Culinary Wine & Food Matching

The glorious synchronicity of Merlot and csirkepaprikas

2012-01-06T16:33:00.000-08:00

Syn•chro•nic•ity: the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance and that are observed to occur together in a meaningful manner (see Carl Gustav Jung).

Despite what Miles, that fellow in Sideways, might have said about it, there are still many good reasons why you should drink ultra-premium California Merlot, which is the same reason why some of the state’s most prestigious winemakers – like Bruce Neyers and Selene’s Mia Klein – still specialize in the grape: it makes wine that can enthrall the senses the way Keira Knightley eats up a camera. Resistance is stupid.

Equally stupid is the combination of a good, drippy, juicy Merlot with a good, drippy, juicy red Hungarian csirkepaprikas, or chicken paprikas.

Thomas Fogarty in Santa Cruz Mountains

But first, let us single out one contemporary classic: the 2006 Thomas Fogarty Santa Cruz Mountains Merlot (about $32). I know, I know – this is not one of the big boys (Duckhorn, Pahlmeyer, Blackbird, etc.). But if you’re still stuck on labels, you’re in the wrong place, my friend. Let the unconcious souls gleefully discover what the Fogarty Merlot is all about: a unique, high altitude/low attitude, mountain estate grown style of Merlot that combines a fisted core of un-watered down fruit and tannin with all the outwardly soft, silky extravagance – plush black cherry laced with cinnamon, savory and allspice – of a classic Merlot. Textbook.

“The ‘perfect marriage’ of food and wine,” said the late Roy Andries De Groot, “should allow for infidelity.” While the standard choice for a good Merlot is red meat, my all-time favorite match for a full, lusciously fruited Merlot is something white (albeit, clothed in bright paprika-red): classic, Hungarian chicken paprikas.

Mr. De Groot, if you’re wondering, was the once widely read blind gastronome and Esquire’s Handbook for Hosts author; and in his heyday, the swinging sixties, he was also the first magazine critic to use a 100 point wine scoring system (not Robert Parker!). It was De Groot who once proclaimed his recipe for paprikas – browned with goose fat, then braised with onions, garlic and, finally, a sauce pigmented by generous doses of the mildly spiced paprika chile before thickened in the end with sour cream – to be one of the most glorious dishes in the world; and for a matching wine, he prescribed a good Pomerol.

Rarely having a Pomerol on hand, most of the time during the past thirty years I have been substituting a good California Merlot for my csirkepaprikas; finding the combination equally glorious and, yes, synchronistic – needing no real causal connections to explain its sensory meaningfulness. Is iustus est.

Over the years I have also taken some liberties with De Groot’s original recipe (I don’t, for instance, usually have the goose fat on hand); and of course, the variations come every time the bird hits the pot. This is, however, a close, and proven, approximation:

1 whole 4-5 lb. chicken, disjointed (thighs and back necessary for flavor)
3 tbs. unsalted sweet butter
1 lemon
2 large sweet onions, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
6 large white mushrooms, thinly sliced
4 thin slices pancetta (or two strips thick bacon), sliced in squares
½ cup white wine
¾ cup chicken stock
Half bunch Italian parsley, chopped
Hungarian sweet paprika
Olive oil
Ground peppercorns and salt to taste
1 pint sour cream
10-12 oz. wide egg noodles

Rub chicken pieces with salt and juice of halved lemon, and set aside. In a large pot (preferably cast iron or Le Creuset), brown pancetta or bacon with drop of olive oil over medium heat. Add butter, and when melted sauté the onions and garlic until wilted. Add paprika (2 to 3 tbsp.) and stir into onion mix until it attains a fiery red color. Immediately add chicken pieces two or three at a time, browning them until both sides are impregnated with the paprika. Add sliced mushrooms, followed by white wine (burn off some alcohol), and then chicken stock.

Lower temperature, cover pot with lid, and let it simmer for about 45-60 minutes, smelling the wafting perfume while enjoying your glass of Merlot and, for syncretic purposes, some sensuous vocals like Diana Krall or Madeleine Peyroux (the sensory build-up, a good reason for having at least two bottles on hand).

