Roasted Vegetable Tart Wine Pairing

In my house, anything made with pastry is always popular whether it’s sweet or savoury. A favourite vegetarian dish for a family dinner is a delicious roasted butternut squash, onion, tomato and feta tart. First you chop a small butternut squash, and then cut a red onion into eighths. Roast them both in the oven with a little oil and seasoning for about 20 minutes. Once cooked, place the squash and red onion in a large bowl and add 85g of chopped sundried tomatoes, a tablespoon of chopped rosemary, a tablespoon of chopped thyme, 225g of crumbled feta cheese, 30g of toasted pine nuts, and a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar.

Meanwhile prepare two sheets of puff pastry (I’ve even heard Mary Berry say that she doesn’t make her own, so I don’t feel guilty for buying ready-made pastry sheets!). You slice the first sheet in half lengthways. Then with the second sheet you cut strips 2-3cm wide that you place around the perimeter of the original halves to make a border. Brush your two tart ‘shells’ with a little egg or milk and pop them in the oven for about 5 minutes. Remove and add your filling and return to the oven for another 5-10 minutes or until the pastry turns golden brown.

This tart is delicious served with a crisp salad and will serve 6-8. If preparing ahead, I zap the filling in the microwave for 5-10 minutes before adding it to the tart shells so that it’s already beginning to warm through.

Roasted Vegetable Tart Wine Pairing – the wine

This is a nice one to be asked to pair with as it will work with many wines; the reason being that even though the balsamic can have some sweetness to it and, as the vegetables are roasted so potentially caramelized, will have some sweetness to them too, there is a lot of salt (feta) and plenty of acid in this dish (tomatoes and balsamic) to boost most wines. What do I mean by boost? Both acid and salt help to bring out the flavours in wines so as that is the aim of the grape-grower, not just sugar ripeness but lots of flavour ripeness too, we cannot go wrong with enhancing the flavours that are in the wine. With the rosemary too this is a dish that has a lot of flavour to stand up to some deliciously fruity wines but I would also recommend wines with high levels of acidity to pair with the acid in the dish.

So there are plenty of wines that meet this requirement but today I am in the mood for a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. If I was drinking red I would sway towards Greece (it must be the feta that has subliminally led me that way); at a Greek wine tasting with Southern Wine Roads recently, we had an aged Xinomavro by Dalamara Paliokalias that was lovely, Southern Wine Roads, a specialist Greek Importer are worh a look; also M&S do one by Thymiopoulos that I am partial to too.

‘Stin iyia mas!’ (To our health!)

Roasted Vegetable Tart Wine Pairing – written by Julie Strutt DipM and Erica Dent DipWSET, Enjoy Discovering Wine