Making a match point

SIX Home Counties restaurants came over all Californian this November. The idea was to promote Californian-style wine and food pairing, plus a bit of gentle competing for the title of 1998 Californian Food and Wine Pairing Champion.

It was cooked up by the Wine Institute of California, primarily to push the purchase of the region's wines in our restaurants, but also to bring attention to the confusing issue of matching food and wine. The Californians are so good at it, after all.

But was this just a veiled sales pitch on behalf of supplier Winefare, or did the participating chefs really pick up a thing or two?

"It was a real eye-opener," says Chris Colborough, chef at the Monkey Island hotel in Bray, Berkshire. "I never thought that the choice of wine would make such a big difference to the dish." His dish didn't win - pigeon on braised red cabbage, tortellini stuffed with Puy lentils and root vegetables paired with Saintsbury's 1996 Pinot Noir - but it's going down a storm in the restaurant, and has given him confidence to introduce an element of pairing on his menu in the New Year. He has already introduced a wine match for each of his desserts, by the glass or the half-bottle, and reports that it's going down well.

Before the final cook-off, at Pennyhill Park in Bagshot, Surrey, all six restaurants (chefs, restaurant managers, food and beverage managers) sat down to a one-day workshop, where the rudimentaries of food and wine pairing were discussed. Chaired by the institute's John McLaren and Winefare's James Rackham, the participants were given lots of thought-provoking exercises - like the line-up of cheeses, in varying levels of pungency, that were up against six different grape varieties in six different wines. Armed with their new-found knowledge and clutching a copy of Mary Evely's The Vintner's Table, they returned to their kitchens to prepare for the final.

"It really made me think," agrees chef Mark Flanagan of Wentworth Golf Club. "To be honest, we didn't all agree on the matches, but the important thing was that it got us talking - and thinking. And some things just plain startled me." The cheese exercise for one. "There was such a vast difference in the matches."

The winner was Simon Andrews, sous chef at Foxhills Country Club, with his supràme of guinea fowl on morel risotto with seared foie gras and a red wine essence, paired with a Clos du Bois Merlot after much experimentation. "I tried beef in a red wine jus but thought that was too boring, then I tried wild rabbit, then venison. I found it difficult, but in the end I was confident about the textures.

"What did I learn? Well, that it does make a lot of difference, and it was really interesting."

Geoff Barton, Foxhills' assistant restaurant manager (and sometimes sommelier) was there too, and he's happy. He's selling more wine than ever before and it has given both of them a better insight into each other's business.

"In California, pairing wine with food is a way of life," explains McLaren. "While we wouldn't encourage anyone to be overly precious about the wines they drink with their food, some careful thought really can make all the difference to the way both taste." n

by Fiona Sims