Sip Quips

Things have been rather busy around our house recently. We did some serious spring cleaning, both of the house and the wine cellar. To really do the wine cellar justice it was necessary to bottle our homemade wine – a Pinot Noir and a blush of Pinot Noir. Since we don’t have all of the required bottling equipment, we have to rent it, and as this seems to be the height of bottling season for home winemakers, the only time we could rent the equipment was mid-week. Yuck!

So, after my husband got home from work we needed to go through the whole process of bottling. We tasted all of the carboys of wine, to be sure that all of the wine was good prior to bottling. Then came the process of setting up a ‘bottling line,’ a big fermenter (aka giant food-grade plastic bucket), stacked on top of another fermenter so that we could get a gravity siphon going. After filling all eight cases of bottles individually, it was then time to cork them. Individually. It’s a long process, but we were much better, cleaner, faster than our last experience with bottling. 

As we started this whole process at about 6:30, we had to incorporate dinner into the middle of the bottling process. The remaining vegetables from last weeks veggie share pick-up dictated that we have a stir-fry with green beans, oyster mushrooms, and scallions. Since we were in the heat of bottling our Pinot when we stopped for our dinner break, it made sense to celebrate the occasion with a glass of Pinot Noir, and it was perfectly awful? But at the same time I wouldn’t have wanted any other wine – it was perfect, in its own weird way.

The spicy, Sriracha heavy stir-fry was not even close to the right food for our Pinot, which is highly acidic, and has bright raspberry fruit. Its our favorite stir-fry recipe and the Pinot is the best wine that we have made by far. Even though the wine was awful with the food, it was a perfect meal because of the situation. Sometimes the best match is the food that you want and the wine that you want, compatibility be damned!

Wine and cheese. Cheese and wine. They go together like, well, wine and cheese. There’s a reason that this is a classic pairing – because it just works! The acidity in the wine cuts through the richness of the cheese and the fruit flavors of the wine somehow heighten the savory creaminess of the cheese. I’m getting hungry just typing this. The mere thought of my favorite supper is enough to make my mouth water.

In days of my first restaurant job, a Boulder landmark that was open for just about every single holiday, where you had to work every single holiday shift, my mom and I started a family tradition. As I got to my parents house around 11 on Christmas Eve, a bit too late for a holiday meal, my mom would pick up a delicious assortment of cheeses, charcuterie, olives, fruits and peppers and I would bring home a bottle of wine for us to share.

Even after I moved on to other jobs we continued this tradition in part because it was so tasty, but also because with this type of meal you sit and talk, nosh and sip for hours. It’s less of a meal and more of a conversation with food. It also doesn’t hurt that there is virtually no prep and very little clean-up.

I’m carrying on this newfound tradition with my new family as well. My husband and I enjoy antipasto suppers, aka ‘Christmas Eve Dinner,’ at least once a month. I’ve also extended the tradition to my extended family – my in-laws thought it was a great no-muss, no-fuss prelude to Christmas.

Over the years I have tried just about every wine to accompany Christmas Eve Dinner – Pinot to Cab, Sauv Blanc to Sauternes. Every wine is always wonderful with at least one of the cheeses, but quite often it’s also dreadful with another. I went through a phase when I tried to select only cheeses that would pair with the wine. This worked fairly well, except there was always one cheese that I really wanted but couldn’t get because of the wine. Then I went in search of a wine that would more often than not be good with a vast array of cheeses.

I found it in bubbly! I know, I know, as much as I sing the praises of bubbly it should cure cancer and bring about world peace, but as far as food wines go, you can’t beat a good sparkling wine. It has enough acidity to stand up to the richness of cheese, but that’s not what makes it really special. Bubbly has the ability to complement both a tart goat cheese and creamy brie, a sharp cheddar and a stinky bleu. While I won’t try to claim that it is the perfect wine for every cheese it certainly isn’t bad with any. Ahh bubbly….is there anything you can’t do?

