I must down to the sea again...

 I’ve just come back from a week by the seaside, or rather a week by two seasides but let’s not complicate things.  

I find that being by the sea makes me want to eat fish so some monkfish was (sustainably) sourced and delivered to the kitchen, where it was wrapped in bacon and half fried, half steamed in a pan with a little butter and a squeeze of lemon.  

Like all civilised people eating generally makes me want to drink wine.  But what wine to have with our monkfish? We were away from home and cellar so this was an opportunity to be impulsive and try something new.  White wine is the default choice for fish, and while not one that need be universally adhered to (salmon en croute and pinot noir anyone?) is a generally an agreeable one; the lack of tannins and the citrus acidity cutting through the fish’s usual oily texture.  In our house the default white wines are Burgundy (him) and New Zealand sauvignon blanc (her) but what to have when out of the house?

We deliberated in the wine aisle of a local supermarket.  The selection was varied.  We ended up plumping for an Argentinian wine made from the Torrontes grape.  A grape I for one had never heard of!

Boy, am I glad we did.  What a discovery!  Light, floral on the nose with such a strong scent of tangerine that I thought it could have been christmas.  Notes of honeysuckle and peach also in there.  A dry wine with just enough acidity on the palate to make it stand up to the food, not particularly long, but perfect as a quaffing wine.  To be honest I think that this would work better as an aperitif, and have something with a little bit more oomph to go with the food, but this isn’t a criticism of the wine, just our pairing.

The price?  A very reasonable £7.50

The wine is Fairtrade & Organic.