A fantastic food and wine match

A lot of hot air is spoken about food and wine matching by winos and foodies - and I include myself in the guilty parties - and, in my saner moments, I am a firm believer in the "drink what you like school of thought". I remember watching my friend Jon devour Dover Sole with a huge Chilean Merlot, just because he loved both fish and wine. Who am I to tell him he is wrong?

But occasionally, you stumble across something genuinely brilliant, where the wine becomes an extra flavour, an integral part of the dish. I say stumbled, in this case I salute the chef/sommelier team at Mu (pronounced Mju) who matched Boudin Blanc with Celeriac Puree & Muscat Grapes with Alois Lageder's wonderful Lagrein Rosato 2006 at a recent wine dinner. The rich, soft boudin and fruity grapes were lifted by the soft, bitter-edged fruit of the wine with the acidity cutting through the fat. The wine benefitted from this gastronomic symbiosis too - becoming slightly more serious and focussed, like it it had thrown off the shackles of being a frivolous pink and joined the proper wines at the big table.