Remove chicken pieces, and stir in sour cream until the sauce reaches a creamy consistency, adjusting seasonings to taste. Add back chicken pieces, stir in most of chopped parsley, and over low temperature let pot stew for final ten to fifteen minutes while egg noodles are boiled al dente.

When noodles are drained, place in large, wide bowl and coat with half of paprika cream sauce; lay chicken pieces over noodles and top with rest of sauce. Garnish with rest of chopped parsley, and serve.

Oh, and Miles... you don’t know squat.

The underappreciated joys of Zinfandel and cheese matching

2011-12-11T14:46:00.000-08:00

Lodi's ZinFest Wine Festival last May 2011 was a good excuse to talk about one of my favorite subjects: the underrated joys of Zinfandel and cheese matching.

The seminar was called Lodi Wine is Cheese Central Friendly, and it involved four different artisanal cheeses presented by Cindy Della Monica, proprietor of Downtown Lodi's spanking new specialty cheese shop, Cheese Central.

To get get everyone warmed for this organoleptic excercise, we began with a little chat on the sensory components that help us understand just how get the best possible wine and cheese matches. Beginning with the fact that wine and cheese matching is always best understood when you are conscious of the five basic sensations found in all foods and wines -- the sensations of sweet, tart, salty, bitter, and umami (or "savory") -- plus the effects of what we perceive through smell as "flavor."

Downtown Lodi's Cheese Central

Some of the guidelines touched upon:

There are probably more cheeses that taste better with white wine than with red, despite the old adage that red wines are best with cheese.

Derived as they are from milk, cheeses give milky and acidic sensations, which explains why white wines wines varying from soft, creamy textures to sharper, acid edged qualities do well with softer, creamier, or slightly acidic/tart, young cheeses.

But in the firmer, longer aged, deeper colored and richer flavored cheeses, elevated amino acids tend to come into play, which is why red wines do well with richer, deeper flavored aged cheeses (since unlike white wines, reds are fermented with their skins, automatically giving them deeper flavors, along with oak qualities from barrel aging that match easily with caramelized sensations in aged cheeses).

The higher amounts of amino acids in cheeses are what gives them a strong taste of the sensation called umami (also re Deconstructing Umami), and the longer aged and deeper flavored the cheese, the stronger the taste of umami in the cheese. This is is why cheeses such as Parmigiano, Manchego and Cheddars are often grated onto foods like pasta: because high umami sensations accentuate food flavors, in the same way that red wines made from grapes like Zinfandel and Sangiovese do.

By the same token, this is also why sweeter wines do best with cheeses aged with Penicillium molds that create the strong, salty tastes associated with blue cheeses: because salty sensations in foods are always balanced by contrasting sweet sensations in other foods or in wines.

Earthy, organic, umami enhanced aromas and flavors in cheeses -- particularly those made from sheep or goat’s milk, or else most variations of raw milk cheeses -- find pleasing notes of similarity in wines of parallel qualities (re Wine & Food Matching - Science or Art?). This is why the herby/grassy flavor common to wines like Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon, the flinty or fusel aromas found in Rieslings, the round stoniness of many Chardonnays, the mushroomy/foresty notes of Pinot Noirs, and the meaty, even gamy or leathery notes typifying many reds made from grapes like Tempranillo and Syrah, all do well with distinctly earthy sheep, goat, or raw milk cheeses.

Once you get into the grand tradition of cheeses doctored up with additional flavors – like all the varieties of herb crusted Chèvres, peppercorn coated crèmes, cider washed rinds, stout soaked Cheddars, or even truffled Boschettos – the gloves come off, and all the varieties of red and white wines criss-cross in accordance to the dominant flavors that are added. For instance, it makes sense that cheeses coated in black pepper strike partnerships with peppery wines like California Zinfandel and Syrahs from around the world. Italianate herbs (i.e. rosemary, oregano, basil, etc.) will find matches with wines of Italian orientation (like those made from Sangiovese and Nebbiolo). High umami, truffled cheeses practically scream for high umami, earth toned reds like Pinot Noir, or certain types of Chardonnay (especially those from France's Burgundy region).

