Wine with Beef

I am almost coming to the end of this current series of blogs about wine and food. Looking back, I have covered wine combinations with lamb, barbecue, vegetarian, fish and Asian dishes. This month will cover wine combinations with different cuts of beef. I love beef, almost as much as I love lamb, and as with lamb, there are many cuts. This month I will concentrate on five popular dishes each from a different cut of beef – Silverside, Sirloin, Rump, Fillet and Chuck. For each dish there will be three choices of wine – cheap and cheerful, mid-range and top-end. Needless to say all the wines this month will be red as the dishes will just be too heavy and full-on and will just overpower most white wines (with the exception of heavily oaked Chardonnay perhaps).

 

Roast Silverside (with all the trimmings)

Ok, so this is the classic English dish - roast beef dinner (hence the French nickname for the English – Les Rosbifs). It’s what Sundays were made for – roast beef, Yorkshire pud, roast potatoes, as much veg as you can fit on the plate, all smothered in lashings of gravy, which has to be made from the beef juices of course. 

Wines go with this dish:-

Franschhoek The Old Museum Merlot (South Africa)  £6.95

Cotes du Rhone Terre de Galets, Domaine Richaud (France)  £14.95

Chateau Cos Labory (France)  £48.50

Sirloin Steak (with Chunky Chips and mushrooms)

One of the simplest dishes around – steak and chips. Memories of Bernie’s Inns back in the 1980s come flooding back all of a sudden. Sirloin steak is one of the most flavoursome cuts and an especially good sirloin should have a nice marbelling of fat throughout the steak to lend succulence and flavour to the finished product. Lightly spread some oil over the steak (not olive oil) and sear on both sides, then cook to your particular preference. Remember, over-cooking the steak, takes out a lot of flavour. Serve with home-made chunky chips and mushrooms on the side.

Wines to go with this dish:-

Norte Chico Cabernet Sauvignon (Chile)  £5.99

Riberal Crianza, Ribera del Duero (Spain)  £15.75

Jim Barry The McRae Wood Shiraz (Australia)  £26.95

Steak Diane (with Rump Steak)

The danger with rump steak is over-cooking it. Get it wrong and you will end up with one tough piece of steak. Get it right however and it can be as succulent as sirloin and as soft as fillet. This dish is served with a Diane Sauce, which essentially is a combination of brandy, butter, Dijon mustard, Worcestershire Sauce, chives and parsley. So, there are lots of flavours going on. With new potatoes and veg, this is a lovely meal.

Wines to go with the dish:-

Cechetti Redtree Zinfandel (California)  £7.95

Allegrini Palazzo della Torre (Italy)  £16.95

Les Granieres de la Nerthe Cheateuneuf du Pape (France)  £24.50

Beef Wellington (with fillet steak)

Beef Wellington is a gloriously rich dish, with many flavours going on within. However, it is a pain in the proverbial to get right. Usually the pastry burns and the steak inside is undercooked (or even raw if it’s not been seared in a pan beforehand). So the tendency is to cook the steak in the pan a bit longer before wrapping it in pastry, so you end up with perfectly cooked pastry, but tough, overcooked steak inside. This is a dish where practice makes perfect (unless you are on Hell’s Kitchen with Ramsay, where they never seem to get it right, no matter how many times they try…). The mushroom and liver pate which adorns the top of the steak inside the pastry can be a little rich for many palates, but it is an integral part of the dish. Some commentators say that pastry can essentially dull the palate and wines are therefore difficult to match. I don’t subscribe to this point of view. Hopefully you won’t either.

Wines to go with this dish:-

Runamok Shiraz (Australia)  £6.50

Meerlust Red (South Africa)  £10.95

Hawkeye Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon (California)  £35.95

Beef Casserole (using braising steak)

Ahhhhh, cold autumn and winter evenings, sat around the fire with a bowl of warm and hearty beef casserole. Best slow cooked over a low heat for many hours so the beef just melts in the mouth. Additions to the casserole can be many and totally up to the chef. Carrots, potatoes, red wine and onions are a must. Garlic if you so wish. Celery if you have no taste whatsoever and a 1978 Ford Capri if you are mad. The beef should be lightly rolled in flour beforehand then seared in a pan for colour, then cooked with everything else very slowly.

Wines to go with this dish:-

Persimmon Grenache (France)  £7.99

Chateau La Voulte Gasparets Corbieres (France)  £16.95

Vega Sicilia Alion 2005 (Spain)  £52.95

So that’s all for this month. Try some of these dishes out and pop in for any of the wines. Next month is my final blog of 2010 and I will be picking wines to go with Xmas dinner. More steak anyone????

Remember, wine is great. Especially in moderation.

The Doctor is in the House

Your Wine Questions Answered….