We just watched the first of the Indiana Jones movies, and I realized that I forgot a genius wine pairing in my last post, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark with, wait for it, Ravenswood Zinfandel. Not only is there the illusive Professor Ravenswood, Indy’s mentor, and Marion Ravenswood, but honestly – could you get a more perfect wine than one whose tag line is ‘No Wimpy Wines,’ if an Indiana Jones movie is the feature presentation?

Of course, any thought about dinner and a movie gets the old hamster wheel turning and I inevitably come up with one or two more thoughts on the subject. If you are watching a Cheech and Chong flick, and choose to keep your mind-altering substances legal – there’s always Absinthe! It’s green, it’s reputed to get you quite high, and it is, as of recently, legal.  

Another thought – Hoosiers with Hangtime Syrah, come on… basketball, hang time? It’s delightfully cheesy and more than a bit contrived. 

I can’t believe I missed this one the first time around – Silence of the Lambs with a nice Chianti ffptf..ffpth..ftphf..fftthpht. Perhaps some fava beans too, if you are willing to go that far, or if you, like me, can’t get enough fava beans. 

This will likely become an ongoing series, and I’d love to hear your suggestions. After all, who doesn’t love a good, cheap date night?

If I could stock my cellar with only one type of wine, it would have to be bubbly. Not only is it ridiculously versatile as a food wine, but it’s quite refreshing and quaffable on its own, and no other wine is so exuberant and yet so sophisticated. Think of it as the Swiss Army knife of your cellar – it does it all, and it’s wrapped up in an elegant little package.

You’ve got your cellar stocked with bubbly, now what to eat? Pretty much anything! The only thing I have found that I didn’t love with sparkling wine was a green peppercorn sauce, and heck, even that wasn’t bad. Sparkling wine works well with cheeses, other dairy, spicy foods, seafood, shellfish, meat, vegetables, and old shoes. Okay, maybe I’m kidding about the old shoe, but I wouldn’t put it past the superpowers of a good bubbly. What is it about those intoxicating little bubbles (pun shamelessly intended) that makes sparkling wine so fantastic with food? Three things – acid, texture, and balance. 

Acid. Not only do you have the natural acidity of the wine, but also the carbonic acid from the bubbles. Typically, the grapes harvested for sparkling wine are picked with a higher acid to sugar ratio than most other wine grapes, because you want the wine to be fairly low alcohol to make the secondary fermentation (the one that makes those glorious bubbles) easier to start.  So, you have a good bit of acidity to start with and then you add even more acidity when you put the bubbles in, now that’s what I call crisp. Acidity in wine makes your mouth water, and it cuts through rich, creamy sauces, prepping you to get the most from your next bite.

Texture. We all know the feeling of the bubbles dancing across your tongue, whether it be from your last glass of sparkling wine or your last glass of soda. The texture the bubbles create in your mouth is unlike anything that you are eating, and it provides an interesting counterbalance to the texture of the food. It also seems to me that all those bubbles wake up a sleepy palate and get you primed and ready to taste.

Balance. The key factor in any good food wine is balance. You don’t want the wine to swing too far in any one direction or it will overwhelm the food. Sparkling wines are made in a clean style, so that there is not too much of any one flavor, most notably oak. The also have the distinct honor of being a relatively low alcohol wine in these days of monster 17% alcohol wines, also a big plus in the food pairing department because the high alcohol wines numb your palate prior to numbing your senses. 

Since bubbly is such a celebrated beverage, as well as an awesome food wine, I think it is a delightful hostess gift any time you find yourself invited to a friend’s for dinner. Regardless of the menu, bubbly will be great with the food and it gives the evening a very festive tone.  Bubbly, it’s a food lovers best friend.

