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’ brings you two of InterWined’s favourite pizzas.

Pizza with Parma Ham, Basil, and Red Onion

Feta & Butternut Squash Pizza with Ricotta and Pine Nuts

The 2006 ‘Taste the Difference’ Primitivo del Salento, from Italy and available exclusively to Sainsbury’s for approximately £5, is made by Cantina Due Palme, an Italian co-operative from Apulia known for their award- winning Primitivo. So, it doesn’t disappoint. In fact, it slightly astounds. For £5, this is one of the best wines that I’ve had in months; it’s also great for pairing with all manner of foods.

This wine is rich and flavourful, with a complexion that’s something of a cross between black cherries and dried blood. Thankfully, you can only taste the cherries. But even if wine could taste like blood, this wine would pull it off brilliantly. There’s such a good balance to it.

It’s also the perfect mix of spicy and sweet to match both pizzas. The sweetness really marries well with the squash and adds a little bit of a zip to the mellower flavour of the baked feta. Likewise, the sweetness helps counter any saltiness from the Parma ham, while the fresh basil, red onions, and ample cranks of cracked pepper help compliment the spice. A perfect threesome: 9.1.

InterWined’s Own Recipes in Full

Pizza with Parma Ham, Basil, and Red Onion & Feta & Butternut Squash Pizza with Ricotta and Pine Nuts

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Despite British Invasion band The Zombies’ famous lyrics to the contrary, it’s never too late to say you’re sorry.
In fact, it’s about bloody time.
Take our first subject, Canada: We at InterWined.com have long suspected that it was the strange brew of jealousy and envy that drove the great majority of Canadians to settle within a […]

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Each Friday, InterWined.com pairs one great wine with one great meal and publishes the results, along with the recipe.

Today, ‘Blow the Bank’ serves you the second of its two turkey-free dishes, aimed to guide you through the tumultuous week that marks the starting bell for the mad dash toward Chrismukah and New Year’s and help you to recover from the horrors of packed shopping aisles and empty wallets.

Lamb neck or scrag, as it’s sometimes known, is a fairly inexpensive and fatty cut of meat that cooks up a treat in casserole dishes and traditional stews. It’s also great for making simple, easy to prepare meals, such as InterWined’s own Black Friday Lambwiches.

Simply put, the Windy Peak 2006 Pinot Noir from De Bortoli, available from Sainsbury’s for £8.99, makes the perfect match for Black Friday Lambwiches, with its abundant concentration lamb-friendly aromas and fruity flavours (cherries, plums, pomegranates). Like the lamb neck, it’s young and easy-going, and makes a spot-on remedy to trials of Black Friday.

As some past reviews, this wine’s price might not technically ‘Blow the Bank’ but it might well prove difficult to find for readers. In which case, InterWined would recommend looking to one of De Bortoli’s other wine labels, of which there are several, such as the popular Gulf Station available in the US from Little Bros Beverages and K & L Wine Merchants.

InterWined’s Own Recipe In Full

Black Friday Lambwiches

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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’ comes in the form of Sunday lunch and its own recipe for Haloumi on Aduki Bean & Spinach Bed.

In recent weeks, it seems that every supermarket has unveiled its own version this week’s ‘Blow the Bank’, call it serendipity or coincidence. Just don’t call it a controversy. Leave that to the wine.

The 2006 Red Heart Cabernet Sauvignon Petit Verdot from South Australia, £5 from Sainsbury’s, is shrouded in controversy. Bottled in Northamptonshire for Buckingham Vintners, yet allegedly produced in South Australia’s Riverland. But, as Kim Wheatley and Paul Kent of Adelaide Now reported in December 2006, “Sainsbury’s says the wine comes from Kingston on Murray in the Riverland, but declined to elaborate on the vineyard that produces it. The Sunday Mail has contacted the main growers in the region, including Kingston Estate, Banrock Station and Salena Estate. All said they knew nothing of Red Heart.”

All very mysterious…

But wait; there’s more. Red Heart advertises itself as the Britain’s healthiest wine, containing 32% more antioxidants than average. Indeed the back of the bottle reads more like a press release for the health page of woman’s magazine than it does the traditional tasting notes and “excellent with cheese” malarkey more commonly found on the back of wine bottles these days.

According to Wheatley and Kent’s report, the wine’s health allegations put it in breach of wine export regulations. The two quote Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation corporate affairs manager Eric Wisgard as saying, “It’s almost promoting wine as a health drink and that’s something that’s not permitted. Because of these reciprocal agreements between all the wine trading nations, it effectively would be an international breach.”

Regardless of the controversy, InterWined’s ‘Blow the Bank’ is first and foremost interested in pairing foods and wine and the Red Heart makes an interesting and satisfying match to the haloumi salad.

