It has been an exceptionally long time since I’ve written in this blog, but last night’s experience mandated an update. Last night I went out with my family to a wine and food pairing event put on by the fantastic people at Total Wine and More. They are passionate about their booze, which is completely understandable – and encouraged. I am a young n00bling when it comes to wine, much in the way I was to beer before Eric and I began stretching our boundaries and exploring the beer world. Now that both of us have expanded into wine, I hope that this post will be helpful.
I will be creating an excel sheet of some sort to display all of the matching research and information I learned last night, but for the post I will also write out some key rules to follow.
1.Match food and wine FLAVORS: herbal Sauvignon Blancs match vegetables and goat cheese; peppery and cedary Cabernet Sauvignons match steak in pepper sauce; buttery, oaky Chardonnays match fish and pastas in creamy sauces.
2.Match food and wine TEXTURES: the sweet unctuousness of Sauternes matches foie gras, pate, crème brule, moussee, etc.., crisp lively Sancerre matches perfectly with oysters.
3.Match food and wine WEIGHTS: Sauternes and heavy mousse match in richness, big Napa Cabernet with heavy steaks, Barolo with robust, gamey dishes, lightly poached fish dishes with light dry wines.
4.If reasonable, you should cook with the same wines you will be drinking with the food.
5.Use the regional and local wine associations: what do they eat in the region the wine is coming from?
6.Follow the sauces of a dish and use its dominant flavor as your guide.
7.Opposites can attract as well: a sweet wine can balance an acidic or sour food.
8.Strive for balance between food and wine: an older more complex wine takes center stage and should be served with very simple foods, not heavy sauces that will drown it.
9.Hard to match foods such as chocolate, strong cheeses, grapefruit, asparagus, and pickles should be matched with wines from the same regions as the dish.
10.Keep in mind the cooking method of the dish. Poached or steamed, you want lighter whites and reds as the cooking technigque is delicate, so should the wine be. Braising and grilling usually call for heavier wines, like Cabernet, Zinfandel, or Barolo. Roasting meats generally calls for elegant and mature reds.
11.When in doubt, Champagne works well with almost everything.
One of the biggest points of emphasis on the night was that it’s hard to go wrong with pairing a wine. It really is up to your own personal tastes. To prove it, we had a lamb dish and two reds, a Clos Ste. Michelle CDP Reserve and a Grand Puy Lacoste. These two wines are apparently entrenched into a debate larger than even Western v Eastern NC BBQ. Both wines come from rival vineyard regions and both claim to be the best pairing for lamb. Half of the group last night chose the CDP and half chose the Grand Puy.
A second point of emphasis was that one food can have multiple pairings based on how it was cooked. To quote GourmetSleuth.com,
“Imagine a chicken breast poached (i.e. cooked in water) with a light lemon herb sauce. This might be a dish that could be friendly with light to medium bodied white wines like Pinot Gris and Sauvignon Blanc. Now add a cream sauce and you can move up in body to a fuller bodied wine, maybe a Chardonnay. Or try it roasted and suddenly the flavors are such that it can marry with light to medium bodied reds, like Pinot Noir or Sangiovese. Grill it and it becomes great with fuller bodied reds, even Zinfandel or Shiraz (Syrah).”
Also, I have compiled (with help from GourmetSleuth.com) a spreadsheet that pairs up foods and cheeses with wines. Here is the link.
I hope that you enjoy it. I am very new to this, so I made the Google Doc editable. If you have additions, feel free to make them.
