Chocolate and wine matching

With Easter just around the corner, culinary thoughts may well be turning towards chocolate. On Sunday, the Easter Bunny will hopefully arrive bringing chocolate eggs, rabbits, truffles and other scrumptious goodies.

There are people who claim not to like chocolate. This is something that I've never been able to understand though I frequently wish that I fell into that category (...I'd be a great deal less rotund). However, I have to tell you that over the past few days I have been suffering rather from chocolate excess. Yesterday I found myself unable to even look at a chocolate.

Shocking, isn't it?

The reason for my sudden chocolate aversion is due entirely to over-indulgence. On Saturday I hosted a chocolate and wine matching workshop for work and have been munching on the sublime leftover chocolates ever since. They were amazingly good (especially the salted pralines) but deeply intense and 'serious' chocolates. I've definitely eaten too many.

However, for the greater good, I have decided to post about chocolate despite my current aversion. Or rather, I've decided to post about matching chocolate and wine. It isn't an obvious combination certainly. In fact, in many cases, the combination can be downright disastrous. Chocolate's delicious melty texture coats the palate, making is tough for any wine to get through. The intense flavour of good quality chocolate plus the high sugar content of some render the brown stuff even less wine-friendly.

However, all is not lost! There are wines which can work with chocolate (and chocolates for that matter).

My tips, for those who are interested, are as follows:

1. Fortified wines often work best. The extra alcohol stands up to the texture and intensity of chocolate. There are plenty to choose from. My top choice might be a Malmsey Madeira which works particularly well with any chocolate dessert featuring nuts.

Sherry is another good choice - choose either a sweet oloroso (oloroso dulce) or for ultimate decadence, try a Pedro Ximenez poured over chocolate and vanilla ice cream. Divine.

Port can work - I've had chilled tawny port alongside many a chocolate torte and the match is reasonable.

Look too at fortified reds from the South of France - Banyuls or Maury for example. For me, these work well with chocolate deserts featuring red fruits.

2. The Muscat grape is your friend. Or rather, it is chocolate's friend. In most of its forms actually. Of course, the deep and sticky fortified raisined muscats from Rutherglen in Australia work a treat but you can go off-piste here too. A real winner from our tasting at the weekend was a light and frothy Moscato d'Asti. This fun and frivolous Italian classic is especially good with white chocolate (not that there is such a thing per se) and also with creamy milk chocolate truffles. It would also be worth a try with a light and airy milk chocolate mousse.

3. Sparkling Shiraz is not for everyone but I've met many who really enjoy it alongside a slice of chocolate cake. Certainly better than a glass of dry Champagne to accompany the cake at a birthday party.

4. Finally, it is important to know which wines to avoid when serving up your chocolate-fest. Avoid anything dry or tannic - ideally you need as much if not more sweetness in the wine as in the dessert. A dry, tannic red will be stripped of its fruit by a mere mouthful of chocolate. Avoid classic dessert wines such as Sauternes - save these lighter, creamy puddings or even blue cheese.

With that, I wish you all an extremely Happy Easter!

Introducing Flag Radio...

I've been a bad little blogger.

To the lovely Lynn of Lynn's Cooking Blog, I can only apologise. And try to make slight amends...

Lynn has just embarked on an exciting new career as a food writer and broadcaster. She has a weekly slot on the newly-launched Flag Radio, an internet-based radio station. Her first cookery slot was today, at lunch time, appropriately. And guess who her very first guest was?? Yes, it was me!

Lynn interviewed me earlier in the week - we had a great chat all about one of my very favourite topics: wine! We chatted about how I got started in the wine business, my favourite wine styles and food and wine matching. In particular, Lynn was interested in my tips for Christmas food and wine matching.


So - why am I such a bad blogger? Well... I neglected to tell you all about the interview in advance. Had I been more organised, I would have sent you over to www.flagradio.com in time for you to listen to Lynn's very first broadcast.

