Alsace and Burgundy Oz and James travel to Alsace and Burgundy this week. Try matching our suggested recipes with the bold and flavoursome wines from these regions.

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Oz on Alsace wine with food

Recipes

“Alsace has some brilliant white wines. The region is fairly far north and very dry and sunny. You get some wonderfully steep vineyards on the Vosges mountains which produce some really intense white wines. These are sensational with cheese. Try a local Gewürztraminer - with its viscosity and smell of lychees, honey and rose petals - with a strong cheese like Munster. The cheese can disguise the flavours of the wine, so delicate wines just don’t work.

“The big powerful Alsace wines work well with strongly flavoured pork dishes. Try one of the powerful white grapes, such as the local Pinot Gris (which is the same grape as Pinot Grigio - the favourite of all those ladies who lunch, but with a smokier, ‘sweatier’ honey character), rather than a red wine. It’s also perfect with a stew packed with the local flavours of fermented cabbage, sausages, duck and ham.”

Oz’s wine fact

“Alsace is the only appellation contrôlée region in France that can use the grape variety on the label, (which is the easiest way to let people know what the wine tastes like).”

Try dryer styles Alsace Gewurztraminer and Pinot Gris wines with these typical Alsace dishes:

• Quiche Lorraine
• Foie gras and ham hock terrine
• Carbonnade of pork with mushrooms
• Gratin of smoked haddock, spinach, emmental and crème fraîche

A sweet Gewürztraminer, made from grapes harvested later in the season, when they’re ultra-sweet, would go well with apple desserts like this one:

• Hot apple tart

Oz on Burgundy wine with food

Oz’s opinion on Burgundy wine and food differs pretty radically from most other professional wine tasters. Most would agree that Burgundy’s red and white wines are the ultimate food wines, with fantastic balance and finesse. Oz, on the other hand, says: “As for a food match with Burgundy, I’d rather drink it alone, to be honest.”

As great as red Burgundy (based on the Pinot Noir grape) and white Burgundy (mostly based on Chardonnay) are on their own, we’d recommend you drink them with food. Lighter Burgundy white wines, such as Chablis, go brilliantly with seafood dishes such as these:

• Warm prawns with fresh borlotti beans
• Crab and fennel tagliatelle
• Californian scallop salad

If you like richer, oak-aged styles of white Burgundy, try a glass or two with these dishes:

• Butterflied chicken breasts filled with wild rice and forest mushroom pilaff
• Pot-roasted guinea fowl with confit onion
• Rillons

Red Burgundy wines go well with stews, many red meat dishes and are sublime with feathered game dishes, such as partridge and pheasant. Try these:

• Beef bourguignon
• Coq au vin
• Mustarded rib eye steak with honeyed oven chips
• Salmi of pheasant with roast chestnuts
• Pot-roasted partridge with cabbage and chestnuts