White Wine with Meat

This past weekend has been incredibly hot, and with the sun and warmth of course come Barbecues, hence Helen’s prompt to write her recent blog on barbecue wines. This also made me think about our concern in the UK to still often want to have white wine with fish and red wine with meat, and on Saturday the two points came together to be met with approval.

Saturday evening, as often happily happens in the good weather, I received an impromptu invite to a friend’s home for a barbecue, they provide the food, and I provide the wine, of course! One of the guests was a new acquaintance, with the other three wine-tastes known to me very well indeed.

Before selecting the wines the new ‘palate’ was recounting how last night they had been out for dinner and that he chose an oaked Chardonnay as they were eating fish. My friend who had dined with him was not a fan of oaked Chardonnay and so hadn’t really enjoyed the wine that much, although she could see that it worked with their creamy fish dish. The gentleman, slightly disappointed that his attempt to try and find a white wine that she would enjoy (she drinks red, white, rosé, still, sparkling, dry, medium, sweet, fortified, gin …) had failed, announced that next time they would just go for a big red anyway (his first choice of style of wine). Her response to this was, not 100 per cent with conviction, that she was sure a light style of red wine would have worked just as well, if not better, I quietly agreed but decided to steer clear of this and persuade him with actions rather than words.

Two different styles of white wine with meat

So, dinner was to be lamb kebabs and steak marinated in an oily-citric dressing, with oiled and seasoned tomatoes, and a Caesar salad with a creamy dressing. Knowing that my new companion would rather have the 2004 Cru Bourgeois Medoc red I had selected, I left that unopened and proceded to open the first of my two whites. This wine was mainly an aperitif while the coals were warming and the kebabs constructed, a Grauburgunder (Pinot Gris / Grigio) 2010 from Baden, a dry example but with plenty of body, lots of flavour including some lovely ripe stonefruit, fresh lemon, and a good dollop of honey, it stood up to our nibbles of crisps and dips and helped the chef with his skewering of lamb, pepper, onion, lamb, pepper …

Kebabs ready, salads prepared, it was time to crack open my next bottle of white wine, this time a wine from a producer I have previously mentioned in my Puglia and Liguria blogs. Cantine Lunae Bosoni from Liguria, the middle of their three-range Vermentino wines, this one was their un-oaked, own-vineyard wine also a 2010. The wine gave the expected lovely high acidity, working with our tomatoes and citric dressings, it also had strong flavours of citrus and stonefruit, with some melon and an oily character too, so lots of varied flavours and all strong enough for barbecued lamb and sirloin steaks, but most importantly of course all four of us liked the wine.

We left the Cru Bourgeois for our guests to enjoy in the warm night air, in front of the log chimney.

Erica Dent