Anyway, if you are around next Monday at 3pm, then do tune into Flag Radio to hear Lynn's next cookery slot!

STOP PRESS: the interview will be repeated at 3pm this Friday! Do tune in, if you have a chance. If you miss it, you should be able to find a podcast of the interview on the website from next Monday.

Incidentally, in case you are wondering what relevance these photos have, I must tell you that they are photos from the vineyards of Bordeaux. I visited last month, just as harvest was beginning. The view over the vineyards from my hotel room was spectacular, especially at sunrise when the vineyards were misty and magical.

A Tuscan Feast: cantucci con vin santo

Why is it that holidays always go so quickly? I'm sure that last week went far faster than any normal work week. For want of a better cliché, time does indeed fly when you are having fun. I returned yesterday afternoon from a week in a beautiful villa in Tuscany, shared with twelve friends. Days were spent lazing by the pool, books in hand and evenings feasting upon the best of local produce both liquid and solid (!)


I also visited some of the region's charming hilltop towns and villages: Pienza, Montepulciano, Radda in Chianti and Montalcino. The attraction of this area is clear to see - beautiful towns untouched by the passing of time amidst eye-pleasing countryside of rolling hills, vineyards, cypress trees and olive groves. What is not to love?


Although I did venture out for a couple of typically Tuscan lunches, we cooked for ourselves in our villa. It was interesting to be with a number of keen cooks and learn from their inventiveness in the cucina. Each evening we gathered round a huge table outside and feasted on Italian produce by candlelight whilst putting the world to rights (...and fending off the mosquitoes).

Of course, no trip to Italy would be complete for me without taking some time to learn a little more about the nation's wonderful wines. Italy's wine offering is surely the world's most diverse with thousands of indigenous grape varieties and myriad styles. As well as visiting a favourite Chianti producer (Fontodi), I also spent an afternoon visiting the domaine of Gianni Brunelli in Montalcino. The view from his family home (and offices) was stunning. As indeed were his wines.


Having said that, the view from the hammock back at the villa wasn't that bad either...


Usually when I return from a holiday I find myself craving something thoroughly different to eat - perhaps something Thai or a British classic such as shepherd's pie. On this occasion, however, I was still firmly in Italian mode and wasn't ready to move on from one of my favourite cuisines. So, today, I found myself back in my favourite space (my kitchen) pottering about and producing a thoroughly Tuscan feast. Clearly, I wasn't ready to let the sun set forever on my holiday...



(Hope you appreciate that seamless yet entirely gratuitous link to my sunset picture - I just love those rays of light coming from between the clouds?!).

Anyway, as regular readers will know, it is usually the last course that first gets my attention. For that reason, I'm staring with sharing this recipe for cantucci. Cantucci are small, crunchy biscotti which are served throughout Tuscany alongside a glass of vin santo. The idea is to dip them into the accompanying sweet wine.

Traditional cantucci are made with almonds but today you find them in all kinds of flavours: chocolate, pistachio, raisin, lemon. You name it. A favourite I discovered on holiday was cantucci con fiche (cantucci with figs) and so I decided to try and recreate these. I didn't have any almonds to hand but decided that I'd try using toasted pine nuts. My cantucci con pinoli worked rather well, I think.

Just to clarify the difference between biscotti and cantucci: biscotti is the Italian for 'biscuit' and covers all kinds of biscuits and cookies. Literally, it means 'twice-cooked (and indeed these biscuits are cooked twice). So, cantucci are a type of Italian biscuit. 'Biscotti' is all-encompassing. Cantucci is specific. Are we all clear on that now?! I hope so.

Anyway, you can flavour these beauties however you fancy. I divided the dough in two to create the two types. You could go traditional and choose the almonds (toast them first) or add chunks of chocolate or any other flavour you favour. The world is your oyster.

