First growths, verticals. This is all getting a bit too high brow. A brief respite:
There’s a simple rule about wine and food matching: complex wine likes simple food, complex food likes simple wine. It works. Complex food with complex wine can be fantastic when it works, but it’s tricky to pull off and, even when successful, it’s like trying to watch two football matches at the same time.
I find wine much, much more interesting than food, so I generally try to take the former route when supplies allow. And I am a particular fan of peasant food, which is to say recipes borne out of a necessity of frugality. Or, more simply, and in particular: I love sausages.
If you live in North Hampshire or West Surrey, then some of the finest sausages known to man can be found at Newlyn’s Farm Shop. If you are in the paradise of South East London then Villager’s Sausages are the real deal, and they deliver. And, having read this dude I will shortly be investing in some sausage making equipment.
The ultimate sausage wine is Barbera d’Alba. My fave is from Sandrone: flashy fruit, flashy winemaking, and fruit-driven fleshiness that perfectly catches the savouriness of decent snorkers. An evening of bangers and Barbera from the right producers is hard to match.
A football aside: in the 1995/1996 football season, Auxerre did the French double, and they were my local team at the time. At the Auxerre/PSG game, the PSG fans shouted taunts of “Paysans, paysans!”. Tossers. The Auxerre fans responded: “PAYSANS! PAYSANS!” because they were proud of it. It’s a bit like “South London, La, La, La”. Or being a member of the British Sausage Appreciation Society. You just can’t buy class.
Next up: Pizza & wine matching advice.
