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Hello fellow wine lovers!

Welcome to Jackie Loves Wine! I love to spend my weekends and holidays perusing wine shops, making dinner with wine pairing for my friends or family or heading out to a wine region to explore the wineries and taste the local wine. My goal with this page is to share what wines I'm pairing with the food I eat. I hope this will make wine lovers more confident serving wine to guests, ordering a wine in a restaurant or bar or buying a nice bottle of wine for a friend. Browse through my pairings below, you can use the filters to search for a dish or for a wine.

Sprouts are notoriously hard to pair with wine. They have organosulfur compounds (sulfur) which clash with the wine and can give the wine a metallic taste. There are a few wines that rise above this problem and this skin-contact Fiano is one of them! The bitter notes from the skin contact of this white wine pair perfectly with the sprouts and hazelnuts in the food. The sprouts and hazelnuts in this dish make this the perfect Autumnal tart!

Sprout, Hazelnut and Gruyère Tart & Skin Contact Fiano

This is such a delicious and easy to make snack. The acidity from the lemon zest and red wine vinegar pair well with the acidity in the wine, the flintiness of the wine pairs well with the smoked paprika and the aromatics of the wine pair well with the spice in the marinade. It's perfect for on a barbecue, on a grazing board, in your pitas for a weeknight meals; there's so many ways to enjoy this.

Chicken Souvlaki & Assyrtiko

One of my favourite things about being a Mum is baking with my son. We made these delicious Easter treats together. He loves getting involved, although he doesn't really understand why we have to wait for it to go in the oven before we can eat it. It pairs really well with this Botrytis Semillon, which can stand up well to the sweetness of this dessert. The toffee notes in the dish pair well with the caramel from the condensed milk. The high acidity in the wine ensures that the two together are not overly sweet.

Mini Egg, Caramel and Nut Slice & Botrytis Semillon

This Cajun shrimp and bean salad is perfect for warm weather. It's super easy to make and brings so much freshness from the red onions, the tomatoes and the lime together with sweetness from the sweetcorn and the shrimp and spiciness from the Cajun seasoning. This Vermentino pairs well with the high acidity of the lime and the spiciness of the Cajun seasoning. It's got crisp acidity and is highly aromatic which works well with spiciness and the acidity in this wine matches the acidity of the lime juice. It wasn't easy finding a wine that paired well with this dish (I tried six wines!), but this Vermentino is delicious and pairs nicely!

Tip: If you decide to leave the Cajun shrimp out of this salad, an Albariño would pair even better!

Cajun Shrimp with Cannellini Bean Salad & Vermentino

An incredibly easy starter that just takes a few minutes to make and will be sure to impress your guests! These herby, lemony scallops go amazing with the Albariño. This Albariño is officially my new favourite wine. It's fully dry with medium body and accompanied by lovely ripe citrus and stone fruit notes with some floral notes as well. The wine is made from vines which are 25 years old and you can taste the intenseness back in the wine. The citrus notes and saline characteristic of Albariño loves seafood and works well with this dish. The richness of the butter with the fish sauce pairs well with the intenseness and body of this wine. I will be stocking up on a lot more bottles of this wine!

Garlic and Parsley Scallops & Albariño

Hot Cross Buns are traditionally eaten at Easter in many of the Commonwealth countries and are a very popular treat at Easter in Australia. Making a Hot Cross Bun pudding is a great way to use up any leftover hot cross buns. Rutherglen Muscat is Australia’s own style of fortified wine. Partly shrivelled Rutherglen Brown Muscat grapes are briefly fermented and then fortified. They then undergo an oxidative maturation process. This wine did so in a solera system. The final product is sweet and luscious with rich aromas of dried fruit and spices and notes of nuts and treacle. This pairs perfectly with the raisins, sultanas and currants in the Hot Cross Buns, the cinnamon in the pudding and the pecan nuts which are sprinkled on top. This Hot Cross Bun pudding is made with brown sugar to complement the treacle character of the wine.

Hot Cross Bun Pudding & Rutherglen Muscat

If you've not tried a Xinomavro before, please put it on your 'to try' list! It's sometimes called the Barolo of Greece and honestly I understand why! Like Barolo, this wine has got high acidity, high tannin, good body and has complex fruit, anise and spice flavours. The price-quality is outstanding. This Greek wine goes so well with this Greek style lamb. The tannin and body love lamb and the acidity goes surprisingly well with the tzatziki and greek salad. Such a lovely meal for a Sunday or Easter and I bet it would work really well on a barbecue too.

Greek Style Roast Lamb & Xinomavro

This super easy garlic shrimp and tomato pasta works really well with this Sauvignon Blanc. The freshness and fruitiness of Sauvignon Blanc works really well with garlic, fresh tomato and shrimp. The freshness cuts through the richness of the anchovies and olive oil. The subtle oak ageing gives this wine good texture and smokiness which works well with the fresh pasta.

