Each Friday, InterWined.com pairs one great wine with one great meal and publishes the results along with the recipe in a little feature it likes to call ‘Blow the Bank’.

This week, ‘Blow the Bank’ ends its month-long celebration of some of American cuisine’s greatest dishes from classic comfort foods to the unsung greats of American soulfood, with a decidedly European-take on a well-recognised transatlantic treat.

One word describes the 2003 Château de Fesles Bonnezeaux (12.5%) from the Loire Valley and available from Oddbins in the UK and Wine Chateau.com in the US (with numerous vintages available in Canada, New Zealand, and mainland Europe): smooth.

Made from 100% botrytis Chenin Blanc grapes, the Bonnezeaux screams smooth operator…not unlike the way Sade used to do on the radio. It has a fine golden colour with a rich, slightly creamy fresh fruit flavour with a hint of vanilla or nutmeg thrown in for good measure and makes for a stunningly attractive match to the smooth and silky mix of cream and fruit found in InterWined’s Own Pomegranate & Blueberry Cheesecake.

Like the hamburger and countless other “American” foods, the American cheesecake is rooted across the Atlantic in the kitchens and dinning rooms of a host of different European traditions. So what makes a cheesecake American? New Yorkers and Chicagoans might tell you it’s the baking.

But it’s not.

It’s the cream cheese. Cream cheese is a wholly American invention. Not until William Lawrence invented his now famous Philadelphia cream cheese in 1872 on his farm in New York State and its eventual owners, Kraft Foods, managed to manufacture a pasteurised version in 1912, did any cheesecakes resemble the stuff of today, whether or it was cooked as the New Yorkers and Chicagoans would recommend, or uncooked as the British and many others prefer. Before then, all cheesecakes were made the European way with a filling made of ricotta, mascarpone, quark, or Neufchatel cheeses.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that the American preference for baking doesn’t continue. Indeed, outside of perhaps only a handful of US restaurants and cities, the cooked cheesecake remains the more time-consuming norm. And while InterWined hates to pick sides in this most delicious debate (both are great!), for the sake of time and convenience, why not throw American preferences to one side and enjoy the speed and ease of a simple, smooth uncooked cheesecake, such as InterWined’s Own Pomegranate & Blueberry Cheesecake.

InterWined’s Own Recipe in Full

Pomegranate & Blueberry Cheesecake

Click on the post to view and download the recipe

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Every Friday, InterWined.com pairs one great wine that exceeds its normal £10 ($20) threshold with one great meal, prepared following the instructions of some the Internet’s best food blogs.

This week’s ‘Blow the Bank’ continues to take a departure from the norm and comes courtesy of its own recipe for Cod Saltimbocca with Butter Bean Arrabiatta.

InterWined’s little sister Kathy moved from the States to Rome last month, where she rents a very smart little flat in the centre of the city with all the modern amenities save for an oven. Never the best cook, she turned to her elder brother InterWined’s ‘Blow the Bank’ scribe Sean for help devising recipes and meals for hob and microwave. As the phrase ‘fresh from the microwave’ is close to oxymoronic and less likely to parse the lips that the ever-popular two-finger salute to detente ‘I nuked it’ in reference to results of microwave cooking, this leaves the hob and a bevy of fantastic dishes such as InterWined’s own Cod Saltimbocca with Butter Bean Arrabiatta.

As searches on Google and the Wikipedia will no doubt confirm, saltimbocca and arrabiatta are Italian approximations for the more mundane ‘bacon-wrapped’ and ‘spicy-sauced’, both names are far more exotic and impressive in Italian than they will ever be in English. So, when in Rome do as the Romans do; and when in London or wherever you might be reading this, do as the Romans do too.

The 2006 Cuvée Pierre-Louis Pouilly Fumé makes a stunning match to the Cod Saltimbocca. Its slight acidity and lemony flavour adds a gentle zing to the fish and speck, while its crisp aftertaste and freshness nicely compliment the spice of the butter beans.

A Loire Sauvignon Blanc, the Cuvée Pierre-Louis Pouilly Fumé perfectly suits its £10 price tag (£9.99 from Sainsbury’s), even if, it was ultimately unsurprising. This isn’t wine to inspire friends or verse; however, it is a wine to enjoy and buy more than once and perfect for pairing with food — especially when you wish for the dish to steal the show.

Pouilly Fumé is famed for its dryness and minerality, with wine critics often citing the Loire’s unique terroir and chalky soil as the source of its minerality. And while, the 2006 Cuvée Pierre-Louis is characteristically dry, it’s not very or chalky. Which is no bad thing, simply worth noting: 8.5.

InterWined’s Own Recipe in Full

Cod Saltimbocca with Butter Bean Arrabiatta

Click on the post to view and download the recipe

Keep reading...

The 2006 Les Champs Clos from Sancerre, Loire, is a Sauvignon Blanc. The mineral of the Sancerre was there as well as a lightness and wonderful acidity. Heavy lemon zip. Light and pricy, at £10, but worth it: 8.7 points. A perfect Old World wine for the grill.

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