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(excerpt from "The Good
Life Guide to Enjoying Wine" by Ray Johnson)
Six
Beyond Food
and Wine Pairing
I cook with wine, sometimes
I even add it to the food.
— W.C. Fields
Hospitality
The doorbell rings and your guests enter
knowing they’re in store for another great
evening. Why do they love to come to your
home? Is it your collection of first-growth
Bordeaux, your penchant for serving the
latest in wine-drinking trends, or the fact
that you lecture them on the vintages and
vineyards of the wines you serve? Likely
none of these answers hits the mark. It’s
hospitality that makes the difference. If
people of diverse backgrounds enjoy
themselves and feel welcomed into your home,
they’ll return eagerly, regardless of your
wine knowledge.
One of the tips I learned early in the
restaurant business was to let the guests
leave feeling they were denied nothing. We
think nothing of brewing a pot of tea for
one friend out of six at the table that
doesn’t share our love of coffee, but how
often do we try to make one choice of wine
please everyone. If you’re not serving
aperitifs, open the bottles for dinner, more
than one, before or as your guests arrive.
Let them see that the choices are plentiful
by opening something dry and something
sweet.
How often I’ve heard people say, “Let’s
open this one and see how it goes.”
Ultimately it goes poorly for a polite
friend who won’t say a word about their
preference for dry over sweet or vice versa.
Likewise when we ask our guests what they
would like to drink, they often remark that
whatever you have open is fine. Many feel
it’s an imposition upon your hospitality to
have a bottle opened especially for them,
saying politely, “Don’t open that just for
me.” If the choices are already open, this
hurdle is handled.
This also gives your adventurous guests a
chance to try more than one wine. And if you
serve the same wines at dinner, they’ll have
a preview of what they’ll enjoy and hate
before they’re seated.
Serving many different wines doesn’t mean
getting our friends plowed. They have to be
able to drive home safely if taking to the
road after dinner, and today we’re blessed
with some great beverages sans alcohol.
Navarro Vineyards in California’s Anderson
Valley is one example of a winery bottling
some first-rate grape juice. Sonoma
Sparkler, also from California, is a
refreshing 100 percent sparkling juice with
Champagne qualities and a light, crisp
taste. A glass or two of these before dinner
could be just what the designated driver
needs to moderate their wine intake over the
course of an evening. The other great
moderator is water—having plenty available
expands the choices for your guests and
keeps them hydrated.
Wine and food pairing is great fun and
makes for lively discussions when your
friends are game and open to all kinds of
wine. But if Mom only likes White Zinfandel,
let her be and don’t try to educate her on
the principles of food and wine pairing.
Yin and Yang of Food and Wine
This brings us to the yin and yang of
food and wine pairing and three simple
approaches to think about when putting your
menu together.
- Reflective Properties. In the
arena of reflecting tastes, rich food
like a chicken breast with cream sauce
would pair nicely with a rich and
buttery Chardonnay. A sweet dessert like
crème caramel would be reflected by a
very sweet white dessert wine like
Sauternes. A highly acidic dish like
spaghetti with a marinara sauce shines
when paired with a highly acidic wine
like Barbera from Italy’s Piedmont. The
Barbera also benefits by tasting a bit
softer when paired with such a dish;
just as a piece of goat cheese takes off
the acidic edge of a zippy Sauvignon
Blanc from Sancerre in France’s Loire
Valley. A wine that is low in acid will
taste correspondingly flat when up
against the zip of a highly acidic dish.
- Rich Food Reflects Rich Wine
- Acidic Food Reflects Acidic Wine
- Counterpoint. From this point
of view, a foil to the richness rather
than a reflection of it would enhance
the chicken breast and cream sauce. An
acidic and concentrated Pinot Grigio
from the northeast of Italy, would do
the job of cutting through the fatty,
rich dish. Likewise, a Russian River
Pinot Noir, with an acidic backbone,
would provide the counterpoint to a
grilled salmon and white butter sauce.
- Rich Food Sliced by Acidic Wine
- Complete the Palate.
