©2007, The Birmingham Post
Going out for a Balti? How about a glass of wine to match? Now that curry has replaced fish-and-chips and roast beef and Yorkshire Pudding as our national dish, the task is to find a suitable combination. The traditional fare demanded a nice Sancerre (Sauvignon Blanc) for the fish, and a good honest claret for the beef, but the wide variety of spices common to Indian cuisine demands a more thoughtful approach.
In an Indian restaurant, the conventional wisdom is to drink beer and, up to a point, it works. An ice-cold lager has the propensity to clean and refresh the palate, but gives little back in return. The excitement of wine is in its innate ability to interact with the dish, adding additional flavours and seasoning.
The attributes of a good curry match are relatively simple, be it red or white. The main requirement is up-front fruit, with low levels of tannin (in the case of red), and no oak. Too much tannin or oak simply dries out the wine and obstructs the flavours in the food, but surprisingly, the heat of a curry can often be offset by an inherent sweetness in the wine. Be warned, though, it's not a cuisine for such classic wines as Burgundy or Bordeaux!
Believe it or not, most herbs and spices used in Indian cuisine are reasonably wine-friendly. Of course, powerful and highly-spiced dishes such as a Vindaloo will, in most cases, obliterate a wine, but that's more a question of matching weight. Big flavours call for a full-bodied wine.
If there is a problem, then it's the format of an Indian meal which tends to be a spread of many different dishes, with layers of flavours and textures This makes it difficult to prescribe an exact match, other than a recommendation that the wines need to be flexible and accommodating.
Wanting to learn more, I recently teamed up with Indian culinary expert, Anita Sharma-James. She prepared a range of sample dishes to experiment with a case of wines provided by Tanners.
Starting with the whites, the Tanners Gascony white is grassy and herbaceous with a creamy finish. This proved particularly effective with a …., pakora, spinach and lentils. By contrast, the peachy lime-blossom Viognier, Condamine L'Eveque was a stunning match with a balti.
The Lurton Pinot Gris has spicy pear fruit, and this went particularly well with a yogurt and cucumber raita, a masala, lentil and Chicken Thariwala (onions and tomatoes). The oily texture and limes of the Riesling Kaefferkopf again matched a Samosa, a masala, spinach, lentil and balti dishes.
Even a simple Chardonnay can work. The Los Vilos has ripe melon characters, with a buttery off-dry finish, and the highlights were a Korma, pakora and Dhal.
A fresh fruity Rosé is not simply a safe bet, but a genuine star. The example from Domaine de Pujol was well-matched with spinach, masala, raita and Korma. A light red, such as a Beaujolais from Gamay can produce a simply stunning effect. The Lantigne Villages has vibrant raspberry fruit and combined well with Samosas, Raita, Masala, Korma, Spinach and Chicken Thariwala.
Grenache is another red grape that has the right attributes. The blend from the Minervois-based Ste Eulalie was my personal highlight, with crushed peppery redcurrant and raspberry flavours that was particularly striking with most dishes sampled, with the exception of the Samosa. The spicy blackberry-fruit Trivento Syrah followed a similar pattern.
Our conclusions were that Indian food-and-wine matching is a far more complex subject than we had originally imagined. Whilst a perfect match was rare, some dishes brought out fruit, whilst others emphasised the spice. Some wines highlighted earthy characters and others left a metallic taint. An intriguing, fascinating and almost bizarre exercise, it's well worth repeating.
Anita Sharma-James specialises in Indian cookery courses and dinner parties. For more details, e.mail her on thespicetrade@aol.com, or telephone: 01527.873303.
To try the wines for yourself, contact Tanners Wines on: 01743.234455, or visit: www.tanners-wines.co.uk.