Right, we need two bottles of wine for this recipe. One to cook with and one to drink. They say that you should only cook with what you drink but in my opinion, I defo don't use what I drink to cook. Granted, if I was in a high-end restaurant, I'd probably be refining my cooking a lot more but the truth is I ain't so let's focus on the drinking wine.
Italian red. It's gotta be Italian red right? After all, we are eating an Italian inspired dish. I had some Ca’ De Lion DOCG 2018 (boy that's a mouthful) in the cellar and knew this would be a match made in heaven. I won't go into the ins and outs of the classifications of Italian wines - it's a minefield. However, I will tell you the DOCG part is the highest classification given to wine in Italy so when you see that you know straight off the bat you are opening something the Italians are proud of!
The wine itself needs some time in the decanter to show it's true colours. It's a beast but in a good way. Once it was decanted (for about an hour) it really started to shine. Juicy, ripe red and dark fruits with nice oak integration. Notes of chocolate, coffee, mint, and what ties this in the dish so well is the notes of forest floor I get from it too. The finish was a touch chalky but the acid helps balance it all out. It's defo a wine that improved the longer it was open which only tells me that 3-6 are what's needed so you can enjoy the evolution over the next few years!
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