Garlic Shrimp and Tomato Pasta & Fumé Blanc

Goat cheese and Sauvignon Blanc is a classic pairing that just works really well! Goats cheese typically has high acidity with earthy, grassy notes which combine really well with the high acidity and grassy, green vegetable notes typically found in Sauvignon Blanc. The kale and fennel also match the green vegetable notes in the Sauvignon Blanc and the creamy texture of the wine works well with the egg, cream and cheese mixture in the quiche. All in all, a fantastic pairing for the Spring time!

Fennel, Kale and Goat Cheese Quiche & Pouilly Fumé

Pinot Gris is one of my favourite styles of wine. In the Alsace they pick the grapes when they are very ripe so that they get a full-bodied, high alcohol wine with ripe fruit aromas. It's an amazing style of wine for pairing with food and goes particularly well with smoked fish and vegetables. Famille Hugel is a fantastic producer in the Alsace that is passionate about creating high-quality wines in the traditional style found in the Alsace. I've paired this delicious wine with hot smoked salmon, roasted bell peppers, couscous, kale, goat cheese and lemon. It was one of my favourite pairings. Not only was this dish super easy to make, packed with lots of good stuff, it would definitely be a dish that would impress your guests. Please go out and try it too!

Hot Smoked Salmon, Couscous and Goat Cheese Salad & Pinot Gris

This yummy caramelised onion & thyme tart is the perfect dish for a lunch with friends, a starter or a light dinner. It does take a bit of time and cutting all those onions is a bit of a task but it's actually very easy to make. The Gewürztraminer is a very aromatic grape and has a little bit of sweetness as the Alsace is a relatively warm region despite how northerly it is, so it works great with the sweetness of the onions. A pairing that anyone would love!

Caramelised Onion and Thyme Tart & Gewürztraminer

This chicken satay is an absolutely beloved recipes in our household and nearly always makes it onto our barbecue. Some of the ingredients can be hard to find in your normal supermarket but asian supermarkets should stock them! The chicken skewers and sauce can be made up front, in fact, they will have more flavour if made the day before and then you just need to cook the chicken and it's ready to serve. I've paired this with a Gewürztraminer from the Alsace. The Alsace is a relatively warm region in France despite its northerly latitude and this is due to the protection the area gets from the Vosges mountains. They can therefore make wines with lovely ripe flavours like this Gewürztraminer which pairs well with Asian food. The high aromatics, a bit of sweetness and high acidity work well with spice and the sweetness that is found in the satay sauce.

Indonesian Chicken Satay & Gewürztraminer

My husband made me lasagna for our third date and has been perfecting this recipe ever since. He’s very proud of the number of layers he can create by making every element in the tomato sauce very tiny. It means this recipe has the perfect ratio of pasta to tomato sauce to béchamel sauce. We served lasagna at our wedding together with a Sangiovese, a classic combination. Sangiovese matches amazingly with beef, tomato and cheese so it's a match made in heaven.

My Husband's Beef Lasagna with Sangiovese

The ultimate comfort pairing. This cheesy aubergine bake was described by my two-year old as ‘yummy’, so I’m taking that as a win! The Sangiovese was great with it! Tomato, aubergine and cheese all pair great with Sangiovese, Perfect for a cold evening or when you just feel like something with lots of gooey, cheesy deliciousness.

Cheesy Aubergine Bake & Sangiovese

What a fantastic pairing, both truly became better by being combined together. I paired this spicy Thai Green Vegetable Curry with this The Remarkables New Zealand Grüner Veltliner. It was dry but with more aromatic fruit notes than a typical Austrian Grüner Veltliner and therefore worked really well with the spiciness and the creaminess of the coconut. Grüner Veltliner is also known for its green peppery notes which worked so well with the curry.

Thai Green Vegetable Curry & Grüner Veltliner

This classic combination of rosemary, garlic, mustard and lamb works a treat with the Cabernet Sauvignon. It's easy to make, all you have to do is mix the marinade, baste the lamb and pop it in the oven and hours later you have a delish meal. Perfect for Easter or for your Sunday roast.

Rosemary, Garlic and Mustard Roast Lamb & Cabernet Sauvignon

Grüner Veltliner is such an underrated grape variety and this First Creeks Grüner Veltliner is fantastic. It goes amazingly with the asian flavours of a tuna tartare. The dish is so easy to make and would be a show-stopping pairing as a starter. Make sure you're buying really fresh, sashimi grade tuna as that will make or break this dish. This wine will also go well with sushi.

Tuna Tartare & Grüner Veltliner

One of my favourite parts of being a mum is baking with my boys. And so, of course, Pancake Day was the perfect opportunity to do a bit of baking together. Traditionally, Pancake Day is celebrated to mark the last day before Lent. It was seen as a last feast before many Christian's practiced some form of fasting (whether that is abstaining from rich foods, alcohol or something else) in the run up to Easter. For Pancake Day, we made these delicious lemon and sugar pancakes and of course I had to pair it with a wine. This Australian Sparkling Moscato is light, fresh, semi-sweet and floral. It goes perfectly with these pancakes and keeps the whole meal feeling relatively light (despite the milk, butter and sugar). It's a great meal to make with kids, if you've got kids that like to join you in the kitchen. Check out my Instagram to see how my son helped me!

