Wine’s not an easy subject, is it? Like many of you, I’m sure, I’ve got a few favourite grape varieties, I’ll recognise the names of a hatful of producers and I know enough to be mildly ashamed that I don’t like riesling more, but after that it’s all down to pot luck, a question of scanning the shelves until I find a bottle for around seven quid that hasn’t got a picture of a llama or a turtle on it.
I can’t tell you the times I’ve tried to commit the basics to memory, but it’s like herding cats. As soon as I think I’ve worked out if Châteauneuf-du-Pape is in northern or southern Rhône, I forget if Pomerol is left bank or right bank. I know a sommelier will see straight through me, and sniff, “Viognier with lamb, sir. How novel.”
Which is why it was such a great leveller recently to attend a lunch at the Wine Society that not only set about dismantling some of the “rules” about what goes with what, but also showed that no two experts will ever agree on anything anyway. “Who’s to say what is right or wrong?” says Janet Wynne Evans, the society’s specialist wine manager. “It’s easier to say what works well than what works badly as you seldom get really terrible mismatches.”
It’s a typically down-to-earth sentiment from a club set up in 1874 as a non-profit-making co-operative. For a lifetime fee of £40 its members have access to some 1,500 wines bought directly from the producers, making it one of the most extensive lists in the country.
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I wouldn’t presume to tread on Jane MacQuitty’s toes and comment on the individual merits of the wines, but I did learn that there’s no shame in having red wine with fish, that white wine can make a better partner to the cheeseboard than red, and that when in doubt you can do worse than have a nice glass of madeira.
The basic guideline, as I’m sure you all know, is to think not in colours, but in terms of balance: the weight and acidity of the wine should be compatible with that of the food. Once you’ve got that right, you are almost home and dry. We kicked off with a timbale of Mediterranean vegetables in order to test a producer’s theory that the best accompaniment to tomatoes is gewurztraminer. It wasn’t really, so that just goes to show that not even the guys who make the stuff have got all the answers. (In the end any fool could see that a Tavel rosé worked best.)
A piece of grilled salmon served on a bed of Puy lentils turned out to be tailormade for a gutsy pinot noir from Chile, which won out against a Fleurie and Haut-Médoc (left bank, I’m told). But the greatest revelation was the cheese. I knew sauternes was supposed to be knockout with Roquefort (but my God, and how!), but so too was chablis with chaource, sancerre with goat and that gewurztraminer again with Munster. According to Wynne Evans, cheddar is one of the most difficult cheeses to match, and a surprise winner there was a New Zealand pinot gris from Kumeu River. “But the only wine I know which could cope with all of them together is madeira,” she added.
Finally, a rich bitter-chocolate tart, which crucified the oloroso sherry and also a banyuls – “usually a very chocolate-friendly wine”. Once again, Wynne Evans plumped for madeira, a ten-year-old malmsey.
“I get calls from worried members who are serving a watercress and orange salad with lime vinaigrette and want recommendations,” she says, “and what can you say to them apart from ‘Don’t!’? But the bottom line is, if you are sitting there thinking what a lovely evening you are having, who cares if the wine doesn’t match the salad?”
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The Wine Society: 01438 740222
tony.turnbull@thetimes.co.uk