Winter wine

Slow-cooked comfort food - stews, casseroles and daubes - demands comfort wine. Substance calls for substance. Winter is a time for fuelling up with meat, two root veg and potatoes, and red wines with plenty of (ripe) tannins help to digest and break down meat- and-starch combinations. As it says in the Bible, ‘use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake’. Now is the season for those reliable sun-burnished antique Riojas and Barolos, old-fashioned mahogany reds, or to experience the smooth, caramelized flavours conferred by age in the bottle of a white Rioja or an old Burgundy of Hunter Valley Semillon.