The relationship between wine and cheese is not just natural and historical, it is also sensory to the point of religion: you don’t have to fully understand it to believe it works.

So what are the best wine and cheese combinations? “Bests” do not exist, but there certainly are a lot of matches that simply make sense. So speaking in terms of specifically Lodi grown Zinfandels, the matches Cindy and I presented at the 2011 ZinFest:

Mimolette with Uvaggio’s 2009 Primitivo
France’s rare Mimolette cheese, made from cow’s milk, comes in an orbular shape and tanned crust; and when you slice into it looks, for all the world, like a cantaloupe, with its vivid orange flesh tinted by annatto, with a lush, round yet moderately firm, faintly hazelnutty flavor somewhat like Edam, with a savoriness similar to a good Parmigiano. The traditional wine match for Mimolette is a soft, fruity white wine, like a Moscato or Chenin Blanc; but the aged quality of the cheese is deep enough to also embrace a red wine of some sturdiness, especially softer, gentler, fruit forward style of Zinfandel such as the Uvaggio Primitivo (the Primitivo grape being a clonal variation of Zinfandel, producing rounder, fruitier expressions of zinfulness).

Bermuda Triangle with m2’s 2008 Soucie Vineyard Zinfandel

The cutting-edge, triangular shaped Bermuda Triangle cheese is a (modern day) classic Chèvre, made from goat’s milk, and crafted by Cypress Grove in Arcata, California. As such, it is almost creamy soft, yet slightly sharp, tangy, and pungently earthy/grassy (as goat’s milk cheeses tend to be). It is also crusted and infused with silvery streaks of vegetable ash, which accentuate the earthy qualities, making them an accessible positive. The m2 made pretty much a “perfect” match because of its own, singularly defined qualities: it is one of the rounder, lusher styles of Zinfandels grown in Lodi – juicy and creamy in texture, plump in blackberry flavors – yet firmed up in the middle by modestly muscular tannin and a handsome oakiness. But what makes it especially unique is the pungently earthy, loamy, almost mushroomy aromas and flavors derived from the Soucie Vineyard grapes – virtually no other vineyard in Lodi produces a zin of such pronounced qualities – which rang striking notes of similarity with the earthiness of the Bermuda Triangle.

Barely Buzzed with LangeTwins’ 2009 Lodi Zinfandel
Made by Beehive Cheese Co. in Uintah, Utah, Barely Buzzed is an amazingly original, Cheddar style cow’s milk cheese rubbed with intoxicatingly smoky, densifying Turkish grind coffee, adding eye opening volume to the crystallized butter/butterscotchy, caramelized taste of this intensely aged cheese. All well aged Cheddars fall squarely in the “best-with-red-wine” category (which is why wines like Cabernet Sauvignon and red Bordeaux are traditional Cheddar matches), but it was the ultra-rich, smoky/spicy (like strong black tea tinged with exotic jasmine/dried plum/allspice nuances), round yet voluminous qualities of this ‘09 zin that -- sourced primarily from the stately, thickly gnarled trunked 100 year old vines of Lodi's Lewis Vineyard -- that truly made the match.

Valdeon with Van Ruiten’s 2007 Late Harvest Zinfandel
Even if you’re not partial to blue veined cheese, it’s hard not to love Valdeon from Spain: made from a mix of cow’s and goat’s milk to produce a creamy, lusciously soft and silky style of blue that is extremely fine and subtle in the characteristically earthy/salty/sharp qualities of cheeses aged by Penicillium. But a blue cheese it is; and as such, it is best matched by wines with a pronounced degree of sweetness. The Van Ruiten Late Harvest zin fits that description, but its natural sweetness and body is only a third of what is found in, say, a traditional Port; and so it is a sweet red wine that barely falls into the category of “dessert wine.” But with the mild and elegant Valdeon, that parsimoniousness is just right: the subtle qualities of the cheese only emphasizing the natural, joyously juicy, wild berry qualities of the wine, and the wine adding just enough sweetness to balance the salty undertones of the cheese.

100+ year old Lewis Vineyard Zinfandel vine

Summer is for barbecues

2010-06-26T14:30:00.000-07:00

Who doesn’t associate summer with barbecue? It’s an American thing, but you might also consider it a return to primitive instincts; reminding me of one of Woody Allen’s classic quips about food in general: “Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage.”