Cantucci con fiche e cantucci con pinoli
Makes around 24



Ingredients:

250g plain flour (plus extra for dusting)
250g caster sugar
pinch of salt
2 large eggs
40g pine nuts (a smallish handful)
6 dried figs

1. Pre-heat oven to 220C. Toast the pine nuts in a dry, non-stick frying pan until fragrant and just brown.

2. Sieve the flour into a bowl and mix with the sugar and salt. Make a well in the centre and add the eggs. Mix together thoroughly - start with a spoon and then get your hands in there. At first you'll think that it will never come together but resist the temptation to add water - it will come together eventually.

2. When the mixture had just come together, divide in two. To one half add the toasted pine nuts. To the other half, add the figs, chopped into smallish bits.

2. Turn each mixture in turn out onto a floured surface and knead until you have a smooth and elastic dough. This will be sticky so you'll need a fair bit of flour to dust hands and surface. You'll get there eventually! Roll the dough into loaves: round sausages which you then flatted very slightly.



3. Oil a baking sheet and dust with flour. Place loaves on top and bake for 25 minutes until just golden but still softish inside.

4. Remove loaves from tray and slice on an angle. Each biscuit should be around 2cm in width.

5. Place back in oven and bake until crisp and golden - another 10 minutes.

5. Enjoy dipped into a glass of vin santo or a cup of coffee!

Please note - contrary to the evidence, I did not make monster-sized cantucci. The glass is very small!

Madeira Island - no place for vampires

My holiday seems like an age away already! Since returning on Saturday, I've been to Leeds, Sheffield and Nottingham, driven a high sided van down the A1 in the storms and had my car broken into. But just looking through the photos a moment ago reminded me of what a lovely week it was. Madeira is a stunningly beautiful place of rugged mountains, glittering sea, dazzling flowers and smiling faces.


The natural beauty of the place really is staggering though unfortunately, many visitors don't get to appreciate all that the island has to offer. Too many remain in the capital, Funchal, and delighted by its pretty cobbled streets, gorgeous gardens and stunning situation fail to venture into the rugged interior. Those who do will be rewarded by towering mountains, breathtaking views and a taste of rural life that has hardly changed over the past century. What a refreshing change from the usual hurly-burly of life in London!


Of course, that is not to say that Funchal isn't a great city. Sitting in a natural amphitheatre, it is the ideal base for a Madeiran holiday. Our hotel was situated in the hills a little way from the centre and had spectacular views over Funchal bay, the harbour and the Atlantic ocean. By day and by night...

But what of the food? Well. I'm not sure I'd recommend Madeira as a gourmet's paradise although it certainly has the raw ingredients - the mild climate mean that exotic fruits and vegetables are in abundance. A visit to the colourful mercado dos lavadores is a must to see all that the island produces. There were numerous fruits I didn't even recognise! What is truly remarkable is the terrain on which Madeiran farmers cultivate their crops - steep terraces cut into the mountainside make working the land back-breaking and laborious. And there is no rest for the wicked - the climate means that most fruit and vegetables ripen several times a year. It is not unusual for farmers to get four lots of potatoes in a year! Taking a walk through the farm terraces was a real eye-opener - I even saw my first ever avocado tree.


Unsurprisingly, fresh fish and shellfish is also delicious when prepared simply with olive oil, a little garlic and herbs. The speciality is 'espada', or black scabbard fish. To look at one, freshly caught, you might not be so keen to eat it. It is hardly the most appetising-looking specimen. This is because these fish live in the very depths of the ocean, surfacing only at night when they seek shallower waters in which to feed. Fishermen head out at around 2am to seek their catch to sell at market the following day...

I really enjoyed this fish - a fairly firm white fleshed fish with a pleasant flavour. It appears on every single menu, usually cooked in five or six different ways so it was fortunate that I liked it! I didn't try it cooked with banana - a speciality that I just didn't fancy!

