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The Perfect Match

Our monthly column pairing meats, poultry, fresh produce and specific dishes with wines available from Huber’s concise range of wines, hand-selected by wine, food and travel writer-commentator Curtis Marsh, The Wandering Palate - www.thewanderingpalate.com

Osso Bucco Gremolata paired with Fattoria De Felsina Berardenga Chianti Classico DOCG 2006

A perennial classic, Osso Bucco has evolved from traditional Ossobuco alla Milanese which did not use tomatoes in the recipe and is served with saffron risotto. It is intriguing to follow the history of such dishes and comprehend the confines of the environs and culture, in this instance tomatoes were not introduced to Milan until the late 19th century. The Italian’s can of course be hyper-regional in this regard. I recall being rebuked at the suggestion pasta was commonplace in Florence when any self respecting Florentine will tell you polenta was, and still is, the indigenous staple.

The contemporary recipe outlined by our learned general manager, Thomas Kreissl, does indeed use tomatoes and tomato paste, and if you combine the flavour aspects and natural acidities of tomatoes, as well as the white wine, celeriac, leeks and the lemon zest, the resulting sauce whilst rich and hearty, has an underlying tanginess and a relative lightness.

It is the sauce that is the main consideration in deducing an appropriate wine pairing here. Furthermore, veal is a less intensely flavoured meat and the slow, gentle simmering and resulting tenderness of the meat all leads to an elegant red yet has the robust constitution of acidity and tannin to counteract the richness of the sauce; a wine that has tartness and savoury flavours as opposed to a wine a rich or sweet that could overwhelm the dish and cloy the palate.

Good Chianti Classico is a perfect choice, perhaps predictable – Italian wine, Italian food – but it is the Sangiovese grapes personality that is most synergistic with this type of dish with its inherently invigorating acidity and assertive tannins. Contrary to its robust framework, Chianti Classico is supremely elegant and elaborately perfumed, redolent in wild berries, dark cherry, mulberry, blueberry and plums. The interaction on the palate however is accented in the sour components (in a positive manner) of these red berry fruits.