In our case, preferably a good wine, ideally matched with…

Smoky baby back ribs or pulled pork with tomato based barbecued pork

Grill smoked pork with classic tomato based barbecue sauces – laced with vinegar, brown sugar onions, and often, chili spices and Worcestershire – cordially invite wines with equalizing doses of tannin and alcohol to absorb the pork fat, and picquant, almost sweet fruitiness to balance out the sweet, sour, hot sensations in the sauce. This is why I’ll never understand the criticism of warm climate red wines by wine geeks who obviously can’t relate to wines in terms of food contexts, because there’s nothing like, say, big, fat, juicy, jammy zinfandel with classic American barbecued pork. In fact, in my experience: the bigger, fatter and jammier the better!

Always having an oral fixation (as a baby, my drool was famous), my rib preferences have always been for the soft, chewy cartilage on the bone ends; custom grilled for fruit laden red zins, especially from Lodi (current fave-raves: Harney Lane, Abundance, Earthquake, Macchia, m2, and Klinker Brick), although the snappier Sonoma grown zins (like those of Acorn, Gamba, Bella Vetta, Mauritson, Davis Family, Quivira, Valdez, and Ridge Lytton Springs) always do just as well for me. Why? Lush, almost sweet berry jam fruitiness combined with snappy acidity, blackpepper/clove spices and thick, meaty bodies typical of classic zinfandel make the consumption of sweet/spicy/vinegary pork barbecues all the more luscious – one of the most natural wine and food combinations in the world.

Slabs of dry rubbed ribs

In Memphis where I once lived, each specialty barbecue house has its own “secret” rubs (variations of paprika, onion powder and cayenne, and taking it from there), and it’s in the roasting mediums that you get further distinctions. My favorite were the slabs by Central BBQ, which always come out of slow-cook ovens extremely earthy and caramelized: lessons in sensory overload (you can also order “wet” slabs in most barbecue joints, but sauces can blur the subtleties – yes, even jackhammer sensations have refinements – of dry rubs).

The best wine matches for dry rubbed slabs are thick and meaty, with enough tannin and chewy wood to absorb the fat and stinging red pepper spice. Sounds like a job for petite sirah, and it is. For starters: those of Earthquake, Rosenblum and Two Angels deliver the uncontained tannin and sweetness of fruit (like peppery blueberries) you expect in this grape; although my current favorites petites are those of Truett-Hurst in Dry Creek Valley, Carol Shelton’s Rockpile Reserve, Amador County’s C.G. di Arie, and Parducci’s True Grit from Mendocino, and from the Sierra Foothills, the killer petites of Cedarville, Miraflores and Lava Cap.

Pure syrahs, of course, often have enough cracked pepper qualities to dial in the red and black peppery spices of Memphis dry rubs. The syrahs of Paul Lato, Jaffurs, MacPrice Meyers, and Skylark in California, and Quady North, Del Rio and Spangler in Southern Oregon are among the most peppery I have recently found (for an expanded rundown on top West Coast syrahs, see Syrahs, Syrahs, Syrahs). Then again, there are never enough excuses to reach for an actual petite sirah… so there!

Barbecue Chicken

In Hawai`i we call it huli huli chicken (usually halves marinated in mixtures of soy sauce, lime, ginger, Hawaiian sea salt, brown sugar or honey, and a touch of cayenne or sambal, before char-grilling). In Memphis, I found that the whole chickens were usually rubbed with mixtures of salt, pepper, paprika, cayenne, white or brown sugar, dry mustard, garlic and onion powder, but it was the slow roasting that really did the trick: the meat absolutely inundated with nostril penetrating smokiness, served with thick, phenomenally expressive sauces (spices touching all the taste buds – sweet, spicy, sour, bitter and umami).

