Torrontés shows its food-matching potential

More should be done to match Torrontés with food, according to wine writer Sarah Jane Evans MW.

Speaking at the “Time for Torrontés” masterclass at the Waitrose Cookery School yesterday (14 November), she said that Torrontés is an “unloved” grape variety but one that has the potential to be matched with a wide variety of foods.

The cookery school’s head chef, James Bennington, agreed, saying that he wanted to “show the diversity of the wine and that it can be matched with a whole host of different flavours.”

After a tasting that included smoked salmon roulade, cod and potato croquettes with a tartar sauce, a Thai duck curry and pistachio macaron, Bennington told the drinks business: “I hope we’ve shown today that Torrontés can be versatile. We’ve matched it with fish, meat, sweet and sour, Asian, English and Mediterranean flavours. It’s definitely underrated.”

Evans earlier said: “Torrontés is often overlooked but as has been shown it seems to be the herbs, sweet spices and not too hot spices that bring out the flavours. You don’t have to go for Gewürztraminer every time.”

Nick Room, wine buyer at Waitrose, told db he would like to “sell more (Torrontés) if I can. The difficulty is the customer doesn’t know what they’re going to get. But I think it has a place in the market and now it’s down to the sommeliers at this event to go away and push it to their customers too.”