Pancakes with Lemon and Sugar & Sparkling Moscato

Now I don't know about you, but a Sauvignon Blanc wouldn't be the first pairing I would think of with a roast chicken. I'd probably tend towards a Pinot Noir typically, however as I was doing some reading about pairings with lemon, chicken and fennel, it became evident that a Sauvignon Blanc was probably going to be the right choice. I was sceptical so I tried a few other wines as well - but the Sauvignon Blanc was the clear winner. This delicious recipe creates a nice crispy skin with juicy chicken underneath. It's high acidity with the lemon juice and zest and feels very springy/summery when combined with the fennel and the crisp Sauvignon Blanc. A classic roast chicken but elevated - give it a go!

Lemony Roast Chicken with Fennel & Sauvignon Blanc

This simple and delicious salad goes so well with the Assyrtiko. The dressing is tangy from the vinegar and the mustard with some sweetness from the honey which matches well with the high acidity with ripe fruit notes in the wine. The saltiness of the halloumi and the bacon matches with the flinty, smokey notes found in the wine. All in all a perfect dish for a summer days or a picnic.

Halloumi, Bacon and Avocado Salad & Assyrtiko

Peppery Roast Lamb & Australian Shiraz

I was really happy with this pairing of Pinot Noir rosé with soy-ginger salmon. Rosé, particularly one made from the Pinot Noir grape, has a unique affinity for salmon. It also works well with asian flavours due to the subtle sweet flavours of the Pinot Noir grape combined with the vibrant acidity of rosé. Pinot Noir as a grape is known for its ability to pair well with a range of ingredients. It complements salmon but also works wonderfully with other flavours such as soy, fennel and mushrooms. This combinations makes for a perfect match, bringing out the best in both the wine and the dish. I snagged this fabulous rosé up at St Maur winery in the Southern Highlands about a month ago, and let me tell you, it has become one of my favourites. Perfect for any shindig, whether you're throwing a fancy dinner party or having a girl's night at home. Its charm is so versatile. I find myself wishing I had a secret stash of these bottles still. The dish itself is a breeze to whip up, which adds to its appeal. With just a handful ingredients and minimal fuss, I would confidently serve this to guests, knowing they'd be wowed by its taste. At the same time, it's a stellar choice for a healthy, hassle-free weeknight meal. I look forward to enjoying this pairing of Pinot Noir rosé and soy-ginger salmon again soon.

Soy-Ginger Salmon & Pinot Noir Rosé

Roasted courgette with pesto pasta, toasted pine nuts, and burrata is a beloved family favourite in our household that never fails to impress. This dish is not only incredibly easy to prepare, but it also bursts with flavour, making it my go-to vegetarian option for any occasion. Now, when it comes to wine, there's no single bottle that screams "I belong with pesto!" So, I decided to play sommelier and try a few. Spoiler: all three wines got along well with the pasta, each for its own reason. First up, Sauvignon Blanc. This wine pairs well with pesto due to its distinct green, grassy notes that mirror the fresh basil and garlic found in pesto. Plus its acidity cuts through the richness of the parmesan and olive oil in pesto. Next, I explored Gavi, a white wine from the Piedmont region of Italy and Vermentino, a popular varietal from coastal Italian regions. Both of these wines possess sufficient acidity to slice through the richness of the dish, while also offering citrus and almond notes. The almond undertones in these wines pair well with the pine nuts in the pesto and sprinkled on top of the pasta. The Gavi was my favourite in the end. It was the wise, complex one of the group with its citrus and nutty notes that added layers of flavour to the meal and stole my heart. The experience of pairing these wines was fun and revealed the wonderful ways in which wine can elevate a meal and enhance the flavours of the ingredients.

Roasted Courgette Pesto Pasta & Gavi

A velvety, creamy bisque with an oaky Chardonnay is not just a classic pairing; it is a culinary experience that enhances the flavours of both the dish and the wine. It works so well for a reason; there is an intricate balance of both textures and flavours. The oak ageing and lees stirring of the Chardonnay contributes a creaminess that beautifully complements the rich, silky consistency of the bisque. This particular Hunter Valley Chardonnay has also been aged on French barriques for 6 months, which has added complex layers of flavour, including a subtle smokiness derived from the French oak. This gentle smokiness adds an intriguing depth that harmonises well with the bisque, especially because of the addition of the smoked paprika in the bisque. Finally, the sharp acidity which can be found in a well made Chardonnay cuts through the richness of the soup, providing a refreshing contrast. Making a bisque is indeed a labour of love that requires a bit of patience, as it involves a careful process of simmering and blending to achieve the perfect velvety texture. However, I believe this is an example of where the right wine can elevate a dish to new heights and bring out the best in both the food and drink. Thus, while the preparation of a bisque may require time and attention, the reward of savouring this classic combination with a perfectly paired oaked Chardonnay is undoubtedly worth the effort.

Shrimp Bisque & Oaky Chardonnay

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