How to pair sparkling wine with food
Or: excuses to drink more sparkling wine
This piece is an extension/re-edit of a piece I wrote for my “wine wisdom” column in Glug magazine earlier in the year.
When you pop a bottle of sparkling wine, it’s usually to fill glasses full of celebratory foam, but what if we looked at fizz differently? After all, it’s wine, and therefore it has plenty to offer as a food pairing option. In Anita Brookner’s supremely poolside-readable novel Hotel du Lac, the imposingly rich widower Mrs Pusey and her bland daughter sip endless glasses of Champagne at every meal, refusing to choose a different bottle throughout their stay, no matter their choices at the supper table. Fair play to them, I say.
This book happens to be one of my all-time favourites, there’s a soothing melancholy about the whole story that laps at each page like the lake our heroin Edith has been sent to for “recuperation” (she had an affair and people found out.) The hotel itself is a bastion of old world gentility, the Puseys a last gasp of archaic excess in a Europe that has vastly changed since the Hotel du Lac was built. I love the detachment of it all, and the individual neuroses of each guest.
But anyway, back to the wine. Unlike Mrs and Miss Pusey’s bar bill, it doesn’t always have to be Champagne. Sparkling wine of all types can lift dishes and enliven meals, you just have to choose carefully depending on the flavours of your food, and adhere to the whims of your personality. One day I want Asti. On others I want something much drier. Get what makes you feel good, not what you think you should be rolling through the checkout.
Champagne & Food
It has to be said at this point that Champagne and fish and chips is the gold standard in food pairing full stop. I once travelled 240 miles to meet friends by Leith’s waterfront to enjoy this delicacy as the sun went down.
The reason this particular combination has me in such a chokehold is its balance between fat and salt, acid and citrus. Blanc de Blanc works best, with a drier, less fruity character. Blanc de Noir would have a little too much peach or pear notes, and I’d prefer it with goats’ cheese or ricotta. Maybe in a salad heavy on the olive oil and salt, or cheesy ravioli…ooh, or arancini.
Crémant & Food
It’s better to drink a good Crémant than a bad Champagne. It’s not a cliché, it’s a saying, and it’s a popular one. With fresh fruit flavours and a fine mousse, crémant is particularly good with paté, I think. Chicken liver and Armagnac, or chestnut and wild mushroom, with stacks of Melba toast. I don’t care if you’ve not eaten Melba toast since 1983. It was invented by Escoffier, you know.
If you’re not a paté fan, I’d like to see you give Crémant and eggs florentine a bash. The richness of a perfectly poached egg yolk, the buttery English muffin, the earthy spinach, all lifted by the joyful freshness of a glass of French fizz.
There’s a joy in finding a great Crémant that makes me feel like I’ve beaten the system. The prize is drinking it.
Cava & Food
When I was in my early twenties, I learned that Cava is just a normal wine in Spain. I’d always seen sparkling wine as its own entity—somehow barely even wine. A different drink altogether. But in cafés and bars I was offered regular-sized wine glasses of Cava alongside local white, red and rosé, and it clicked. Cava is just wine too. You can do what you want with it.
Cava brings brightness and cuts through fat with aplomb. That’s why it works so deliciously with traditional tapas dishes like fried calamari, patatas bravas, sobrassada, morcilla, chorizo and peppers roasted together in a pot… I could go on. You’d think the strong flavours and aromas of paprika and black pepper would overpower the wine, but it’s that all-important hot oil that makes the match here. The citrus-zest zip of your dry Cava removes the cloying greasiness and creates a delightful balance between fresh acidity and the sweet, fattiness of the food.
Please don’t feel you have to stick to Spanish dishes, however. Fried chicken and Cava is a vibe, and if you’re making garlic roast pork with tons of crackling and some sort of tomato or gratin-based potato side? Heaven.
Prosecco & Food
Slightly sweeter than our friends Cava or Crémant, Prosecco tends to move forward with crisp apple and juicy lemon flavours, sometimes even raspberry, making it more of a juicy, playful drink. It is perfect with a bag of those expensive sea salt crisps—eat while reclining for full effect.
Prosecco is also delicious with briny oysters, which always get lumped with Champagne but honestly? It’s not the best match. Loads of people agree. Try them with Prosecco valdobbiadene Superiore instead. See how it jams with the mignonette?
It also takes to creamy, sugary desserts particularly well. Panna cotta is a shoe-in. A classic trifle? Absolutely yes.
Cap Classique & Food
Full of soft orchard fruit and lemon curd aromas, a Cap Classique is a beautiful accompaniment to pork and poultry—think chicken thighs in a classic cream sauce rather than hot wings. Does that mean it would pair with a chicken and mushroom pie? I’m gonna say yes.
It’s also a go-to wine to pair with poached salmon with asparagus, which isn’t super exciting but is very, very delicious, so it’s good to remember that not all your pairings need to be ground-breaking.
Blanquette de Limoux & Food
Lobster, crab claws, langoustines. Get the whole ocean in on this. Sweet, fresh seafood, served on ice with lemon wedges is what you need with Blanquette de Limoux. Its flash of acidity works wonders, softened by peach and brioche flavours and refreshing aromas of blossom and green apples.
This is a pretty wine, but it’s also scarily easy to drink. Make a lunch of ham and cheese croissants and pop a bottle and you’ll see what I mean. Equally at home with cheese on toast as it is with elegant profiteroles, gelato or beignets, it’s hard to understand why Blanquette de Limoux isn’t everyone’s favourite wine. Maybe it just isn’t as fun to say as “Prosecco”.
My Self-Editing and Pitching workshop was so fun this week! It’s been a couple of years since I ran anything like it, so thank you to my students for their undivided attention over two hours of me talking non-stop.
I’m thinking about offering another one in a month or so. If you’re interested, please get in touch about dates.
Other Stuff
Loved the gleaming copper in this kitchen update by Debora Robertson
A super insightful and entertaining read on Mash Gang the AF brewery, by Mark Dredge
The Summer Day by Mary Oliver
Jen Orpin’s oil paintings of motorway bridges, service stations, underpasses and back roads
Robbie Lawrence’s gorgeous photography from the Paris Olympics
“Instead of insisting that Imane Khelif is a “real” woman, we should ask how dichotomous ideas of gender have been solidified in the discourse that is being mobilised against her.” Mireia Garcés de Marcilla on combatting ‘the reactionary weaponisation of gender’.
My Stuff
I wrote about Fernet Branca for Fernet Branca/Guardian Labs
I’m working on a piece about Old Peculier for Pellicle
I’m working on some zines — including a PROCESS zine
I’m editing a book! So I guess I’m a freelance editor now? Get in touch if you need some editing.
Ooh adding this book to my to read list!