The fruitiness of softer style zinfandels (like Jesse's Grove's Earth, Zin & Fire, Michael-David’s unbiquitous 7 Deadly Zins, or better yet, Laurel Glen's ZaZin) makes an the effortless match, but the more blatantly sweet oaked, smoky, sun ripened fruit forward qualities typical of Australian shiraz might be even better. I’m always partial to the syrahs of winemaker Sparky Marquis (co-originator of Marquis-Philips), who now makes an amazing South Australia shiraz under the Mollydooker label. Other top, value priced choices: Torbreck’s Woodcutter’s, d’Arenberg’s Footbolt, and Gemtree’s organically grown Tadpole.

But if the day is a 90° or 100°+ scorcher, don’t underestimate the power of good ol’ fashioned white zinfandel (the watermelony fresh, off-dry De Loach has always been my favorite) with smoky, spicy chicken. Another great summery choice: classic, off-dry riesling from Germany (look for Zilliken’s Butterfly or Pfeffingen’s Pfeffo), Down Under (like the Margaret River’s Leeuwin Estate or New Zealand’s Villa Maria), or the Pacific-Northwest (Chehalem in Willamette Valley and Pacific Rim in Columbia Valley make the finest).

Soy based Asian style barbecues

Japanese teriyaki, Mongolian and Korean style barbecues always start with marinades of soy sauce, garlic, ginger and sugar; and after that, the variations are endless (additions of beer, chili spices, sesame seeds, Worcestershire, hoisin, pineapple, saké, rice or white wine vinegars, mustards or wasabi, ponzu or yuzu, green onions or mint… you name it, it’s done), and usually involve either thinly sliced beef flank or sirloin, or (in the case of Korean kalbi) short ribs of beef.

Since soy sauce is basically a salty/umami sensation, the best balancing sensations in a wine are either residual sugar (i.e. slightly sweet whites, like that of rieslings) or unabashed fruitiness in red wines made from zinfandel, syrah or shiraz, or gamay noir – the latter, the grape of France’s Beaujolais region). When it comes to Beaujolais, virtually any brand or type will do; although I am partial to the more deeply aromatic and flavorful bottlings of Beaujolais’ grand crus, which you find labeled under village names such as Morgon, Moulin-à-Vent, Fleurie, Chénas, Chiroubles, Régnié, Juliénas, Saint-Amour, Brouilly or Côte de Brouilly.

My absolute favorite Beaujolais reds? Those of Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant: beginning with luscious, sprightly Domaine Dupeuble Beaujolais and the full, fleshy, grandiose Domaine Diochon Moulin-à-Vent, and ending with the earthy yet exuberantly fruited, unfiltered, unfined, unnothinged Morgons by Domaine Thévenet or Guy Breton.

Ah, summer… ah, barbecued meats and wines!

Sing while you enjoy your wine and food (favorite culinary songs)

2010-06-18T08:44:00.001-07:00

What are your favorite eating and drinking songs? There must be a million of them; but then again, not. But these days the vast library in the internet sky allows you put your favorites all together in once place, making for one, big musical food, wine, beer, whiskey, and coffee fest.

Yet for all the eating and drinking songs in our own language, one of my favorites is actually French – La Danse de Limonade, performed by the Savoy-Doucet Cajun band – that starts:

Mon j'aime cousine, mon j'aime cousin
J'aime mieux la cuisiniere

(I like my girl cousin, I like my boy cousin
But I like the cook the best…)

… and then goes on to describe the typical Cajun dance party; where the girl, in her innocent voice, describes how she gets “drunk like a big pig,” begs her friends to force her to drink lemonade, but in the end needs to turn to Hadacol (a snake charmer’s medicinal, popular in the 1940s) to recover.

One of the oldest classics is Bessie Smith’s circa-1920s Gimme a Pigfoot (… and a bottle of beer… give the piano man a drink because he’s bringing me down), although I think Ferdinand "Jelly Roll” Morton’s Wining Boy Blues – composed and first performed in the New Orleans brothels that employed him – pre-dates Smith’s Pigfoot. The way Morton once told the story of how he came up with the bluesiest wine song ever written:

When the place (Hilma Burt’s on Basin Street) was closing down, it was my habit to pour these partly filled bottles of wine together and make up a new bottle from the mixture. That fine drink gave me a name and from that I made a tune that was very, very popular in those days…

I'm a wining boy, don't deny my name,
I'm a wining boy, don't deny my name…

Hate to say it, but it reminds me of exactly what we used to do when I first got into the restaurant business, mixing leftover wines and making coolers out of them (I’ve since acquired “good taste”… I think).