Quality of meat was also excellent, in particularly the beef which was beautifully tender. I was slightly concerned that this was because the cows spent their lives living in tiny cowsheds on tiny terraces and therefore didn't move much, but I tried not to dwell on this too much. Some meat is also imported from the Azores. My favourite Madeiran speciality was the 'espetada' - a food usually served on high days and holidays. These are rather smart kebabs, I suppose. Large chunks of melt-in-the-mouth beef skewered with laurel twigs and grilled over an open flame. These are often served on extra long skewers which are hung ceremoniously above the table. This terrible photo should give something of an idea!

We enjoyed our 'espetadas' with sweet potatoes and salad, but fried bananas (!) and corn on the cob are also traditional.

Every meal should also begin with the really delicious 'bolo do caco' which is a type of flattened bread served with garlic butter and parsley -



Espetadas are also made with the ubiquitous black scabbard fish, mixed sea food and lamb. The best meals that we ate were the ones that were simple - seabass fillets grilled and served with a simple selection of vegetables, steak cooked to perfection on a hot stone and huge tiger prawns cooked with garlic. In fact, garlic featured in most dishes. Vampires visiting Madeira should beware. In my mind, attempts to 'smarten up' the food were less successful. Chefs seemed to be somehow stuck in the 70s or 80s - fiddly methods, prawn cocktails and an unhealthy obsession with flambéeing. Actually, the latter was quite welcome. I am particularly fond of crepes suzettes and the theatre associated with the whole flaming ritual was entertaining to watch...

During the week, I saw flambéed bananas, steaks, oranges, pineapples, prawns and pancakes.

Puddings haven't quite made it to Madeira - fresh fruit is the usual choice and is absolutely delicious, of course. I did enjoy a particularly good 'Pudim maracuja', or passionfruit pudding which was a creamy thing served in a glass, sweet and sharp at the same time - excellent. The Madeirans make up for their lack of puddings with an excellent array of cakes. Madeira cake as we know it in the UK is not, in fact, something you would find in Madeira. Bolo de Mel is the traditional cake of the island and it is delicious - a rich, dense honey cake made from sugar cane molasses and the odd nut plus a generous helping of spice. A bit like a dense ginger cake. I must find a recipe and try to reproduce it.

Of course, the thing I should really comment on is the wine. I absolutely adore Madeira wine. The wines are fortified and then matured in barrels in the sweltering hot attics of Madeira lodges, or heated in estufagem. This treatment would ruin most ordinary wines, but it is what makes Madeira so wonderful. The grape varieties in question take on a burnt caramel character with oxidation and the wines can be gloriously complex and interesting. Sercial and Verdelho wines are off-dry and make fantastic aperitifs served with a handful of nuts or a plate of cheese. Bual is somewhat sweeter and Malmsey the sweetest of them all. Malmsey is wonderful with chocolatey or nutty desserts or with a cup of coffee at the end of a meal.


Sadly, too many of us are familiar only with cheap cooking Madeira which can make wonderful sauces and gravies, but I urge you to discover the better wines. The best thing about them is that unlike Sherry and Port, they really do keep forever once open, especially the darker Bual and Malmsey wines. So, open a bottle, enjoy a glass or two and happily store in the cupboard until you fancy another glass (...if you can wait that long)!

Christmas Food and Wine Matching

As I was preparing the details for the exciting prize I am offering for this year's Menu of Hope campaign, I was thinking of how often the best laid plans do indeed to to seed. Not that this is always a bad thing, you understand. When I started this blog in April, earlier this year, I thought I knew how it would turn out. It went something like this: I'd set it up on a rainy afternoon as a bit of an experiment, type a few posts out about food and wine, probably lose interest/run out of things to post about/find no time to keep it up and then leave it out there to drown quietly in the blogosphere. It never occurred to me anyone would actually read it. Things certainly turned out differently - how could I possibly lose interest in something that connects me with so many other like-minded food enthusiasts? Too few things to post about? Try too many - I always seem to have a backlog of things I want to share. No time? Hmmm. This is closer to the mark. But my blog is now such a passion that I manage to make time for it (to the detriment of the filing/housework/ironing).