Last night I decided to test out a couple of wine pairings I had been contemplating - carrot ginger soup with Viognier and a nice ‘vegetarian’ lentils with bacon (bacon is a vegetable, at least in my world it is) with a Rhône style blend. My thought was that the aromatic nature of the carrot ginger soup would pair nicely with the floral components of the Viognier and the earthy/smoky flavors of the lentils would be perfect against the rustic Grenache and Syrah. It turned out that both pairings were scrumptious, but since I had two wines open and two distinct dishes I decided to try each wine with the other dish – and may I say that was a move for experienced professionals only, please do not try at home.

It wasn’t so much that the other pairings were bad, which they were, it was that they were opposite flavors and it ended up amplifying all of the wrong characteristics. The Viognier lost it’s delicacy against the hearty lentils and ended up tasting overly perfumey, and the Grenache/Syrah ended up taking on a muddy or dirt characteristic against the aromatic ginger in the soup. I didn’t think that the other pairings were going to be good, but I didn’t realize just how bad they were going to be either. 

I typically take wine pairings for granted – I’ve been thinking about wine and food together for so long, that it’s almost a second nature to choose wines to complement the flavors of the dish. It had been an awfully long time since I had a truly bad pairing, and tasting it last night I had to scrutinize what went so horribly wrong. I came back to the advice I got about food and wine pairing way back in my first restaurant job – like flavors will always complement unless the flavors are either too similar or too strong. Going back to the Viognier lentil pairing with this advise the answer was clear – the hearty, earthy lentil dish was way too far removed from the ethereal, floral flavors of the Viognier, and vice versa. 

What about the too similar, or too strong part of the pairing theory? This applies to your basic flavor components – sweet, spicy, tart, rich, and bitter. Pairing is all about balance, and you don’t want to go too far in any one of these directions, so here you look to contrasting flavors like a sweet Riesling with a fiery, hot dish, or a soft, smooth Orvieto with a tart Chicken Piccata. In essence you are dampening the strong flavor slightly by finding contrasting  flavors in the wine, rather than amplifying it too far by echoing the flavor in the wine. With that settled, I went back to my original pairings and enjoyed the rest of dinner. It’s fun to play with your food (and wine!).

I think it is really quite fun to work with the restrictions of folks tastes to find a fitting wine for dinner – after all the best guide to pairings is to drink what you like. Finding a wine for my immediate family can prove to be a challenge – my mom likes most whites, roses and a few reds, my dad like only whites and he’s particular (his new favorite is Kim Crawford Unoaked Chardonnay), and my sister and her husband prefer whites and roses that are fruity, but not sweet. You can see how picking a wine to go with a Christmas standing rib roast could be a little tricky, but it’s fun to take the meal, each individual’s tastes, and divine a wine to please all of the palates (including mine). I find that some off my most interesting and fun pairings have come at times when I’m working with strict restrictions and stringent preferences.

I’ve come to learn my family’s tastes so well because it is not uncommon for me to get a phone call from one of them while they are standing in the wine section looking to pick up a bottle for dinner. I always wonder what the other folks in the store think as they dictate the selections into their cell phone, stopping periodically to answer one of my questions about the meal – ‘It looks like they have a rose that’s G-A-R-N-A-C-H-A, and another Mataro. No, just aparagus. French wines? Wait a sec I’ve got to walk across the store. It’s the Alton Brown Dr. Pepper prep. Moulin-a-vent? Like Moulin Rouge? Glazed carrots.’

If you aren’t fortunate enough to have a sommelier on speed dial, first and foremost remember to choose a wine that you enjoy drinking. It may seem obvious, but buying a wine you don’t care for because it is what you’re ’supposed to drink’ is the most frequent mistake people make. If you drink what you like, you’ll always come out ahead. Second, don’t be afraid to try combos that don’t seem to make sense – that’s how I came to learn that Sauv Blanc is excellent with corned beef. And finally, take heart in the fact that nothing truly bad can happen if it’s a crummy pairing. You may not like the food and wine together, but it’s not like this is a ‘red wire or blue wire’ kind of decision. I can assure you that your dinner plate will not explode with the wrong wine selection, so try an Albarino with steak just because you like to roll your ‘R’ when you order it. The only definite rules are to drink what you like and don’t take yourself too seriously.