Otherwise, I wouldn’t exactly call most of the songs written about wine “great.” After a while, for example, the repetitive cycle of UB40’s Red Red Wine – penned, but evidently never performed, by Neil Diamond – starts to wear thin. Diamond’s Cracklin’ Rose (… you're a store bought woman), on the other hand, still sounds fresh today, more than thirty-five years after it hit the charts. However, Eric Burdon’s Spill the Wine now seems as dated as his Sky Pilot, as do Dean Martin’s and Mel Tillis’s renditions of Little Ole Wine Drinker Me. But if there was any song that plucks the heart strings of a wine lover, it would be Jesse Winchester’s little known, under-appreciated (hey, just like a French vin de pays!) Little Glass of Wine:

Little glass of wine, a good thing you are here
You're warm on my lips, warm as a tear
A comfort to the fool who's restless in his mind
The lover's trusty potion, little glass of wine

The most sing-able wine song ever written? For that honor, I nominate Jerry Jeff Walker’s Sangria Wine, which even contains a recipe for the best sangria and suggested sangria-friendly foods:

In Texas on a Saturday night
Everclear is added to the wine sometimes
Some nachos, burritos and tacos
Who knows how it usually it goes…

It goes... I love that sangria wine
Just like I love old friends of mine
They tell the truth when they’re mixed with the wine
That’s why I blend in the lemons and limes

Is that poetry in a bottle or what? Well, maybe I think so because I love to sangria too much. Almost as elegiac as the names of the best she-done-left-me-and-drove-me-to-drink country songs; like George Jones’s If the Drinkin’ Don’t Kill Me (Her Memory Will) and Jerry Lee Lewis’s What Made Milwaukee Famous (Made a Loser Out of Me).

Eating and drinking songs are just like wines – it’s difficult to name your favorite. But I’ll give it a try, dividing them into four categories. Going by the names of my favorite performer(s) of each respective song:

Favorite Eating Songs

1. Diana Krall/Nat King Cole - Frim Fram Sauce
2. Leon Redbone - Mr. Jelly Roll Baker
3. Bessie Smith – Gimme a Pigfoot
4. The Andrews Sisters – Hold Tight, Hold Tight (Want Some Seafood Mama)
5. Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys/Asleep at the Wheel & Dixie Chicks – Roly Poly
6. Ry Cooder – Crow Black Chicken
7. Diana Krall – Peel Me a Grape
8. Michael Franks - Eggplant
9. Taj Mahal/Lovin' Spoonful – Fishing Blues
10. The Coasters/Loudon Wainwright III – Smokey Joe’s Café
11. The Kinks – Skin and Bones
12. Dizzy Gillespie – Salt Peanuts
13. Michael Hurley – You’ll Never Go to Heaven
14. Jimmy Rogers/Merle Haggard – Peach Pickin’ Time in Georgia
15. Hank Williams Sr. – Jambalaya
16. Jack Johnson – Banana Pancakes
17. Ka’au Crater Boys – He `Ono
18. Groucho Marx, Danny Kaye, Jane Wyman & Jimmy Durante – Black Strap Molasses
19. Booker T & the MGs – Green Onions
20. Dan Hicks & the Hot Licks – I Don’t Want Love
21. Dusty Springfield/Chrissie Hynde & UB40 – Breakfast In Bed
22. Average White Band – Cut the Cake
23. Presidents of the United States – Peaches
24. The Mamas & the Papas – Sing for Your Supper
25. Bob Dylan – Country Pie

Favorite Wine Songs

1. Jimmie Rogers/Jackson Browne & Bonnie Raitt – Kisses Sweeter Than Wine
2. Jerry Jeff Walker – Sangria Wine
3. Jesse Winchester – Little Glass of Wine
4. Jelly Roll Morton/Leon Redbone – Wining Boy Blues
5. The Band – Strawberry Wine
6. Neil Diamond – Cracklin’ Rose
7. Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen – Wine Do Yer Stuff
8. Arlo Guthrie – Lightning Bar Blues
9. UB40- Red Red Wine
10. Eric Burdon & War – Spill the Wine
11. Marsha Thornton – A Bottle of Wine and Patsy Cline
12. Emmylou Harris – Two Bottles of Wine
13. Cerys Matthews – Chardonnay
14. The Fireballs – Bottle of Wine

