Kaffir lime leaf — flavouring profile

Kaffir lime leaf is the most perfumed citrus note in South-East Asian cooking — an intense, floral lime-peel lift, sharper and more aromatic than lemongrass — and it wants a high-acid white aromatic enough to answer it without burying the dish.

The compounds that matter. One compound dominates: citronellal, which makes up the great bulk of the leaf's oil and gives that unmistakable zesty, floral lime-leaf scent, supported by citronellol, nerol and a little limonene. This is a lime note rather than lemon — brighter, more floral and more insistent than lemongrass's citral — and it sits at the very top of a dish, released by shredding or bruising the leaf into a curry or broth. Because the leaf is so aromatic, the wine can afford a little perfume of its own to mirror it, but the dish around it is usually built on lime, chilli and fish sauce, so high acid remains the foundation and oak the enemy.

What it demands of a wine. High acid above all, and a lime or floral-citrus character to mirror the citronellal. A degree of aromatic lift is welcome here — more than lemongrass tolerates — provided the wine stays high in acid and light to medium in body. No oak, whose vanilla and toast flatten the bright perfume, and modest alcohol so the wine does not turn hot against the chilli the leaf usually keeps company with. A touch of sweetness helps once the heat climbs.

Seek. Lime-precise, high-acid whites lead — a dry Riesling carries the lime note almost exactly. A dry, floral Muscat mirrors the perfumed lift the leaf brings. A zesty, anise-and-citrus white bridges the lime and the green-herbal side of a Thai curry. Where the dish runs hot and sour, a barely off-dry aromatic white holds the acid and tempers the chilli.

Avoid. Oaked or full-bodied whites, which smother a high, floral top note. Sweet wines, except where real chilli heat calls for a touch of sugar. Tannic, high-alcohol reds, which fight the lime and inflame the heat the dish carries.

Three to reach for. Dry Riesling (Rheingau or Alsace); Muscat, dry (Alsace); Verdejo (Rueda).