The table of sommeliers went quiet. We had found the ultimate food and wine pairing - tagliolini with a generous shaving of white truffles with 1959 Dom Pérignon. How very luxe, and how very back then (twenty years ago, at a restaurant long since departed). The group then cooed over the wine’s liquid white truffle notes, and indeed still salivate over that pairing today. In fact, ask a sommelier or a wine buff what their ‘last meal’ would be, and many will tell you pasta and a favourite wine.

I also struggle to eat pasta without a glass of wine. But which wine? Though really, we should be asking, which sauce? Ideally you want your wine to enhance the flavours of the sauce – get it right and it can transform a simple dish into something special. Yes, you can always choose the wine from the region where the dish originates and get it right every time – such as Lazio favourite cacio e pepe (pecorino and pepper) with ancient Roman white Frascati, but there’s a whole wine world out there from which to choose. So, with that in mind here are some of my favourite pasta dishes paired with non-Italian wine, from crab linguine and minerally Albariño from Galicia, to meat ragu with a fruity Argentinian Malbec, to Ligurian classic trenette al pesto with a citrussy Assyrtiko from Greece, and pasta dressed in a fresh tomato sauce with a herbaceous English Bacchus.

Enzo Russomanno is head sommelier at acclaimed one Michelin-starred Italian-leaning restaurant Luca in London and he believes that the flavour of the pasta, too, should be considered when finding the perfect match for the dish. ‘Pasta is made with durum wheat, which has a mild, sort of sweet and slightly nutty flavour,’ he nods. ‘So yes, the sauce plays an important role in the pairing, but I do consider the pasta itself to be the protagonist of the dish and not just the accompaniment for the sauce.’

And being an Italian, Russomanno also favours his own country’s wines for pairing with pasta dishes, and he has many favourites. With cheese-based sauces, he loves whites with a bright acidity, such as Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi, or lighter unoaked reds, such as Tuscan Sangiovese. For fresh and light tomato sauces, he favours aromatic whites such as Malvasia or Vermentino, while for cooked tomatoes, he seeks out something less acidic, and with more fruit, such as Greco di Tufo. He will also wax lyrical about wines to match Italian meat sauces, pointing out that Italy offers more than just its famous ragu alla Bolognese, such as Campania’s ragu alla Genovese (not Ligurian, despite its name), which eschews tomatoes in its slow-braised sauce of beef, carrots, celery, and onions for dressing ziti pasta. With that, his perfect pairing is a wine called Irpinia, made from Coda di Volpe by Michele Perillo in Campania.

Over at Angela Hartnett’s celebrated Murano restaurant in Mayfair, head sommelier Ali Finch, has a theory – and a warning – about umami flavours in pasta when pairing with wine. 'Umami flavours from ingredients like asparagus, truffle, mushrooms and parmesan can sometimes kill the fruit character in a wine so it’s better to choose something that is less fruit focused, such as an oaked Tuscan Chardonnay or a traditional method sparkling like Franciacorta,’ she advises. Her all-time favourite pasta and wine match from the menu? ‘Jakot from Radikon with risotto Milanese and ossobuco,' she replies, eyes glittering. ‘The Friulano is made with months of skin contact, which gives enough texture to handle the braised veal but provides intense white grape aromatics that lift the saffron used in the risotto.’