Asparagus - crying out for Gruner Veltliner...

Posted by Andrew Chapman in Wine Tasting Notes, 6:54pm 29/04/2008. Leave a comment

When I was at Q Gardens Farm Shop on Steventon Hill on Sunday (they don't have a web site, so I can't link to it here - a great shame as somewhere to show people what they sell would be useful. They are one of my favourite places to buy high-quality local food. Especially now they have their own butchers with excellent local reared meat. Anyway, I digress...), I saw an advertisement for new season's asparagus on the blackboard behind the counter. A quick inquiry and I found out that the first of their outside grown crop would be available in the shop around lunchtime on Monday.

Now, we LOVE asparagus in this house! It is one of the few green vegetables that son Douglas will consume with vigour and enjoy. So, I couldn't wait to get my hands on some. The intention had been to maximise the flavour of this beautiful new-season asparagus by either steaming and serving with melted butter (very traditional), or grilling and serving with Maldon sea salt and Parmesan (all very Jamie Oliver!)

In the event, things didn't go to plan. Yes, I got my asparagus, but by the time I would have been cooking it for supper I was most assuredly not well. So, it stayed in the fridge. Until Alison took it out tonight and combined it with zingy lemons and Arborio rice, plus some of the home-made stock and leftovers from Sunday's chicken. In fact, it was an adaption of Nigel Slater's lemon and Asparagus risotto. Nigel Slater is THE food guru in our house - we are big fans of his sensible, tasty recipes and food writing - his recipes just make you want to cook! In fact, I have just bought Alison his book 'Appetite'... not so much a cook book as a way of cooking. Definitely worth buying.

Anyway, a beautiful creamy risotto was produced. A lovely tang of fresh lemons, tender but still crisp asparagus; a lovely creamy, sticky risotto. Now, I'm not drinking tonight... but I did have some risotto. If ever a dish cried out of for a particular wine, it was this dish yelling and screaming 'find me some Gruner Veltliner'. This little known grape-variety (little known in a sea of Sauvignon and Chardonnay) is most cultivated in Austria and I first fell in love with it on a trip to Austria many years ago.

Good producers Of Gruner Veltliner make wines with a definite minerally style, integrate the natural acidity of the grape, and produce very food-friendly wines. These are wine without oak. Think Riesling but with a more minerally quality, a sightly greener edge and perhaps a bit more weight. We used to have 3 or 4 on our list, but I've just realised don't have a single one at the moment. That will change very soon!

So, with the Asparagus Season just kicking off, take my advice... go down to your local farm shop (it tastes so much better from there than from the supermarket!), grab yourself some fresh asparagus and buy in some Gruner Veltliner and give yourself a real treat. let me know what you think...

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