Experts choose wines to go with favourite UK dishes
A team of wine experts has come together to organise a list of the best wines to pair with 16 of the UK population’s favourite dishes including popular favorites such as fish and chips, strawberries and cream, and chicken tikka masala.
All together there were 17 wine critics involved in the process including Saturday Kitchen regulars Peter Richards and Susie Barrie, Group wine buyer for Hakkasan Christine Parkinson, and the Tate head sommelier Hamish Anderson. Together the critics blindly tasted hundreds of different wines looking fo the best choices for the ‘What Food What Wine’ 2012 Awards.
One of the most surprising results to come out of the blind taste trials may be the fact that sherry was one of the best matches for fish and chips. The judges felt that La Gitana Manzanilla was a great match due to its saltiness and weight and also thought that two great whites from New Zealand (the Nobilo Icon Marlborough and Morrisons’ Best New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc 2011) were great matches. The wines were great choices for fish and chips as the first is priced under £10 and the second is priced over for a bit more luxurious slice of fish.
For Indian curry, a Spice Trail 2011 Hungarian rose wine was found to be a great match. In order to come up with curry matches judges were treated to a special tasting at Vivek Singh’s Cinnamon Kitchen and sampled wines alongside chicken tikka masala, chicken korma, prawn curry, and lamb rogan josh.
Other matches were a South African Viognier that was found to pair well with the chicken korma and the New Zealand Gewurztraminer which was paired with the chicken tikka masala. Another surprise was the fact that white wine was found to be the best partner to cheese.
