Coleslaw, flavouring profile

Coleslaw, flavouring profile

Coleslaw is sharp, creamy, sweet and faintly pungent at once, and a wine short on acidity turns flat and flabby beside it.

The compounds that matter. Raw cabbage, whose sulphur compounds give it a mild mustardy bite that clashes with a wine smelling of struck matches. The dressing: mayonnaise fat, vinegar sharpness and often a little sugar, which together demand acidity and punish a lean, bone dry wine. Sweet grated carrot and onion.

What it demands of a wine. High acidity, at least as much as the dressing, and a touch of fruit sweetness where the slaw is sweetened. Light body and no oak or tannin. A green, crisp register suits the raw vegetables.

Seek. Riesling from New Zealand in its off dry style, all lime and green apple, which answers the sweet and sharp dressing together. Bacchus from England, off dry, hedgerow scented and sharp. For a bone dry glass, Aligoté from Burgundy, lean and lemony. Scheurebe from the Pfalz, off dry, with grapefruit and blackcurrant leaf, where the slaw sits beside barbecue.

Avoid

Oaked whites and tannic reds, which the vinegar and raw cabbage turn harsh. Reductive, smoky whites, which compound the sulphur of the cabbage. Soft, low acid wines, which the dressing makes flabby.

Three to reach for. Off dry Riesling, Marlborough, New Zealand. Off dry Bacchus, England. Aligoté, Burgundy, France.