Pretty in Pink – Rosé Wine Pairing Dinner

Three rosé wines paired with an easy three-course meal.

Nothing sums up summer so well as a glass of rosé wine in the garden.  It’s an easy stand-along summer drink, but also perfect with food.  With three wines to try, I put together a menu to bring out the best in each and, one that minimised time in the kitchen for me. A rosé wine pairing dinner.

Our three wines comprised the delicious Left Field Hawkes Bay Rosé from New Zealand,  Joseph Mellot Sancerre Le Rabault 2019 and Champagne Taittinger Prestige Rosé.  I’ve tried two of the three before so already had some ideas about what to enjoy with the Taittinger and the Left Field.  And, I was intrigued by the idea of the Joseph Mellot Sancerre Rosé. 

The menu for the evening, a charcuterie board from London Food at Home followed by pork loin steaks cooked with fennel, lemon and white beans using the excellent pork steaks I’d been sent from Lake District Farmers and finished with a raspberry Eton mess made for less time in the kitchen and more time with my guests.

We opened both the still rosé wines to try with the charcuterie board and agreed that the Left Field Hawkes Bay Rosé was perfect.  It’s packed with fruity notes of red berries and robust enough to complement the charcuterie selection.  Based on three grapes, Merlot, Pinotage and Arneis, it’s bright, and fresh, yet quite sophisticated.  Something quite versatile I believe. 

I’d ordered the Alpes selection platter for two which comes with Bresi (a salted smoked beef from the Jura), Tavaillon (beef tenderloin cured in plum brandy), Coeur de Jamon (air-cured ham) and Saucisse Seche de Savoie.  It came with little pots of goodies to garnish and we enjoyed it with some freshly baked sourdough bread.  It’s actually quite challenging to pair a wine with a selection of different charcuterie, some of which is smoked and I felt that the lively Hawkes Bay was a good option. 

We loved the Joseph Mellot Sancerre too.  a little more delicate, this 100% Pinot Noir wine worked brilliantly with the pork loin dish, the freshness of the wine complementing the citrus and fennel notes of our food.  The Lake District Farmers pork loin steaks were utterly delicious, thick-cut and sweet.  And, I’ve been craving the dish and the wine pairing ever since.  Good quality pork loin steaks are not easy to find and right now I have no freezer space for another Lakeland Farmer box.  So instead, I’ve been making my own variation on the original recipe using Cumberland sausage meat spiced up with a little more fennel and lemon zest to make meatballs.  I’ll be sharing that recipe in the next few days – the inspiration and version I cooked for dinner came from the BBC Good Food site, though I swapped out the basil for thyme which seemed a better match.

Dessert, with the Taittinger Prestige Rosé, was my own recipe for Raspberry Eton Mess.  The Taittinger Rosé is beautifully soft champagne which gets its pink colour from the addition of  15% red wine.  30% Chardonnay makes this a vibrant mouthful that works equally well as an aperitif and as a dessert pairing with something like Eton mess that is based on red berries.  I’ve enjoyed this champagne before at the start of the meal and there’s never been any left as a food pairing at the end.  This time, we didn’t open the bottle at the start of the evening.

If you’d like to try a rosé wine pairing evening yourself, you can buy Leftfield Hawkes Bay Rosé from Waitrose for £13.75 a bottle.  Joseph Mellot Sancerre Rosé, with an RRP of £21, can be bought from North and South Wines, Fountainhall Wines or the Shenfield Wine Company.  Half bottles of Taittinger Rosé with an RRP of £28.85 can be bought online from Champagne Direct or from Partridges of Sloane Square or Amps Fine Wine Merchants.