Recently, while poking around the internet I stumbled across an article claiming that food and wine pairing is a complete scam at Vinography. While I certainly do agree that a fear of picking the wrong wine should never stop you from drinking wine, and your own tastes are ultimately the most important factor in selecting a wine – but that’s Wine Drinking 101. What about those of us who love a broad range of wines and cuisines? Are we ultimately wrong in trying to figure out what wine tastes best with any given food?

This swing away from food and wine pairing will result in people ordering wines that they don’t ultimately enjoy  just to show that they are part of the counter-culture that bucks fundamental wine-pairing sensibilities, and that is just ridiculous. I’m all in favor of bucking the fundamental and trying all sorts of new pairings, but to deny that certain wines are a better match is absurd. Yes, everyone’s palate is unique – but the wine chemistry and human physiology are consistent throughout all of us. There are rudimentary chemical reactions that cause some food and wine pairing to just work. While you, Alder, are a special and unique flower, you can’t deny basic science.

With as many individual wines as are out there it is absolutely naive to think that there is one wine, and only one wine, to go with any particular dish, but it is also naive to think that there aren’t certain pairings that taste better together. While I do agree that wine pairings are personal – what I like best won’t necessarily be what you like best, there’s a set of wines that will taste better than others with any given dish. If you don’t like any of the wines within that set, by all means order something else. It’s ludicrous to eat or drink anything that you don’t like.

What really gets me is that he (I’m assuming here) undermines the value of a recommendation. In restaurant – the servers are going to know more about the food, and more about the wine list than you do. Asking for a recommendation will help you find a wine you really enjoy. Naturally, should the server or sommelier fail to ask about your preferences – ignore the rest of what they have to say.  It is your preferences that will make or break a wine pairing, but within any selection of wines some will pair better than others; it’s your server’s job to know that. So, go ahead and ask the server what Cabernet to drink with the delicate filet of sole. His recommendation may surprise and delight you.

As to the notion that sommeliers are snooty stuffed shirts who look down their noses at the general wine-drinking public – this couldn’t be farther from the truth. The basic role of a sommelier is to facilitate (yes, I hate this word, but it’s the right one) the selection of an appropriate beverage for a meal. The training by the Court of Master Sommeliers includes beer, non-alcoholic beverages, liquors and liqueurs - so regardless of what you are looking it is the sommelier’s job to assist you in making the best selection for your meal. Their goal is to make the dining experience more pleasurable, whatever that takes. 

Having been a wine director in a high end restaurant, and having done the food and wine pairings in said restaurant, I know that my take on pairings was downright playful. My goal was to open eyes to new wines, unique pairings and emerging wine regions. Granted – I was partial to the old Foie Gras and Sauternes standard, but I regularly offered sake and wished that we had a full bar because there was one particular course that would have been killer with bourbon. A great pairing can be truly awe-inspiring, but only if you like both the food and the wine. When you do like them both – the wine enhances the food and the food enhances the wine, making everything taste better. So rather than claim that food and wine pairing is a racket – perhaps it’s just food and wine snobbery that’s a load of crap. Eat what you like. Drink what you like. And don’t take yourself too seriously. It’s only dinner after all.

There are few things better than a great food and wine pairing. After all, it is what i am always looking for. Last night, I was reminded of one of the things that makes a great pairing – when the food has something that the wine is missing and the wine provides something that the food is lacking. Then you end up with a perfect sum where both the wine and food taste better together than either would without the other.

For dinner last evening it came in the form of a shrimp risotto and an unoaked Chardonnay. The risotto was rich, creamy, and nutty, thanks to the addition of a plethora of freshly grated parmesan. It was delicious and decadent, but on its own it did seem to be missing a certain something (no offense hon – you know I love your risotto).

