Asian Food & Wine evening,

with Jonathan Pedley MW - 17 October 2007

In a departure from the usual format, this event had the chairs pushed back, and the room taken up with a beautifully presented display of Chinese and Indian food. Wine is generally thought not to go very well with Asian food despite the claims made by some wine labels, so we were there to decide for ourselves by tasting a variety of foods with 9 different wines as well as a selection of beers. The evening began with a reasonable degree of gravitas, and Jonathan Pedley was able to command enough calm to explain the nine wines he’d chosen; all available from Waitrose, some which his past experience working with an Indian restaurant had led him to believe would be interesting to try, but a couple he’d thrown in as unknowns.

The evening quickly became chaotic and convivial, as everyone pitched in to try every dish with every wine. Hilary Reid-Evans had masterminded the luxurious selection of starters and main dishes (please contact her for recipes); official pouring was dispensed with as it became so much easier for people to pour their own. There was plenty of discussion, concentration, and opinions flying about, and it was pretty hard for Jonathan to call us to order to allow him to think through some conclusions.

And the conclusions? Plenty of differing opinions – some people were happy for their wine to ‘fight’ with the food while others preferred it to blend with it, and there were some eccentric preferences aired (who was it said satsumas went well with rioja?). On the Chinese side the reds didn’t fare well on the whole – except perhaps the Chiroubles (Duboeuf 2006), but some of the whites made a very good match, most notably the German Riesling (Dr Loosen’s Urziger Wurzgarten Kabinett 2006). Viognier did OK (Cono Sur 2006), and I had a personal preference for Sauvignon (Graham Vineyard 2006) with the seaweed dim sum. On the Indian side the Riesling again did very well indeed while the Sauvignon fared atrociously across the board, but some of the reds really came through. A Bonterra Zinfandel had enough sweet fruit to do well, but the star of the Indian show – unexpectedly for most of us – was a full-bodied Shiraz (Reynella Basket 2004), big, rich, with brambly damson fruit which went wonderfully well with lamb rogan josh, spicy black-eyed beans, and sour chick peas. As Colin Redman said in his summing up, it was great to have a few of his prejudices challenged – and as one of the participants loudly asserted, “to hell with the wine, wasn’t the food terrific!”

A review by Sophie Mack Smith