Dhruv Bakers Favourite Wines for Food
Riesling is one of my favourite styles of wine, and it suits my style of cooking perfectly. This is a fabulous wine, from a top, family-run estate in the Rheingau in Germany. It’s bone dry, but still very aromatic, with lots of lively citrus, floral, and gentle herb and spice character.
Decanter German Dry White over £15 Regional Trophy 2013
Gruner Veltliner is a favourite of mine, and very fashionable right now. This one’s from its home country, Austria, and it has just the right amount of spice, black pepper, and sweet fruit to balance its lime-zest freshness, and dry finish. It’s all about layers and textures in this wine.
There’s a lot of sweet spice in many of the dishes that I prepare and Viognier is a great match. This is from South Australia, and has a real fresh peach and apricot fruit and spice note to it – aromatic, yet bone dry, but with loads of character.
Gewurztraminer is one of the very best matches with spicy, and also chilli-infused food; on its own, it’s rich, perfumed, and off dry, and quite intense, but put it with a plate of food full of textured spices and it comes into its own. This one’s from South Africa and is full of bold, lychee, rose petal, honey and fresh lime flavours, and is a perfect foil to powerful, punchy dishes.
Decanter South African Single-Varietal White under £15 Regional Trophy 2013
Decanter International - Dry Aromatic under £15 2013
Albarinho is another grape variety with enough character to stand up to the various styles of spices I use. This has lots of warm, ripe peach, grapefruit and fresh herb character, and would be good with seafood dishes.
Apart from being fantastic value, this wine is a real pot pourri of spice, and rich, perfumed fruit; its ripe, grapey, almost lychee and mandarin aromas and flavours would definitely cope not only with spices, but with the heat of chilli too.
I’ve worked with lots of wine experts at my shows, and I’ve learnt that pink wines are great with full- on flavours and spice. There’s a natural fruitiness and juiciness which has enough character to cope, and this is a delicious example, made by an English couple in the South of France.
Elegant, yet very fruity, softer styles of red work with the dishes I love to cook. This one, from northern Italy is full of sweet plum and cherry fruit, lighter in style than many, and with a warm, low tannin style.
This is such a rich, soft, velvety style of red from California, with heaps of smooth, dark fruit, and ripe mocha edges – it’s natural sweetness, and silky style make it a natural match for my type of cooking.
IWSC Silver Medal 2013
Sometimes you just need a big, bold, full-on spicy Shiraz, full of its own sweet spices, to partner some classic, spicy, red meat dishes. This ticks all the boxes, with its big, bold, black pepper and cardamom character, and very full, intense flavours.
*This article is showing the prices and stock available on 28/02/2014.