So, staying in is the new going out for the foreseeable future. With Easter fast approaching, hopefully you have time to plan a suitable feast. Lamb is the seasonal tradition – and a perfect excuse to support your local butcher or restaurant by ordering a delivery directly, eschewing all the supermarket panic-buying madness.
Once you’ve decided how to cook it, you’ll want the perfect wine to match. We’ve come up with three pairings that are up to the occasion…
ROAST LEG OF LAMB
Wine pairing: La Crema Monterey Pinot Noir 2017
Simply cooked with garlic and rosemary, the juicy, sweet flavour of roast lamb is difficult to beat. A leg of lamb is a great shout, as you’ll enjoy leftovers for days. To accompany, we’d go for a new world pinot noir. Try La Crema 2017 from Monterey, California. This bright, plush wine is bursting with black plum, cherry, and rhubarb on the nose. Its flavours of plum and raspberry can cope with a healthy helping of redcurrant jelly on the side.
Available from Blanco y Gomez, £23.95, bgwm.co.uk
SLOW-COOKED LAMB SHANKS
Wine pairing: Lassegue 2012
If you’re now having to juggle being a full-time teacher or nursery carer with working from home, the slow cooker is your new friend. Chuck everything in when you get up; enjoy the tempting aromas wafting through your house during the day; and then tuck in once the kids have gone to bed. Naturally you’ll want a serious red to get over the day, so let us recommend the 2012 Lassègue. This captivating claret has all the new leather and cigar box characteristics of a bordeaux, lifted violet and lilac notes. There’s an earthy quality which will go great guns with slow-cooked porcini mushrooms, and an innate mintiness that will that makes it a great sparring partner with lamb.
Available from Fine+Rare, £35, frw.co.uk
RAS EL HANOUT LAMB SHOULDER
Wine pairing: Yangarra Old Vine Grenache 2017
If ever there was a wine made for drinking with lamb, it was this: Yangarra – a biodynamic wine farm in the South Australia’s McLaren Vale – uses sheep in winter to graze under vine. The winemaker’s philosophy is all around healthy and alive soil, which involves no use of synthetic herbicides or fungicides, preferring compost and biodynamic preparations. Mix this with the fruit of bush vines planted in 1946, and the result is a complex, perfumed and elegant wine with plenty of tannins. The latter helps the wine stand up to the punchier Middle Eastern flavours of ras el hanout. Make sure you chuck on some pomegranate seeds to take the edge off the spices – and be sure to decant this one at least an hour before you dive in.
Available from Kwoff, £22.50, kwoff.co.uk
