Rocket and parmesan salad

Rocket and parmesan salad

Assuming rocket dressed with lemon or a sharp vinaigrette, with shaved parmesan over the top.

This little salad is harder on wine than it looks. The dressing is more acidic than most wine, so anything short of genuinely high acidity tastes flat and soft against it, and the peppery bitterness of the leaves stacks on any tannin at all. The cheese adds a savoury salt that makes the same problem worse.

Pairs Perfectly. An Austrian Grüner Veltliner in a lighter, more mineral style, a Federspiel from the Wachau or a Kamptal expression. Grüner carries a white pepper and radish note that lands on the peppery bite of rocket precisely, which no other white does as well. The acidity clears the vinaigrette comfortably and there is no oak or tannin anywhere to catch on the bitterness.

Pairs Well. Sauvignon Blanc, Sancerre, France. Gooseberry, flint and a green herb lift that runs alongside the leaves rather than over them. The acid line is high enough to hold the dressing.

Pairs Well. Verdejo, Rueda, Spain. Lime and gooseberry with a fennel edge and a faintly bitter finish that mirrors the salad instead of arguing with it. Genuinely inexpensive and everywhere.

Worth Seeking Out

A white grape nearly lost to history and now grown properly along the Adriatic. Taut, green herbed and mineral, and one of the few Italian whites with the acidity this plate demands.

Avoid

Oaked whites and any red at all. Oak reads clumsy against a lemon sharp plate, and tannin and leaf bitterness together turn genuinely harsh.

Failing That

A Picpoul, Languedoc, France.

If All Else Fails

Vermentino, Sardinia.

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