Winter menu: recipe ideas and wine pairings

Known to be a rainy place during much of the year, the UK experiences an increase in rainfall in winter. However, the British have found in the most authentic home cooking a perfect way to find some comfort during the cold and dreary days. The best-known traditional British recipes owe much to seasonal gastronomy, which offers them not only excellent cuts of meat to create crusted or stewed recipes, but also a wide variety of fruit, vegetables and pulses, such as apples, pears, nuts, lentils, beetroot, cabbage, potatoes, pumpkin, onions and carrots.

Here are some tasty ideas for a winter menu, with the best food and wine pairings!

Getting off to a great start: starters and seasonal soups

When the winter season sets in and the temperatures start to plummet, all you want is to stay cooped up indoors in front of a fireplace, to relax, read a good book and - why not? - maybe enjoy some good traditional food.

English winter cuisine also has much to offer in the way of starters, starting with its popular lentil soup.

Flavoured in a sauté of garlic, onion and various spices (such as cinnamon, cumin or coriander), the lentils are then cooked with chicken or vegetable broth until soft and served with bread.

Those looking for excellent wines to pair with winter food can go for a Syrah Terre Siciliane IGT. One sip of this product almost seems to perceive all the passion of Sicily and the Mediterranean, which is expressed through an intense ruby red colour with fascinating violet hues, and aromas of flowers, small fruits and spices. Hints of violets and pepper emerge, while on the palate softness and freshness mingle in a unique taste that goes well with meat dishes and spicy recipes.

According to some diners, no self-respecting aperitif is complete without at least one fried preparation. Here again, Anglo-Saxon cuisine can offer a good variety of winter starters with matching wine, such as Scotch Eggs.

The recipe consists of hard-boiled eggs (usually chicken eggs, but quail eggs are also used) wrapped in a mixture of finely minced pork to form meatballs, which are then dipped in breadcrumbs and fried. A great snack for a winter evening, to be enjoyed with a refreshing white wine, such as a Pinot Grigio.

This product is a marvel when it comes to freshness, the characteristic required to rinse the palate of the traces of grease left by frying. What makes for an excellent taste experience are its lively and bewitching aromas, among which a discreet minerality dominates, which accompanies the notes of peach and pear and seems to anticipate the savouriness perceptible on the palate.

Which wines to open with the main winter courses?

It is especially in the main courses that Anglo-Saxon cuisine expresses its passion for comfort food. Between stews, savoury pies and tasty warm winter dishes based on meat or fish, tradition gives rise to delicacies to suit everyone's preferences.

One of the best ideas for a winter dinner - on a dreary, rain-swept evening - is the Cornish Pasty, a typical Cornish dish with a crescent shape and a savoury pastry shell. Rustic even in appearance, this recipe gives the palate a soft texture and enveloping flavours from the filling of beef, potatoes, onions and rutabaga.

An excellent pairing of winter starters and wines is offered by a Valpolicella Ripasso DOC, a ruby red wine that takes on garnet hues with age. The ethereal perfume brings to mind notes of red fruits and vanilla, which becomes more refined when consumed a few years after bottling. The palate is soft, enveloping, harmonious and full.

Those who, on the other hand, prefer a meat dish that can raise the cold winter temperatures considerably, can count on the Phall (or Phaal), but only with due caution! This is in fact one of the spiciest curries around, prepared with chicken or lamb, cooked together with various spices (ginger, turmeric, garam masala and curry), tomato and chilli.

A Friulian Chardonnay is an excellent choice for those who want to pair winter seconds with wine, especially when spicy flavours are involved. In fact, the flavonoids contained in white wines are able to offer the palate some refreshment, as opposed to the tannins in red wines, which might instead make it worse. This wine holds its own against the curry with a bouquet reminiscent of the floral notes of acacia, the freshness of apple and the sweetness of hazelnut, and a smooth sensation on the palate.

A sweet winter: wines to enjoy with desserts

No journey into the Anglo-Saxon winter culinary tradition would be complete without tasting its desserts. In winter - especially around Christmas time - recipes with seasonal ingredients include spice cakes, puddings and other spoon desserts, the very symbols of comfort food.

Among the best-known and most popular winter recipes are the ever-popular Mince Pies, filling, delicious and fragrant mince pies. During the Tudor era they had a rectangular shape and included - among the 13 ingredients symbolising Jesus and his Apostles - lamb or mutton flavoured with spices. With time, Mince Pies took on their characteristic round shape and a sweet filling of dried fruit and spices (sultanas, apricots, candied fruit, cherries, almonds, walnuts, cinnamon, nutmeg).

These are small cakes with an intoxicating aroma, crisp pastry and soft filling, to be enjoyed with an equally aromatic end-of-meal wine.

The perfect candidate is a Moscato Giallo Alto Adige DOC, a wine from northern Italy that knows its stuff when it comes to accompanying a dessert. Also excellent for meditation, Moscato Giallo displays a remarkable sugar component and a bouquet of ripe and candied fruit, including notes of apricot, peach, pineapple and melon.

Another dessert that is very popular in the UK during the winter period is Sticky Toffee Pudding, a dessert consisting of a mixture of flour, whipped dates and spices, which is first baked and then cooked a second time after being filled with caramel. It is finally served with whipped cream or - for those who wish to enjoy it in warmer weather - with ice cream, and perhaps a wine capable of holding its intense flavours, such as a Malvasia delle Lipari.

With this warm and enveloping wine, one has the sensation of travelling to Sicily: sweet on the palate, but far from cloying, it catches the eye with its golden colour and bewitches the nose with notes of apricot, honey and the distinctive balsamic hints of eucalyptus.

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