Eat Drink Live

What to match with The Prodigal Spear (an asparagus recipe)? Asparagus is a very difficult food to match wine with and it’s out of season here (though M&S fly it in from Peru).

I’m going to go with a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. NZ Sauvignon Blanc has a very distinctive aroma and flavour, so distinctive that New Zealand have pretty much claimed Sauvignon Blanc as their own.

You’ll sometimes read asparagus on a tasting note for NZ Sauvignon Blanc, so it just seems to make sense.

I’m also choosing it as there’s decent quality stuff widely available, Astrolabe, Wither Hills, Montana, Saint Clair, Oyster Bay, Villa Maria all hover around the €12-15 mark.

iFoods.tv

Okay, iFoods.tv is far more than a blog (which they have as well).

Fresh from their appearance on the Dragon’s Den, I’ve picked the perfect steak recipe to match up with. Easy enough a match this time and I’m going to pick a nice bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. It’s one of the most popular red grapes, grown almost anywhere grapes can grow so there’s plenty of it about.

For the price conscious, look no further than the Chilean Casillero del Diablo Cabernet Sauvignon from Concha y Toro which is widely available in supermarkets and wine shops. Moving on up, try the really excellent Nolan Cabernet Sauvignon from the Wrattonbully wine region of South Australia. I tried this recently and it was really excellent. Available from The Corkscrew wine shop in Dublin.

English Mum

Rather than match up with one of English Mum’s food recipes, I’ll just point you over to her Elderflower champagne recipe. Looks delicious. If only we had a summer to match.

Tast.ie (formerly The Humble Housewife)

What to match with Tast.ie’s chicken satay recipe? You’ve got peanuts, a bit of spice, so initially it’s a tough match to make. A light wine would get drowned out by the strong Asian flavours and something too fruity would probably clash. The conventional match is a Gewürztraminer, and it’s probably worth sticking to. Alternatively, why not try a Grüner Veltliner which has a little bit of pepper and spice?

Italian Foodies

With an Italian food blog (based in Limerick), you have to match most of their recipes with an Italian wine. For this bistecca alla fiorentina (T-bone steak, Florence style) recipe I think a Chianti from just down the road wouldn’t quite stand up to the beef, so I’d go a littler further south, past Siena to a town called Montalcino and pick up a nice Brunello. Made from the Sangiovese grape, just like Chianti, but with far more depth and body.

Ruth’s Kitchen Experiments

Some fantastic recipes here that appeal to my sweet tooth. For Ruth’s Orange and Poppy seed cake, I’m going to go with a sweet wine. The Royal Tokaji Blue Label could be a fantastic match as its dominated by strong orange marmalade flavours. Available from O’Briens wines.

Well done fillet

The Twenty Major of food blogging (I mean this as a compliment). Rather that match to a recipe (there are few, if any) I’m linking to a review of Tedford’s in Belfast. What caught my eye was the wine, a “Txakoli”

a white wine from the Basque Country. It came recommended and I’m so glad I put my trust in Sharon. There is a very gentle almost fizz to this crisp, light bodied gem of a wine. With Tedfords being a seafood restaurant their wine list is structured to match the dishes they serve so it was no surprise that the Txakoli went so well with my turbot and scallops. This was the first time I have tried Txakoli but I will be having some that again, soon.

I’m heading over to Basque country in a couple of weeks and looking forward to trying Txakoli.

Martin Dwyer

Martin Dwyer has an almost endless list of amazing recipes. While I’m off to load paper into the printer to print them all off, I’m thinking of a nice Pinot Noir to go with this Roast Loin of Lamb with Orange and Mint Stuffing. I’d go back to Burgundy for this one. If there’s any left, the Domaine des Croix from Berry Brothers would be perfect.

Little bird eats…

Jen adapts a lovely Cherry and goat’s cheese salad recipe which originally appeared in The Sunday Times (UK).

We bypassed Chianti on the way to Montalcino for Italian Foodie’s Florentine steak so let’s take a U-turn and head back there to pick up a nice Chianti Classico for the cherry and goat’s cheese.

Chianti Classico is characterised by cherry flavours with a high acidity so it should match the cherries while cutting through the goat’s cheese. Why not the very decent Rodano Chianti Classico from Bubble Brothers in Cork.

Update: thanks to Julian, I’ve been alerted to far more foodie blogs out there so I’ll make this post a kind of regular series, matching wines to nice recipes I spot.

Any other Irish food sites out there? Let me know, leave a comment