Gray’s Blog January 2012

Phew!! Christmas over for another twelve months. As you’ll know, Christmas is the busiest time for anyone working in the retail sector. We go from 0 to 60 in no time at all and then as soon as New Year’s Eve is over, then we go back to zero again very quickly in January. As such, January is the perfect month to reflect on the past year and to take stock of what worked well for you as a business and what didn’t work so well. It’s similar on a personal level, especially for me. I always look at what I’ve done well and what I could have done better. Business-wise I’ve seen our store in Heswall grow month in month out since we opened in June 2009. We’ve received such lovely praise from many, many of our customers and I would just like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their support and loyalty in such a trying financial time for the country. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you and I just hope that we can continue to provide such great wines, beers and spirits in Heswall for many years to come. From a personal perspective, I managed to lose quite a lot of weight in the second half of 2011 and my aim in 2012 is not to put it back on!!! It’s been tough and I’ve had to cut right back on my wine intake (really tough since I’m surrounded by it 50 hours a week..), but it’s all been worthwhile and when I do crack open a bottle now I enjoy it better than ever before.

Anyway, speaking of matter vinous, during December I was asked by a number of customers what my favourite Corks Out wines were of 2011. I said I’d have a think about it and they could read about them all in January. Rather than just look back through my “What we’re drinking” selection and regurgitating that, I’ve had a proper think about what wines of ours I’ve tried in 2011 and below is my “Ten Faves”. Please note they are in no particular order.

1. The High Road Classique 2007 £15.95

Okay, so this probably is my number one favourite wine of 2011.  A South African red made in a Bordeaux style. If it was from Bordeaux it would be at least twice the price. It’s just sooooooooooo lovely and rich and fulfilling. I really can’t speak too highly of it.

2. The Foundry Roussanne 2010 £12.99

A little gem which we acquired a small parcel of in October. Lots of honey and floral aromas with a smooth, luscious palate. Great on its own or with spicy food.

3. Chateau Labadie 2006 £14.99

A Cru Bourgeois Medoc that punches above its weight. Toasty oak and black fruit with ripe tannins and a long finish. Perfect with roast leg of lamb or roast beef.

4. Chateau l’Enclos Pomerol 2007 £30.13

My Christmas dinner wine. Loved it when we had our Bordeaux tasting in October. Loved it again on Christmas Day. Just shows how forward drinking and ready some of the 2007 Bordeaux reds are.

5. Black Cottage Pinot Gris 2010 £12.50

Hello. Where did this little beauty come from?? Pinot Gris from New Zealand can be tricky to make – generally they have the ripeness associated with those from Alsace, but tend to have lower acidity making them “flabby”. This certainly has enough acidity to balance the ripeness of fruit, but not so much as to make it appear tart. Try it with Thai cuisine for the best results.

6. Morton Estate Mimi NV £9.99

This has fast become our best selling fizz outside of Prosecco. And I can see why. It is so much better than many cheaper end of the scale Champagnes out there. Same grapes, same method of production. The label is great too – I call it a “marmite” label – you either love it or hate it!!

7. Conan the Barbera 2008 £14.81

My favourite Italian wine in the shop. Many Barbera d’Asti wines are thin and acidic (none of ours thankfully), but this one is fully ripe, rich and rounded with layers of complexity. Made by an Englishman who ran a Cheshire wine merchants until the call of the winery beckoned him to north-west Italy. Thank God it did otherwise we’d have been robbed of this glorious wine.

8. La Rioja Alta Gran Reserva 904 1997 £35.69

1997 wasn’t the greatest of vintages in Rioja, but it just shows what one of the best Rioja producers can do, with perfect vineyard sites, great vineyard managers and fantastic winemakers, even in an “off” vintage. This is truly sublime. Showed it at a Fine Wine tasting in June and it just blew everyone away. I had tried it before a few times and was blown away myself. First had it with a shoulder of lamb and I was sad that I didn’t have a second bottle to open.

9. Dr Loosen Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese 2009 £21.99

I have loved Erni Loosen’s Mosel Rieslings for many years now and when he came to visit back in the summer he showed us this latest vintage of his fantastic Spatlese. By George it was magnificent!!! So complex. So beguiling. So eminently more-ish. So beautiful.

10.  Domaine Richaud Terre de Galets Cotes du Rhone 2009 £17.89

Quite simply one of the best southern Rhone Valley reds I’ve ever tried. This is the third vintage we’ve taken of this sublime wine and the 2009 in no way disappoints. Deep and inky with handfuls of wild herbs and violets behind swathes of blackberry fruit. This works sooooooo well with rich casseroles.

Right then chaps, that’s my ten faves of 2011. Hopefully you’ve tried some, or even all of them yourselves and enjoyed them as much as I have.

Speak to you again in February.

Remember to drink well, but drink responsibly.

Cheers.

Gray. 

heswall@corksout.com

I look forward to hearing from you. In the immortal words of Dr Frasier Crane, “I’m listening.

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Graham @ Heswall