PIE
The general rule – if there are such things when it comes to food and wine pairing – is that your wine should be sweeter than your dessert, but pumpkin pie makes that pretty difficult. It’s not just that pumpkin itself is sweet, it’s sweetened further by brown sugar or maple syrup, and often topped, on the Thanksgiving table, with glazed nuts, a streusel or a layer of meringue.
If that’s the case, my view is to go for broke, quite honestly. I’d try something equally indulgent like a sticky Rutherglen Muscat, a sweet Marsala or a young Aussie tawny ‘Port’. With a ‘lighter’ style of pie (we are talking comparatively here) you could try a southern French or, perhaps even better, Greek Muscat. But not a Sauternes or Riesling, I’d say: both are a bit too light.