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Traditional food and wine matchers suggest wine with some residual sugar to drink with Chinese food, because of the sweet, sticky flavours involved. I left it to the wine departments to choose which wine to send and many did send sweeter wines from Alsace and Germany. My budget didn’t allow for us to have a whole Chinese meal with the wine, but I rustled up some chicken and sweet red pepper in a hoi sin stir fry sauce. From a jar, I’m afraid, because I’d been out all day.
Despite our expectations, our favourite two wines were pretty much bone dry. I’m not sure I’ve ever run a blind tasting that included Leasingham Magnus Riesling, that didn’t put it resoundingly in first place. It is such a very, very good wine that I always bulk buy it when it’s on offer. It’s £7.99 at Somerfield, but also at Thresher, so if you buy 3 for 2 it works out at £5.33. The smell it very obviously and deliciously Riesling. In fact, it’s very obviously Australian Riesling. A mixture of lime juice, kerosene and crushed green leaves. The taste is crisp and clean, cutting through the sweetness of the food, without seeming sour itself. There is a touch of sweetness, but it’s definitely a dry wine. The flavour does something magical with the hoi sin.
Second favourite was Val do Sosego Albarino 2006, which is £6.99 from Oddbins. The smell is creamy and like fresh, ripe peaches, rather than the peach bubble bath that you find on Viognier. It has a fresh, clean, lemony taste. Like the Riesling, this wine brought out other flavours in the food, without seeming sour itself. It somehow made the food seem more savoury.
We loved Ernst Loosen’s Erdener Treppchen Vineyard Riesling 2006, which is £10.99 from M & S, but felt that half a bottle, shared with a friend over a Chinese meal might be just too sweet. It had a light delicate, rosy smell and was pretty sweet, yet clean and beautifully grapey.
Some wines really didn’t work. Preiss Zimmer Gewurztraminer 2004, which is £6.99 from Morrisons is absolutely typical of Alsace Gewurz, smelling of lanoline and roses. It had a slight fizz, hot alcohol and really did taste like roses. With the sweet food it was just too much. You’d need two glasses of water for every glass of wine. Waimea Pinot Gris, from New Zealand and Majestic is the sort of wine I would have expected to be ideal with Chinese food. The smell is spicy and the taste deep, sweet and rich. It fought with the food and the confusion of flavours was just too much.
On a completely unrelated subject, have you visited the Virgin Wines sites recently? They have launched a wine Auction, which is similar to eBay, but also the great “Name Your Price” system. They release 150 cases of a wine onto the sale and you name the price you’re prepared to pay. The 150 highest prices get the wine for that price, plus £5.99 P&P. Be very, very careful, though because it’s easy to click and click and click.