Wine with lamb - Which wine goes best?

There is no lamb in the plastic-wrapped single portions in the supermarket. Not in the contemporary bowls either. It is estimated that the mere mention of lamb is enough to disgust 65% of Germans.

It's like garlic. Garlic was not a German plant. But how times change, right? Anyone who goes one step further in the art of cooking will sooner or later end up with lamb. The enlightened lamb lover sees the nagging of the anti-lambs as ignorance. In some cases you can even smell xenophobia - discrimination against "southern cuisine". But we rely on the lamb. Our revolution will only be considered a success when the chatter of turkeys is replaced by the soothing bleating of lambs and yes, goats too. Who has something against garlic? Does it smell bad? Only when he's old. If the germ is gray, it smells bad. Throw it away and buy fresh.

Who has something against lamb?

Does the lamb smell bad? Is the lamb closer to the game on the scent scale? This may be. But there are some effective ways to reduce the smell of lamb. Vegetables, especially fresh garlic and fresh herbs. You are at a fork in the road. Remove the lamby smell by soaking it in buttermilk overnight? Or do you emphasize the smell of lamb with herbs and spices? Either way, you'll transform the whole thing with long, slow cooking until the meat falls off the bones, as they say.

Lamb in the cocotte

Collect everything like in a culinary still life: a lamb shank, a bunch of bay leaves, three whole, fresh garlic bulbs and a bunch of thyme. Leave the fat on the lamb. First, please brown everything in a pan that can withstand high heat. Then everything goes into the cast iron roasting pan with salt, one butcher onion, roughly chopped, thirty grains of Belem pepper, six tomatoes and six carrots. Put the lid on and put it on the stove over a low heat or roast the whole thing in the oven at 65° C.

By now you should go to the cellar and get wine. Which wine goes best? The “steakhouse recommendation” used to be Cabernet Sauvignon with beef. Syrah to lamb, as an analogy. An absurdity, of course. Just because lamb is more “Mediterranean”? Lamb is completely ecumenical when it comes to wine. But we are not. We are partisans. Our recommendation for lamb is the brilliant Collio wines from Mitja Miklus. Pay attention, here we leave the milk toast world of boring “which wine with which food recommendations” forever. Treat yourself to a light red Collio Pinot Grigio with your juicy lamb. Challenge yourself with crazy Malvasia, an absolute revelation. It will forcefully recalibrate your idea of ​​what a meal can be.

That's the point of the whole exercise. We have left viruses and winter behind and are rewiring ourselves to nature's dynamo, spring. We take inspired but simple dishes and combine them with excellent natural wine that screams of its origins, and hear a gong from the kitchen.

Well, take the Collio Merlot and hold on tight, because this combination is captivating and profound. If you have lamb on your fork and the Draga Collio Merlot in the other hand, then you are dancing over the peak of taste in a cultivated and life-affirming Sarabande.

After 90 minutes, add cleaned but unpeeled bog potatoes and let them cook for another hour. If it smells unpleasant, take a shower. The lamb is a symbol of human well-being. The lamb is a small breeding unit. If you keep everything small, you don't need a slaughterhouse. During my research into viticulture in ancient Sicily during the time of Magna Graecia, I came across the bucolic poetry of Theocritus. It turned out that you only need half a dozen sheep to survive as a shepherd and free your spirit from hardship. Like before, like today?