Pickled walnut and chutney, flavouring profile

Pickled walnut and chutney, flavouring profile

Chutney and pickled walnut are sweet and sour at once, and a dry wine placed beside them tastes thin, sharp and hollow.

The compounds that matter. Vinegar, whose acetic acid makes any less sharp wine seem flat. Sugar, cooked down with fruit, which makes a dry wine taste sour. In pickled walnuts, the tannin and dark, bittersweet depth of the whole green nut, close in character to the walnut notes of long aged fortified wine. Warm spices such as clove and ginger in many chutneys.

What it demands of a wine. Sweetness at least equal to the chutney, carried on high acidity so it does not cloy. A nutty, dried fruit or caramel register to meet the walnut and the cooked fruit. No tannin, which the vinegar and walnut turn harsh.

Seek. Tawny Port, whose walnut and dried fig match pickled walnut almost exactly. Madeira in its richer Bual or Malmsey styles, sweet but searingly fresh, the best answer to vinegar. Gewürztraminer from Alsace in its off dry style, whose ginger and lychee meet a spiced fruit chutney. Riesling Spätlese from the Mosel, sweet and sharp, for apple or pear chutney. Where chutney sits beside hard cheese or pate, these wines work for the whole plate.

Avoid

Dry white and red wine of almost every kind, which the sugar makes thin and the vinegar makes sour. Tannic reds above all, since vinegar and walnut tannin compound into harshness.

Three to reach for. Tawny Port, Douro, Portugal. Madeira, Bual or Malmsey, Portugal. Off dry Gewürztraminer, Alsace, France.