That certain je ne c’est pas came from a bright, crisp, unoaked Chard by Clos la Chance. The wine was lovely on its own, but it was almost too bright, zesty, and acidic. It needed something to round out those crisp, clean edges. Then, in comes another bite of that luscious, creamy risotto, and wow!

It was perfect! The risotto, on its own, was too rich. The wine, on its own, was a bit too crisp. Though when you have the two together each offered something the other needed, and you end up with something so much more. Call it Gestalt or call it food science – I’ll call it delicious!

Yummy pairing last night, it made me remember how nice a good Brouilly can be! Honestly it was a meal of convenience – the pork chops were in the freezer, I had some turnips and kale that needed to be used soon as we were getting a new CSA delivery, so there’s the basic ingredients for dinner.

I brined the pork chops (thank you Cook’s Illustrated for saving me from dry meats) in a salt/brown sugar/cider vinegar and water solution, then tossed them on the grill pan – or rather the husband did the grilling, our daughter was in need of a change when dinner needed to hit the heat. Then the turnips were steamed with a potato, mashed and finished with a little olive oil, salt and pepper. Finally after the kale was boiled for ~ 3 minutes, it went into a hot pan with butter, s & p, and a little balsamic when we (or should I say he) pulled it off the heat. Simple? Yes! Delicious? Definitely!

The wine? A Brouilly from from Pierre Dupond. What is Brouilly, you ask. Well Brouilly is one of the ten Cru villages in Beaujolais. Yes, these are light bodied wines from the same area as those electric labeled Beaujolais Nouveaus you see around Thanksgiving, but the Cru villages are set apart as being the highest quality locations to grow Gamay in all of Beaujolais. 

The wines of Brouilly are light-bodied and packed with bright strawberry and raspberry fruit and a pretty little floral characteristic. It was such a perfect complement to last night’s meal because the simply prepared pork needed a fairly straightforward wine, and the sweetness of the turnips and the balsamic were really nice with the bright, red fruits of the wine. We served the wine with a slight chill, not intentionally, but because I forgot to pull the bottle from under the house until right before dinner, and it was a excellent choice. All in all, better than most restaurant meals, and a heck-of-a-lot cheaper than restaurant meals. Especially since the wine was from our last stock up at the BevMo 5 cent sale, but unfortunately it’s not around this time. It may take a little effort and thought, but we are eating and drinking like the recession has already recessed. 

I know it may sound improbable, after all brussels sprouts are in the cruciferous vegetable family, and we all know what that means – sulfur. Right now you are probably thinking that the funky, sulfury smell of brussels sprouts is going to ruin any wine pairing you might dream up. Well, it certainly does provide a challenge, but all hope of a decent pairing is not lost.

First to the plate, Chardonnay. Now if you are looking to pair a Chardonnay with brussels sprouts you want to look towards the middle of the road. Too acidic, you’ll end up with a wine that tastes overly bitter. Too oaky, you’ll end up accentuating the sulfur component in the tiny cabbages. Too buttery, you’ll end up well drinking a buttery Chard, and that is just never good. Think about a Chard from anywhere in Burgundy that is not Chablis, or a domestic Chard that is toned down on the tropical fruit flavors, because, well, bananas and brussels sprouts, need I really say more.

Next to bat, Cabernet Sauvignon. This works especially well if your brussels sprouts are snuggled up to a big juicy steak. Granted, this is not a pairing for the faint of heart. The tannins of the Cab will stand up to the bold brussels sprouts, but you will be left with a slight bitterness, so if you are sensitive to tannins steer clear of this match-up.

And bating third, Syrah. To really hit it out of the park, cook the brussels sprouts with bacon. Aaah, c’est magnifique!! The bacon with the smoky flavors of the Syrah, the way the softer tannins of the Syrah tone down the bitter component of the sprouts, the way the leafy little cabbages soak up all that bacony goodness it really is true love. Check out the recipe for bacon and brussels sprouts and pop open a bottle of Syrah or Shiraz. Whichever name you call it, it’s going to taste delicious.