Favorite Drinking Songs (Non-Country)

1. The Andrews Sisters – Rum and Coca Cola
2. Lil’ Bob & the Lollipops/Los Lobos – I Got Loaded
3. Leroy Carr – Hustler’s Blues
4. Savoy-Doucet Cajun Band – La Danse de Limonade
5. Flaco Jimenez – En El Cielo No Hay Cerveza
6. Billie Holiday – Riffin’ the Scotch
7. Mississippi John Hurt – Coffee Blues
8. The Kinks – Demon Alcohol
9. Damian Junior Gong Marley – One Cup of Coffee
10. Jimmy Gilmer & the Fireballs – Sugar Shack
11. Harry Nilsson – Coconut
12. Randy Newman/Bonnie Raitt – Guilty
13. John Prine – They Oughta Name a Drink After You
14. The Doors – Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)
15. Billie Holiday/Frank Sinatra/Dolly Parton – I Get a Kick Out of You
16. UB40 – Bring Me Your Cup
17. Adam Carroll – Of Milwaukee’s Best
18. John Lee Hooker & Bonnie Raitt – One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer
19. Nouvelle Vague – Too Drunk to Fuck
20. Loudon Wainwright III – Drinking song

Favorite Country-Western Drinking Songs

1. Merle Haggard/George Jones – Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down
2. Gram Parsons – Kiss the Children
3. Kris Kristofferson/Johnny Cash – Sunday Morning Coming Down
4. George Jones/The Byrds – You’re Still On My Mind
5. Hank Thompson/Merle Haggard – Wild Side of Life
6. Rhonda Vincent – Drivin’ Nails In My Coffin
7. The Flying Burrito Brothers - Juanita
8. Louvin Brothers/Johnny Cash – Kneeling Drunkard’s Plea
9. George Jones – If the Drinkin’ Don’t Kill Me (Her Memory Will)
10. Ernest Tubbs – Pass the Booze
11. Kitty Wells – Death at the Bar
12. Hank Williams Sr. – Honky Tonkin’
13. Tommy Alverson – Uno Mas Cerveza
14. Garth Brooks – Friends In Low Places
15. Leon Russell/Hank Thompson – A Six Pack to Go
16. Daryle Singletary/New Riders of the Purple Sage – Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and Loud, Loud Music)
17. Jerry Lee Lewis – What Made Milwaukee Famous (Made a Loser Out of Me)
18. Louvin Brothers – The Drunkard’s Doom
19. Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys – Lone Star Beer
20. Hank Williams Sr. – There’s a Tear In My Beer
21. Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen – Lost In the Ozone Again
22. Loretta Lynn – Honky Tonk Girl
23. George Strait/Poco – Honky Tonk Downstairs
24. Tanya Tucker – Somebody Buy This Cowgirl a Beer
25. Loretta Lynn – Don’t Come Home a’Drinkin’ (with Lovin’ on Your Mind)
26. Alan Jackson – It’s Five o’ Clock Somewhere
27. Tom T. Hall – I Only Think About You When I’m Drunk
28. Joe Nichols – She Only Smokes When She Drinks
29. Wanda Jackson – Tears Will Be the Chaser for Your Wine
30. Charlie Rich – Sittin’ and Thinkin’
31. George Jones – These Days (I Barely Get By)
32. Brooks & Dunn – You Can’t Take the Honky Tonk Out of the Girl

Throw the wine geeks out! (or, summer is for pink wines)

2010-05-29T07:31:00.000-07:00

Real Men Drink Rosé is the the title of the latest post on Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant's Inspiring Thirst blog. Yes, indeed they do; especially the dry, minerally charged rosés (the opposite of tutti-fruity) imported by this iconic Berkeley importer.

