A glistening fresh salmon, costing no more in its entirety than a couple of bottles of plonk, turned my kitchen into a crazy alchemist's den. Maybe I should have taken the easy way out, poaching the wild beauty whole and staging the sort of meal you get at summer weddings. But what a chance to dish up the king of fish in different guises! What a chance to play at matching food and wine flavours - the perfect excuse to keep opening bottles! It's as good a way as I've discovered so far to kick a bit of fun into this summer.
And no, we're not talking big money. Although the mega-rich among you may reach for the safest and grandest salmon partners, top-notch white Burgundy and good champagne, there's really no necessity to go to such extremes. With wild salmon selling cheaply at this time of the year, why not assemble an entire feast on a slender budget? Nose around diligently and you'll discover it's relatively easy to find wines that will partner stunningly the sort of dishes John McKenna outlines on this page. Nothing in the list below costs more than £7.99.
Now back to the chopping board. I hacked a small tail portion off my salmon for poaching - for the pleasure of rediscovering the white wines that seem to go best with the delicate flavour of the fish in its simplest state. Subtlety really is the key here. For my money, Chardonnay works splendidly - but only when it's restrained enough in style to partner the fish in the way that a light beurre blanc might do. That leads us first to France where, without crashing through the price barrier, it's possible to find straightforward but delicious white Burgundies to do poached salmon proud. With their relatively high acidity (compared with their New World cousins), these cut through the tongue-coating creaminess of accompanying buttery sauces or mayonnaise. See Bottle of the Week.
If you rather like the notion of playing up the butter and lemon flavours that seem to go so naturally with salmon, consider a Chardonnay from the lightest end of the Californian spectrum. Provided it's not too oaky (in which case the poor fish will be overpowered), and not too sickly (sweet-toothed America - beware!), it should be a winner. Gentle Chardonnays from New Zealand may also fit the bill, but to me those of Australia, Chile and other New World countries with more sunshine in an average day than we've seen this entire year are just so ripe and fruity they dominate the fish.
So far, so predictable: Chardonnay of the leaner sort is salmon's live-in partner - easy to get on with a good deal of the time. But with some of the recipes on this page, other wines behave better. Take gravlax, for instance, which I made for the first time with a third of my big fish - inspired not just by the planning discussions for this page but also by a reader's letter. A few weeks ago, writing about Chenin Blanc, I mentioned that Vouvray is "apparently ace with gravlax".
What, pray, is gravlax, my correspondent asked? Writing a quick reply it struck me it was high time I made it and checked out the partnership's credentials. Vouvray, I'm happy to say, is indeed delicious, matching the sweetness of the fish yet delivering a tangy finish. Riesling Kabinett would, I think, do the same.
Ceviche, in which raw, cubed salmon is briefly "cooked" in lime juice (making the juiciest, tastiest salmon treat of them all), calls for something altogether different. Find a wine that echoes that lime freshness and you'll have manufactured for yourself a magic little pocket of summer bliss. Citrussy Australian Riesling gets my top marks, but quite a few examples of South African Chenin Blanc (known locally as Steen) have a generous enough streak of lime to work quite well. Try Simonsig, Paarl Heights or Drostdy-Hof. The more assertive the flavours in the salmon recipe you choose, the more you'll need a wine with an equal personality. When it comes to finding a partner for the eed Salmon Fillet salmon and buttered cabbage with Vongerichten's Juniper Vinaigrette, whites in the shrinking violet class should stay stoppered. A bit of fragrant extroversion is required to meld with the perfumed juniper/gin/sherry vinegar combination - again with a hint of sweetness linking these flavours to the cabbage. Some of Alsace's spicy whites could do the trick in style - but hardly for under £7.99. Why not a dry muscat from somewhere else - like the tasty version from south-eastern France listed below?
Not that the automatic wine choice need be white. You only have to look at a nice piece of salmon with its meaty pink flesh to see that light red wines stand a good chance of doing it justice. Young Pinot Noir, either from Burgundy or the New World, can be delicious, often with a slightly smoky edge that particularly suits grilled salmon. Chilled Beaujolais is another possibility, if its fruity nature suits your cooking method. Best of all, perhaps, are the juicy light reds of the Loire - wines such as Chinon and Bourgueil, Saumur and Saumur-Champigny, based on fragrant Cabernet Franc. The main problem with any of these salmon-friendly reds may be tracking down good examples that offer the same sensational value as the lordly fish does just now, but it's certainly worth a try.