BANOFFEE pie is one of those tricky dishes to match with wine. You need to choose something quite sweet, but with enough power and character to stand up to all the flavours in the dish. If the wine is not sweet enough, it will taste tart beside the food.
One of the few wines that will do the job well is a decent Muscat de Beaumes de Venise from Vaucluse (next door to Vacqueyras) in the Southern Rhone valley. This is a Vin Doux Naturel that has undergone "mutage" or the addition of alcohol to the juice. It is essentially a sweet, fortified wine from very low-yielding vines which all helps to concentrate the flavours. Despite the relatively low acidity and the intense sweetness, the best examples are delicate and refreshing.
Carte Or Muscat de Beaumes de Venise NV (Waitrose, £7.99 for 37.5cl). This is a perfect example of the style, with a citrus burst on the perfectly balanced palate. It’s just a shame it only comes in wee bottles. Grab two this weekend, just in case.
A left-field alternative suggestion to match the dessert would be a generous glass of Plantation Pineapple Rum Stiggins’ Fancy (Inverarity One to One, £34.99), served either chilled or over crushed ice. Originally created by Plantation’s cellar master Alexandre Gabriel, it was never intended for general release but it made such a splash at bar and cocktail shows (even winning the Spirit of the Year at the Berlin Bar Show in 2012) that it is now readily available in all good spirit merchants. It is named after the Reverend Stiggins, a character in Charles Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers, who was fond of a tipple or two of pineapple rum.
It’s a massively complex spirit with notes of banana, spice, delicate smoke, clove, and rich ginger cake. It’s lovely as a base for fruity Caribbean cocktails, but stands well on its own alongside banoffee pie.
Pete Stewart is Glasgow director of Inverarity One to One, 185a Bath Street www.inveraritymorton.com
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