Perhaps the main thing I didn't plan on though, was the theme. I knew I wanted to write about food. But I also planned to write a great deal more about wine. Wine, after all, is in many ways more my area of expertise. I work in the wine business. I host wine tastings for a living. Wine is a huge passion. But as the months have passed, I have posted remarkably little about the fermented grape. A few wine suggestions to match recipes, here and there, but little else. I'm still not sure why this is. I suppose that the obvious reason for this is that I am involved with wine in some way or another for every hour of my working day. Whilst post-writing is usually accompanied by a glass of something-or-other, I maybe need to focus on something else once I get home.

Having said this, food and wine are inextricably linked. For me, one is simply inferior without the other (there are the odd exceptions... a refreshing German riesling goes down a treat on a summer's day with nothing to accompany other than the gentle hum of someone else mowing the lawn whilst I relax in a deckchair and I'm not one to refuse a glass of decent Champagne just on the basis that there are no smoked salmon blinis to accompany it). I give much thought to what wines to serve with the foods I serve. At this time of year, I am often called up by panicked friends for advice on what to serve over the festive period. What goes best with the turkey? Tawny or Ruby Port with the Stilton? Will any wine stand up to the richness of the Christmas pudding? Will last year's Sherry be good to drink this year (NO!)?



With this in mind, here are my hints and tips on wines for Christmas drinking. I hope you enjoy reading them, bearing in mind the following food and wine matching guidelines which I always stick to:



1. There are NO rules when it comes to food and wine matching. Red wines can and DO go with white meats and fish just as white wines can and DO go with cheese (often better than reds).



2. Taste is entirely subjective. Just because Sauternes is generally accepted as the perfect match for Roquefort cheese does not mean that you have to like it!



3. The key consideration when matching food and wine is... BALANCE. Take into consideration the 'weight' and intensity of your food and wine and try to balance them. Weighty food with weighty wines. Light food with light wines.



Starters

It is hard to generalise about festive starters - there is no one traditional starter at Christmas. So a few general suggestions -

Smoked salmon (and other festive fishy things) - in our household, smoked salmon is eaten twice on Christmas Day. Firstly, piled onto brown bread with lemon and pepper to nibble on whilst we open our presents and then late in the evening, if we have space after lunch, sometimes accompanied by a little scrambled egg.

I think there are three schools of thought when choosing smoked-salmon friendly wines...

1) Crisp and refreshing (to cut through the oiliness and act like a squeeze of lemon). Brut (dry) Champagne works well, especially if the salmon is in canapé form and accompanied by a crusty bottom, blini or creamy base. Champagne is also great with caviar. Chablis (or crisp, unoaked chardonnay from the New World) is also a good choice, as is sauvignon blanc from the Loire Valley (Sancerre, Pouilly-Fumé). I'd avoid the more tropical, overtly gooseberry-flavoured New Zealand sauvignons though. Dry, minerally riesling can also be a good choice. These wines all work very well with shellfish too.

2) Fat, oily and aromatic. Sounds faintly unpleasant, doesn't it? But the idea here is to match the oiliness of the fish with something similarly textured and the smokiness with an aromatic flavour. Exotically-scented, dry gewurztraminer from Alsace makes an unusual but highly successful match.

3) Dry Fino and Manzanilla Sherries. Served nice and cold and, most importantly, fresh. Treat as you would any other dry white wine - keep in the fridge for no more than a few days - and enjoy as the ultimate aperitif. Brilliant with olives and salted almonds too. And tremendously good value.

