A good cup of tea or a kick ass coffee are my usual beverages of choice when I'm indulging in a cupcake.
But if I wanted to match my cupcake with a wine choice, but what would it be?
Master of Wine, Peter Scudamore Smith came to my rescue with these guidelines.
Peter says start with the anatomy of a cup cake-sponge (butter, slippery stuff/fat) which is complemented by sweetness/sugar in the icing or cup cake body, plus flavouring.
Dry wine is incompatible to the combination of sweet cake, and with the drying out effect of wine, the flavours are all out of sync.
Instead Peter recommends a sweet cake plus sweet wine match because of the high acidity behind the sweet wine will sooth the match and create palate harmony. As well, the acidity in both the cake ingredients and the sticky highlight the cake taste.
Which sticky? Well staying close to home, Barambah Wines in the South Burnett has a sticky is made by a using traditional techniques. Barambah Wines have built a series of drying racks to wither the grapes and make a artisan-style sweet table dessert wine.
Yummy - sounds just what I need for my next cupcake degustation!
Here are Peter's tasting notes on the wine -
2009 Rack Dried Semillon 375ml RDSem09
The Semillon for this wine was hand-harvested from some of the South Burnett's oldest and highly-acclaimed grape wines grown on the dependable Barambah Wines vineyard.This wine - from an outstanding 2009 vintage was made from portions of rack and vine-dried semillon grapes. Using the Italian passito method, the grapes were re-fermented with dry semillon wine and aged in French barriques. The balanced sweetness and full-bodied sweet wine flavours of this ancient style are high-quality hallmarks of this mature Barambah Wines vineyard.
You can buy Barambah Wines online at www.barambah.com.au
Find out more about wine matching at Peter's