Enhance the dining experience by adding
to the palate a different flavor or
sensation with the wine. Think about
lemonade and its zest of acidity that is
balanced by the sweetness of sugar,
making a more complete and enjoyable
range of flavors. Or, prosciutto and
melon—on its own, there is a great
balance of fruity sweetness and a salty
tang. Some combinations of food do this
dance so well they seem to make the
choice of wine irrelevant. Nevertheless,
a salty piece of ham tastes even better
with a lightly sweet Riesling. A sweet
Chenin Blanc cools the heat of a spicy
Thai shrimp dish. Salty potato chips
shine with dry Champagne.
- Salty Food + Sweet Wine
- Salty Food + Acidic Wine
- Spicy Food + Sweet Wine
All three of these approaches seek a
balance and harmony between the food and the
wine. There are so many workable
combinations that you needn’t chase the
elusive dream of creating the perfect match
of wine and food. And honestly, it’s more
likely than not that your choice of wine and
food will work well together. I’ve had so
many enjoyable meals with whatever wine I
was in the mood for.
Many of the specific dictums about wine
and food pairing break down because a
particular wine can have so many different
styles. For instance some Cabernets are very
tough and tannic and others are light and
fruity. It’s almost impossible to say
without exception that Cabernet Sauvignon
goes well with ________ (You fill in the
blank). Yes, as you study wine, you start to
see generalities emerge about the different
wine grapes. But you really can’t be sure
how a specific wine will taste until you
open a bottle or talk to someone who
recently has. Likewise, you won’t know how
your beurre blanc is going to taste until
you’ve made it. Sometimes mine is a little
more acidic, sometimes less.
A Few Pitfalls
What’s easier to say with certainty is
that there are a few pitfalls to avoid in
the realm of food and wine pairing, and it’s
quicker to say what not to do than the other
way around.
- A green salad with a classic French
or Italian vinaigrette is tough to pair
with wine because of the acidity of the
dressing and the amount of water in some
lettuces. A soft, plush Chardonnay will
get wiped out, while a highly acidic,
dry sparkling wine or a zippy Sauvignon
Blanc are better candidates. In my days
working in a traditional French
restaurant, we often took a different
tack, advising guests to take a break
from the wine for one course. Alcohol is
dehydrating, and if you’re reading this
book, you’re unlikely to be drinking
water with your next lobster. Water with
your salad provides some balance in your
menu and for your liver.
If you’re having salad as a main course
and aren’t giving up wine, Sonoma chef
Mary Evely suggests making your
vinaigrette with a 4:1 ratio of oil to
vinegar, to ensure that the dressing
won’t be overly acidic.
- Spicy food is hard on wine and the
burning fire can multiply exponentially
with a dry, tannic, or high-alcohol
wine. Some folks really enjoy acidic
white wines, like Sauvignon Blanc, with
spicy seafood. For me, though, the best
bet is to pair lightly sweet white wines
with your next curried prawns or sushi,
especially if you’re one to pile on the
wasabi. If you’re a die-hard red wine
drinker, however, we have found some
workable pairings with spicy cuisine.
Best bets are California Zinfandel,
Australian Grenache, and Shiraz from
either country, where the wine is ripe
and jammy, almost a sweet expression of
fruit, while at the same time, low in
tannin and not burning with the taste of
alcohol. These wines can really
complement spicy meat dishes.
- Save your older, trophy bottles for
simply prepared dishes that won’t
overwhelm the wine. If, however, your
young and tannic, prized Cabernet is
beckoning to be opened, serve it with
some heavier, protein-rich food like a
steak or English Cheddar. These foods
will soften the hard edges of an infant
bottle.
- Beware of dry wine with sweet food.
When serving a wine with dessert, it is
essential to the marriage that the wine
be at least as sweet as the dessert, if
not more so. And many desserts are
hugely sweet.
The one exception to this last idea is
the phenomenon of chocolate and dry red
wine. While many enjoy their
after-dinner chocolate with sweet red
wines like Port or Banyuls from the
south of France, a contrary movement has
swept California’s tasting rooms:
namely, chocolate, especially
bittersweet, with Cabernet Sauvignon or
Zinfandel. Food experts disagree about
the combination, while others lap it up.
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