A red wine most often paired with grilled meats and grassy steaks, the Cabernet Sauvignon Petit Verdot blend here nicely compliments the grilled and chewy texture of the haloumi cheese, helping to give it a meatier quality and smooth its often salty flavour. The Red Heart’s juicy, blackcurrant taste and pepper/chocolate nose also support the subtle flavours of the peppered aduki bean and spinach bed. And, while the controversy surrounding the wine might not matter much to the average drinker, it matters to InterWined: 7.9. A good match, soured by controversy.

InterWined’s Own Recipe In Full

Haloumi on Aduki Bean and Spinach Bed

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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

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Australian Wine Producer Wolf Blass is switching over to eco-friendly plastic wine bottles in the United Kingdom in the next two weeks. Wolf Blass “Green Label” will be launched in Chardonnay and Cabernet Shiraz throughout Sainsbury’s from mid-August. Priced at £7.49, the brand from Australia will provide Wolf Blass consumers with the same quality of […]

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Both from Sainsbury’s:

2000 Castillo de Caltrava Reserva has all the look of a Rioja Tempranillo; In fact, it is a Tempranillo, but that is where the similarity ends, except for the fine gold wire ‘basket’ the bottle is wrapped in. Centrally located and mountainous, La Mancha is known for some great wines, as is Rioja. The Calatrava was slashed by £3, if memory holds, from £8 to £5. The initial taste was one of disappointment. However, after recalibrating for decision-bias, the study continued more upbeat.

The wine is very ripe with a perfumed (like sandalwood) and sweet nose. Light and airy on the tongue, unlike the high expressions found in many of Spain’s major wine regions these days. No this is classy for a fiver, once on it airs. Short finish and unbelievably harmonious, except for a bit of burn, predictable since it is only a Reserva and not a ‘Gran(d) Reserva’ which would denoted up to a year longer in oak, depending on the region – in La Mancha, 12 months in oak, 24 in bottle for Resverva, 24 months in oak and 36 months in bottle for Gran(d) Reserva (these are minimums here). Maybe not worth £8, but great at five: 8.5.

South Africa’s First Cape 2005 Shiraz Cabernet blend was also on sale for a few pounds off, bring it to £5 or £6 per bottle as well. Like the Caltrava, it seemed new to the shelves, and stood out only because of the red tag marking it reduced. (But, isn’t that the point?) Lovely colour and a lot like Pinotage. But this is way tart, way tart. Also smells like wet, black pepper, with a red meat kind of slappiness to it (getting hungry here). Seems to be quite a lot going on in there and will most likely taste better tomorrow: 8.3.

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New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc should have a hint of gooseberry, as part of its ‘flavour profile.’ Had a supermarket version from Sainsbury’s for £7; it was decent, hint of petrol in the nose. Lots of zip and tang, and really, really didn’t go with my team losing at (American) football last weekend. New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc 8.4; New Orleans Saints 6.3.

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A bottle of the TTD Pinot Grigio was on-sale for less than £5. Grassy, crisp and clean. One of the best wines for the price, unbelievably. 8.9.
At Budgens, for less than £5, is the Da Luca Merlot/Primitivo blend (Primitivo is basically Zinfandel’s ancestor, and is remarkably similar). It does not have a vintage, so the grapes come from multiple years, and it is an ‘Indicazione Geografica Tipica,’ or from a typical, but not special, Italian region, in this case Tarantino (a little wine from Taranto, related to the Hollywood director), Apulia – hot and southern.

It’s a blockbuster, just like many of Quentin’s movies. Also, no grace, strong in will and sometimes surprising, but with a big finish. It is a heavy, clumsy, large wine and it tastes great. 8.9.

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The 2004 Grove Mill Sauvignon Blanc is a stunner, £7. Good with anything, even spicy sausage: tropical fruits on the nose; dry finish, light on the tongue. Two days later, the wine had mellowed to being almost buttery. It was smoother than Brazilian legs during Carnival. 8.5.

2001 was not so good for California and Bonterra’s Cabernet from that year shows it. Watery and thin, little identity, no wonder many bottles of it are available to buy now – though it’s not a complete wash-up. It was drinkable as a table wine. Serve with dinner. 7.7

Same for 2004 Valdevieso Merlot. It holds it own, but can’t hold your attention. 7.7.

The ‘Taste the Difference’ 2003 Connawarra Cabernet from the grocer Sainsbury’s was on sale for half-off, £4.

The fumes alone are flammable. Hard to taste anything else when a wine is pimped out with so much silly sauce. A day later, ripe fruits, mainly blackberry, tinge of oak, still strong. Price was right though. Eight pounds would be a joke. 7.0.

Finally the 2003 Heartland Petit Verdot from the Limestone Coast of Australia…The Heartland gave off wild aromas violets, black cherry but still very rustic, like an old leather belt that will never give up holding onto pants. Also a bit of rust and a hint of mint.
8.9 points, mainly for controlling a late harvest grape most people won’t bother with.

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