Pâtés and foie gras

Rich pâtés work brilliantly with rich, sweet wines. Honestly. I promise. Foie gras is traditionally eaten at Christmas in France and is usually served with Sauternes, Bordeaux's famous sweet wines made from semillon and sauvignon grapes that have been affected by 'noble rot', a fungus that feeds on the grapes, sucking moisture from them and thereby concentrating the sugars, flavours and acids. Sounds vile. Tastes divine! Ring the changes though and try other sweet wines - late-harvest gewurztraminer or pinot gris is good. If you don't want to overwhelm the rest of the meal by starting on something so sweet, stick to a drier Alsace pinot gris. With meaty pâtés, you could go with pinot noir or perhaps a good Beaujolais.

The Main Event

Turkey
This most festive of birds is a fairly forgiving creature and will go well with almost anything you care to throw at it. Some insist on white (in which case opt for a good chardonnay - I'd favour Burgundy but you could equally go for Australian, New Zealand or Californian example). I would, however, ask you to consider the pictures above and below for a moment...

Notice the difference? Yes. The top one shows a turkey. Plain. Unadulterated (save a little bacon). The bottom shows an obscenely large plate of food featuring turkey, chipolatas, kidneys wrapped in bacon, two types of stuffing, parsnips, roast potatoes, bread sauce, Brussels sprouts, giblet gravy, roasted carrots, cranberry sauce (and peas, but I'd prefer not to dwell on that dirty little habit of mine). What started out as a fairly lightly flavoured meal has now become anything but. Lots of rich flavours there. Your chosen wine needs to stand up to them all!

I favour red with the festive feast, I have to say. Bordeaux is the usual choice for my Christmas but pinot noir would be excellent with the turkey too, whether from Burgundy or New Zealand. I know some who insist on something heavier (an Australian shiraz, for example) but I'm not totally convinced. I like something with a bit of old-world elegance. Having said this, I recently tried a very good Californian Zinfandel with turkey, chestnut and cranberry pies at a food and wine matching session and was duly impressed. The flavours were superb with the cranberry element and held up well against the sprouts. Sprouts can be fiendish - their slight bitter flavour can make most reds taste slightly metallic. They work best with full-bodied, high alcohol reds. grenache and Zinfandel are both good candidates here.

Other festive birds and animals

Goose is great for some with gewurztraminer. I like it also with pinot noir. And I like pinot with most game birds- pheasant, partridge, grouse. Stick with cool climate pinot with a nice seam of acidity to cut through the goose-fat though.

Roast beef is another choice favoured by some - pick any favoured red and you'll probably be fine. Roast beef is my favourite way to show off any really good bottle of red that I have.

Leftovers

Boxing Day - a groaning table of cold turkey, ham, salads, cheeses and condiments requires a reasonably undemanding yet fruity wine to take on this smorgasbord of flavours. I'd opt for a good Beaujolais (probably one of the 'crus' such as Fleurie, Morgon or Brouilly). The lowish tannins will handle the cheeseboard up to a point (see earlier post on cheese and wine matching) and the lovely bright summer fruit and cherry flavours will act like a fruity chutney to the cold meats.

Turkey curry - spicing up the leftovers (I threw mine into a Thai green affair last year) screams out for the aromatic whites of Alsace. Again, gewurztraminer would be my choice of varietal here. An exuberant NZ sauvignon blanc could work too. As could a New World riesling, just a notch off-dry.

All things sweet and wonderful...

I have one word for you here: Madeira. Actually, I have a couple more for you too: Sherry and Port. I urge you to race out and buy a bottle of Malmsey Madeira (Henriques and Henriques do lovely 50cl bottles if you don't trust me 100%). Light the fire. Draw the curtains. Sit comfortably and then pour yourself a glass of this deeply coloured liquid. Stick your nose into the glass and breathe in. Mmmmm. What does it smell of? Christmas.

