Wine and mushrooms: A match made in heaven
1st Jan 2015 Drinks
Mushrooms are an easy ingredient to pair with wine because their savoury “umami” flavour is quick to flatter, with their earthiness going particularly well with a Pinot Noir or Barolo.
"If you think of the ingredients that show off a great wine mushrooms would have to be near the top of the list," confirms wine expert Jancis Robinson.
There's no dilemma in choice when it comes to matching your wine, so all that's left to do is enjoy whatever pairing you go for. Make the most of a red by decanting it. Any receptacle will do—a crystal decanter, an old jug, it doesn't matter—as long as the wine has a chance to breathe.
Be sure to resist the temptation of overheating red wine.
It's a common mistake to warm an open bottle of red in a hot kitchen near an oven. When the French term chambré was invented—literally translating as 'room', to describe the ideal drinking temperature of red wine—central heating hadn't yet been invented.
French dining rooms wouldn't have been much warmer than 15°C. Now the average thermostat in British households is set to a toasty 23°C, while the ideal drinking temperature of red wine lies between 15-18°C.
A young, light and slightly tannic red is ready for drinking when it is closer towards the cooler end of the scale (14-15°C).
Often a wine like a Beaujolais is served slightly chilled. Fuller-bodied, more matured reds are at their best at around 18°C. Either way, make sure you save the mulled wine for heating, and keep the rest of your red round a medieval, rather than modern, 'room temperature.'
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