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Published on November 4, 2007

The Shangri-La deserves applause from winemakers everywhere for its ongoing efforts at pairing Thai food with wine. Its ideally situated Salathip Thai restaurant on the Chao Phya River was the venue for three earlier wine dinners this year.

Last week the Salathip enlisted expertise from a family of chefs that has served the royal palace for generations, in the person of ML Kwantip Devakula.

Kwantip, principal adviser to London's famed Benja Thai restaurant, integrated a delicious four-course menu with wines from pioneering New Zealand winery Matua Valley.

Winery founder and general manager Bill Spence talked about the winery that he and his brother Ross founded in 1973.

"We had big dreams and a small budget at the time, but we've come a long way, including providing root stock from our sauvignon blanc vines that became famous under the label Cloudy Bay," he said.

This sauvignon blanc, with its integrated herbal and tropical fruit flavours, paired well with Kwantip's lemongrass-dressed New Zealand mussels. Her minced lamb in betel leaves and frog legs with kaffir-lime leaves won applause for subtle use of herbs and spices.

Spence's barely oaked North Island '04 chardonnay was a friendly companion. His '05 soft-tannin, black cherry Bullrush merlot and succulent, late-harvest Muscat were hand in glove with basil- and chilli-grilled sirloin and Thai tea ice cream.

What a dinner experience for under Bt2,000!

The Four Seasons, a leader in epicurean excellence, staged another of its Italian bacchanalian wine-and-food pairings at Biscotti two weeks ago.

Biscotti called on its own boss, Danilo Aisassa, for flavours of Piemonte, Andrea Sacchi for those of Lombardi and Giordano Faggioli for the richness of Romagna to give patrons a panoply of Italian regional tastes.

Sacchi and Faggioli lead the kitchens at Four Seasons Chiang Mai and Koh Samui resorts, respectively.

The talented trio was supported by an interesting selection of generally uncommon Italian wines supplied by local distributor G Four International.

Anyone not taking notes missed out on a trove of new recipes and wines. Creations such as salt-cured tuna carpaccio with strawberry tartar, John Dory wrapped in potato with saffron sauce and pan-seared quail with brown veal sauce provided wakeup calls for the taste buds.

A superb brut spumante from Ferrari started the evening, followed by a Calabrian blend of cabernet and gaglioppo rich in ripe plum flavours, aged three years in French oak, and an unusual fruit-forward red made from aglianico grapes indigenous to Molise on Italy's central east coast.

Danilo did his usual superb job of coordinating Biscotti's kitchen with his Italian associates and the restaurant's precision-trained staff.

For information on the next Shangri-La wine dinner, call (02) 236 7777, and on Four Seasons events (02) 250 1000. Matua Valley wines from Canpac Beverages at (02) 736 9580. Italian wines are available from G Four at (02) 674 0836.