Yes, this divine stuff taste of figs and walnuts and caramel and coffee all at once. Gorgeously sweet but with firm acidity and backbone, this is the ultimate Christmas wine. Am I right? Or am I right? Gorgeous on its own with your feet up by the fire, this is also perfect with a slice of Christmas cake at tea time, with a mince pie, with Cheddar and Stilton and even with the similarly-flavoured Christmas pudding. It will even cope with the box of handmade truffles that are sitting on the sideboard - really it will.

If you feel the need to venture beyond the confines of Madeira, then do try some of the sweeter styles of Sherry. Sweet and nutty Oloroso sherries are marvellous with cheeses. Pedro Ximénez (PX for short) is a treacley, unctuous dream poured over vanilla ice cream.

Other Christmas pudding-friendly wines include wines made from the Muscat grape variety. Thick and sticky Rutherglen Muscat from Australia is oft described as 'Liquid Christmas Pudding'. If you prefer something less rich, then some insist that sparkling Moscato d'Asti works a dream. I haven't tried it, but am prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt!

Whatever wines you choose this Christmas, I hope you have a very merry time with them.

P.S. Do remember to check back on the 10th for details of the wonderful wine-related prize I shall be offering for this year's Menu of Hope raffle, plus details of where to find out about the other fabulous prizes!

Cheese and Wine

Mmmm. Look at all that cheese. The above photo (and others within this posting) were taken in the best shop in Montreuil-sur-Mer - a rather attractive walled town that is in fact not 'sur mer' at all, but in fact an hour from Calais, half an hour inland from Le Touquet. I visit often for work and 'Chez Caseus' is superb - you can smell the wares before you even enter the shop and once in I challenge anyone to walk away empty handed. Even if they don't like cheese (are there people who don't like cheese?).

Anyway, the purpose of this entry is not to extol the virtues of M.Caseus (does anyone know how to do accents on this blogging thing? It is driving me mad), but in fact to talk a little about matching wine with cheese.

Long hailed as the ultimate match made in heaven, cheese and wine actually make trickier partners than you might imagine. Contrary to popular belief, big red wines are not necessarily good with cheese and it is often dry or sweet whites which make better partners.

Why is cheese tricky to match with wine? It is high in fat (sadly), often quite salty and often has a melting, mouth-coating texture. The problem with 'big' reds is that the saltiness does not mix well with the tannins - the combined taste is unpleasant, somewhat bitter.

A further problem (or 'challenge') is the issue of the cheeseboard. A wedge of cheddar, a spot of brie and a nice stinky blue for good measure. Mmm. Delicious. Perhaps some goats' cheese too? These cheeses are as different as... (trying to think of alternative to chalk and cheese...) salmon and beef - it is impossible to find one wine that will compliment all of these cheeses. Far better to choose just one or two spectacular cheeses from one 'family' (hard, soft, goat, blue) and then select a wine to match.

So, all very well, but what DOES go well with cheeses? A few general tips to start.

1. Hard cheeses are the easiest on wine - if you want to serve a special red, be kind and serve something like a mature Gouda or Comte cheese.

2. Soft, runny cheeses such as brie are the trickiest - you have been warned!

3. Blue cheeses are great with sweet wines.

4. Regional combinations are often the best.

Some delicious combinations -

Goats' Cheese and Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire - a regional combination that works brilliantly. The acidity in the wine mirrors that of the cheese as well as cutting through the mouth-coating, almost cloying consistency.

Roquefort and Sauternes - A heavenly contrast between the saltiness of the the cheese and unctious sweetness of the wine.

Munster and Alsace Gewurztraminer

Vacherin and Red Burgundy

Manchego and Fino Sherry

Other ideas to try -

Oloroso sherries with hard cheeses and sweet olorosos with blue cheeses

Port with Stilton

Oaked Chardonnay with a creamy Cheddar

Beaujolais with washed rind cheeses such as Epoisses (Beaujolais is one of the most cheese-friendly reds due to its youthful fruitiness and low tannins)

There are many more great partnerships and I plan to add to this list - I love to hear your favoured combinations too.