‘Wine is best served when paired with the right foods’

Chloe Sproston, Creative Director at Blueprint Interiors explains why wine is best served when paired with the right foods!

People would describe me more of a foodie than a wine buff, and with a young family, the opportunity to really drink good wine is normally saved for key celebrations when my husband, Jim, and I usually treat ourselves to a high class ‘foodie’ experience.

The discovery of my chosen wine was made whilst we were celebrating a birthday at The Pig near Bath in February. A buzzing restaurant with rooms – with a kitchen garden at its heart – its menu uses what can be sourced within a 25 mile radius, so the offerings are full of locally grown and sourced choices.

Having selected our starter and main course options – which included a beetroot wellington and fish with pepper sauce – the sommelier recommended a bottle of ‘Artefact’, of the 2021 vintage from Castlewood Vinery in Musbury, Devon, which is 100% Bacchus, a white wine grape created by viticulturist Peter Morio.

Like the tasting notes suggest, we found the wine full of intrigue with delightful hints of guava, grapefruit zest and mandarin peel, and we definitely picked up the Darjeeling like tannin and bracing acidity.

It certainly was a great selection and really complemented the flavours of our food choices and definitely highlighted how important it is to ensure food is paired with the right wine.

We enjoyed this wine so much, as soon as we returned home, we were quickly online to purchase a case and can now enjoy the wine at home in the evenings once we’ve finally settled the ‘wee’ ones into bed! Suffice to say we’ve been exploring English wines ever since, including wine from Rutland.

In general, we have now found ourselves looking for other ways we can support local producers, for community led and sustainability reasons.

We grow lots of our own veg, and we partake in a community harvest project.

In fact, it looks like we are about to embark on our own brewing project!

Jim, who is an arboriculturist by trade is about to launch a project to make local cider using the fallen apples he collects when working on gardening projects. He then plans to sell back to the community to fund the planting of a community orchard!

Perhaps we’ll then try planting vines and have a go at making our own wine!