It’s tricky to match wine with soup for a number of reasons, the main one being that they’re both liquids. Unlike food that needs to be cut up and chewed, soup doesn’t need any lubrication, while its concentrated flavours will make most wines seem diluted.
Sometimes an older, richer white wine can work, as can a sweet wine, as both will have more body and mouthfeel than younger, drier wines. But arguably the best match of all is fortified wine, which is wine that has had a distilled spirit (usually brandy) added during or after the fermentation process, and whose higher alcohol and residual sugar add enough weight to match the weight of the soup.
From deglazing my pans with sherry-style wines to braising lamb shanks in SA’s answer to port, I’ve been having some fun with fortifieds in my kitchen (as well as at the dinner table) this winter. Cream of chicken soup made with a dash of Monis Pale Dry acquired some delicious roast hazelnut notes, while a puréed butternut soup worked best with the sweeter candied citrus and almond flavours of the Monis Medium Cream (both R79 a bottle).
But my pièce de résistance so far has been a rich French onion soup into which I poured half a cup of Badsberg Red Muscadel 2013, recently named SA’s best Muscadel with its cherry liqueur and caramel flavours. At R55 a bottle it’s not sacrilegious to do so, which might have been the case with the port-style wine I briefly considered for the soup, Muratie’s Ben Prins Cape Vintage 2009 at R170 a bottle.
Made from four traditional Portuguese varieties, all hand-harvested from a single vineyard planted in 1965, the Ben Prins packs a punch of mulberries, fruitcake and dark chocolate, best for fireside sipping after supper.
NOTE: First published in Sunday Times Food Weekly, 13 July 2014