Tom presents the three with four courses, each featuring the same dish but presented in distinct ways, the first being a simple rendition focusing on a main ingredient, the second featuring additional elements that echo flavours of certain classic wines. He explains the rationale behind this, and we taste two wines per course, noting how the food affects the wine, and how the wine may affect the food.

Opening a bottle of rarely-seen Dard & Ribo’s Crozes-Hermitage Blanc “K” 2023, an energetic mineral-edged Marsanne and an Au Bon Climat Santa Barbara Chardonnay 2021 (Tom’s suggestion), we assess how these wines match respectively the two different versions of a crab dish. We then sample two iterations of local line-caught sea bass, firstly with a delicate Deep Down Marlborough Sauvignon 2023 and then with a more structured barrel-fermented Concisco from Niepoort 2018 from the Dao region.

Just Another Wine Podcast extends its thanks to the team at The Terrace Rooms and Wines at Ventnor on the Isle of Wight.