In an ideal world, I would celebrate tonight with a chilled beer or three and some seriously spicy food at the London fooderati’s Sichuan restaurant of choice: Chilli Cool. Cumin and chilli encrusted mini-lamb skewers? Yes please. Deep fried pigs’ intestines? Hell yeah. Sea-spicy aubergine? Never miss it.

However, owing to a change in recent circumstances, I’ll be at home and Chinese cooking at home can mean only thing: a Fuchsia Dunlop recipe.

Dunlop’s books on Sichuan and Hunanese cookery are old favourites on the kitchen bookshelf. They are informative, scholarly reads as much as sources of recipes, written by someone who has taken the time to immerse herself in another culture and get under the (pig’s) skin of its dishes.

If you have a crumbled book voucher left over from Christmas burning a hole in your pocket then you could do far worse than heading straight down to Waterstone’s to buy them.

One of my favourite recipes from Revolutionary Chinese Cooking is Chairman Mao’s Red Braised Pork Belly, named after the infamous dictator, cultural revolutionist and Warholian muse who apparently used to wolf down bowlfuls of the stuff whilst planning the next entry in his little red book.

The dish is as easy as it gets; a simple simmer of lardy pig, sugar, rice wine and aromatic spices, with plenty of red chilli for good measure. The result is sublime. Melting fat meets tender flesh in an embrace of spicy caramel, the whole shebang lifted by a hot, fragrant broth.

It is the sort of dish to pair with something fruity and floral but with some fat cutting acidity too. I’m thinking Knappstein Three 2009, a blend of Gewurztraminer, Riesling and Pinot Gris might be just the job.

Now, Gewurz and Chinese food might be one of the oldest food and wine clichés in the book, but there is something about the grape’s lychee and mango aromatics that work well with spicy food, especially when partnered in a blend with something racier and leaner such as Riesling.

If I am right, the fragrant jasmine and honeysuckle on the nose will match up perfectly with the anis and cinnamon in the broth and the ripe peach and pear fruit will act as a sounding board for the heat of the chillies. The big squeeze of citrus from the Riesling should cut through the melting fat of the meat.

It is all about balance. Yin and Yang.

Wine and food matching never excites as much debate as when the food in question is cheese.  It is true that a corner of mousetrap or a wedge of supermarket Brie will take the rough edges off a glass of plonky red but great cheese deserves decent wine and the most pleasurable combination will often be with a white

The French especially have a tendency to serve their best red wines with the cheese and many a fragile mature red Burgundy or thin oldClaret is laid waste by a board groaning and reeking with impossibly strong, runny, salty, acidic cheeses of which there are hundreds in France.  Far better really to serve just one cheese in perfect condition and match it with the appropriate wine.  And if in doubt about whichwine then sometimes local goes with local.  In this case,  Munstercheese from Alsace matched with white Alsatian Gewürztraminer.

This post has been reproduced with the kind permission of the author. We seriously love his stuff. He is both a real foody and a serious wine geek. just like us!

Yarden Gewurztraminer? Yes. There’s something spellbinding about Krakow and its old Jewish quarter. It was here on a warm summer’s evening that I got my first taste of Kosher Gewurztraminer and of gefilte fish. I look spellbound there don’t I? Gazing off into the distance romanticising about my very own wine bar in Krakow? Well, the camera tells dirty lies, cos I’m actually watching a stray cat eating the fish I threw at it not moments before. Ahhhh memories. Gefilte fish is, hands down, the most vile, strangely textured food item to ever pass my lips but the wine was a wonderful surprise.

Now, I don’t know about you but whenever I take a weekend break or holiday I use it as a chance to feed my wine addiction. It’s not just me, all serious winos do this. We will talk to our partners and romantically suggest “The Dordogne” so we can slope off to Bordeaux, or “Tuscany” to visit Chianti, I even managed to convince one partner that Frankfurt was lovely at this time of year only to find ourselves boating down the Rhine and into the Assmanhausen 100 year wine festival! Look how that turned out, I had no idea. However, I hadn’t realised that Krakow would provide the same opportunity.

Polish interest in wine, and especially Italian wine is growing fast and while I was there the central square of Krakow (Rynek Glowny) had been turned into a fairground for a Hungarian Wine event and of course, in the Jewish quarter every restaurant and bar was offering Kosher wines. I don’t see the Poles giving up their flavoured vodkas anytime soon but the tide is turning and they’re even knocking out some decent wine themselves. If I could set up a wine bar anywhere, I’d choose Krakow. Dreams….

There’s been a revolution in Israeli wines and in no small part thanks to Golan Heights (the crew behind Yarden). Israel now produces fantastic quality price ratio wines, not simply Gewurztraminer but also the usual suspects, international reds like Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Pinot Noir, Merlot and, more surprisingly, Sangiovese and Gamay! Whites include Chardonnay, Muscat, Viognier, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling and even sweet whites and Blanc de Blancs sparklers. Israel can bring such a variety of grapes to fine expression due to its range of climatic conditions and Israel itself is getting into wine in a big way. There is a national committee for the promotion of Israeli wines within Israel and a movement to push the country’s indigenous grapes. I’m afraid I can’t list them, because I don’t know them. I have quite enough to contend with in the world of Italian indigenous grapes but if you know them, feel free to post a comment!

Does this wine taste like the Gewurztraminers we all know and love? Actually, yes. Like most of you, my experience of Gewurztraminer is limited to Alsace and Germany with the odd US, Italian, New Zealand and Aussie bottle thrown in here and there, making it terribly difficult to say what an Israeli, Galilee Region Gewurztraminer should taste like. However, if this is what it should taste like, I’m in.

Yarden Gewurztraminer 2007 – £12.79

Golden yellow in colour. The wine is aromatically gorgeous and offers up many typical Gewurztraminer notes including lychee, almonds and flowers but also an unexpected showing of peach blossom. The wine has a detectable sweetness on the palate, is rich but with firm acidity, rounded, mid to full bodied. This is a real find and only let down by a slightly clipped finish. However, if you keep drinking then you don’t notice. 89 Points

Wine90 is one of our favourite wine Bloggers. She will teach you all there is to know on Italian wine & more. Check her stuff on http://wine90.blogspot.com/