A friend had been sampling my 2006 Gooseberry wine and recommended it with foods (like spicy Asian) that don’t usually work so well with grape wines. He had tried the ’06 Gooseberry with a spicy but not hot Szechuan chicken dish and found the combination “wonderful”.
I tried the same wine with Ma Poh Doufu, one of my favourite Szechuan dishes. I tend to make the dish without too much chilli (ginger and chilli wok-ed in oil before adding spring onions and pork mince; then some red bean sauce and chicken stock, and finally the silken tofu and toasted Szechuan peppercorns), and serve it with wheat noodles.
I was really quite surprised at how fantastic this combination was! To my taste, it was amongst some of the better food-wine matches I’ve ever had. There’s something about the salivation that Szechuan peppercorns induce (it must be due to the hydroxy-alpha-sanshool) that seems to work well with a juicy-fresh mineral non-grape wine.
Following that, I tried some of my Rhubarb wines with Szechuan chicken (generally: red bell pepper/capsicum, chicken, leek, garlic, ginger, black beans, soy sauce, rice wine, plenty of Szechuan peppercorns) and this was a great match too.
Forget Gewurtz, Riesling or whatever…. fruit wines are the way to go with spicy Asian cuisine!
The Gooseberry is made from a purple variety called Worcesterberry and I tend to make it pretty funky/earthy, with a touch of residual sugar but good acidity. The Rhubarbs tend to be dry, mineral, light-medium bodied whites.
Ma Poh Doufu with Passionvale Gooseberry 2006
Szechuan chicken with Passionvale Mayfield Rhubarb 'The Vegetal' 2007