Asparagus — flavouring profile

A vegetable with a reputation for being impossible with wine, which it does not deserve: the clash is real but narrow, and three or four grapes answer it outright.

The compounds that matter. Asparagusic acid is unique to the plant, and its sulphur breakdown products are what most wines exaggerate into something faintly bitter and eggy. Alongside it sit the methoxypyrazines, the green, stalky compounds asparagus shares with green pepper, gooseberry and blackcurrant leaf — and this is the useful half, because several grapes carry the very same compounds. Where the pyrazine in the glass meets the pyrazine on the plate, green meets green and the pairing works by mirror rather than by luck.

What it demands of a wine. A green or herbal register of its own to meet the stalk, high acidity to carry the sulphur past, and no oak whatever, whose vanilla sits badly against a green vegetable. Body should stay light to medium: asparagus is delicate however it is cooked. What is served with it usually matters more than the spear — hollandaise adds fat that needs cutting, a poached egg adds sulphur of its own, and ham or Parmesan adds salt that helps.

Seek

Grüner Veltliner is the classic and the reason is the pepper-and-lentil green note it carries naturally; an Austrian bottling in a lighter, more mineral style is the one to ask for. Dry Riesling does the same job by a different route, riding over the sulphur on acidity alone. Loire Sauvignon Blanc mirrors the pyrazines directly and adds a flinty edge that suits the asparagus of a British or French spring. Dry Chenin Blanc from the Loire handles the butter of a hollandaise better than any of them. Where the dish is white asparagus rather than green, richer and rounder, allow more weight and a touch more texture.

Avoid

Oaked whites, whose vanilla and toast fight the green. Tannic reds, which turn hard and bitter on the sulphur. Very ripe, low-acid or tropical whites, which read as sweet and flabby beside a vegetable this savoury.

Three to reach for. An Austrian Grüner Veltliner in a lighter, mineral style for asparagus served simply. A dry Riesling where there is a poached egg or hollandaise in play. A Sancerre from the Loire for grilled and charred spears, where its own smoke meets the char.