Even us ragtag, everyday-is-a-bad-hair day winos can think pink without our bumhood being challenged. Blue skies and beating suns this time each year always make me think of a long departed, newspaper cartoonist friend of mine named Harry Lyons, who could always be counted on for an encouraging word; and not just during the countless hours we shared at a certain dark bar we frequented some years ago in Hawai`i.

Harry penned a series of articles called The Vagabond Gourmet for the same restaurant industry publication (long defunct) I wrote for; and my all-time favorite was one he called "Wine Bums" – about the scourge of the “Gallic dandies” who once dominated the sommelier profession in the sixties and seventies:

Not very long ago, a guy whose only felony was craving red wines with his fish course was made to feel like a buffoon and pariah. Wine stewards would turn in their keys before they’d serve the dreaded, bastard rosé wine. And to bring you wine “on the rocks?” It is to laugh. In short, diners whose tastes in wines and service requirements differed from the dreary norm were considered on the same social level as the bleary, bearded hobo with feet wrapped in newspaper and cigar stub on a toothpick, cooking his beans in a can over a fire while swilling Muscatel from a jug in a pager bag… bums!

And yes, the late, great Harry Lyons that I knew in the eighties brazenly drank all his wine on the rocks (Burgundy, Chablis or Vin Rosé, he never discriminated), which even I wouldn’t dare in those days. Despite his calling himself a “wine bum,” we both knew that in reality he was more of a connoisseur than so-called connoisseurs. Like a true connoisseur, he consumed his wine with knowing relish, rather than with self-conscious superficiality.

I like to think we’ve evolved far beyond those dark, old days of “fine dining” and “continental cuisine,” when sommeliers (like me) wore velvet bows, cummerbunds, chains and ashtrays over their frilly tuxedo shirts, and when much of what was called service entailed “teaching” customers the proper ways to enjoy food or wine (or as Harry often put it, “the hoary old matches that originated in Europe”), but oft-times I wonder... especially in this day and age of 100 point scores, and the obsessive prattle of wine geeks and collectors, unknowingly (or so it seems to me) fueled by lifestyle magazines and journalists determined to pigeonhole wine into neat, little quality categorizations suitable for Consumer Reports. Shut up and drink your wine!

Where have all the wine bums gone?

Harry Lyons was ahead of his time, but he probably wouldn’t have given a hoot about all this anyway. He'd just order up another round for all, asking for another side of rocks for his jug wine rosé!

A FEW OF MY FAVORITE ROSÉS (AND PINK WINE FOODS)

Summery pink wines taste great by themselves, and are even better with food – from hobo style weenies on toothpicks, to endless Babette-like feasts among babbling foodies. The following are my favorites, which I suggest with one caveat: never, never buy a bottle that is over two years old. For pink wines, dry or sweet, it’s always the-fresher-the-better…

SoloRosa (California) – Now here’s an idea whose time has come: a North Coast brand specializing in exactly one wine – a bone dry rosé. And no, it’s not a “Rhône Ranger” or anything gimmicky like that, but rather a serious winery, sourcing sangiovese, merlot and occasionally some syrah from the Russian River and Napa Valleys that are grown for the express purpose of producing the finest, juiciest pink wine possible. The good news is that it’s been a winner – avoiding the rough, burnt out, annoyingly overripe taste of many North Coast rosés of the past. Instead, SoloRosa is consistently rich and refined, neither light-weight nor heavy, with creamy, barrel fermented textures underlying usually an intense mélange of raspberry, cranberry and strawberry fruitiness, with just enough citrus-like crispness to keep things honest.

One of the easiest things in the world for good dry pink is salmon – cast iron or charcoal grill charred, simply brushed with butter, or lavished in ponzu marinades or even sweetened soy glazes. But despite its dryness, SoloRosa’s fruit qualities are luscious enough to balance almost any chili spiced meat, red or white, as well tearfully hot dishes like Jamaican jerks, Cajun blackened or chili specked Thai shrimp, or pork coated in Szechuan spices. This is one wine that can be put to work; which, of course, is what SoloRosa has been about since its noble inception.

Bokisch, Lodi Rosada (California) - Produced from garnacha (a.k.a. grenache), which tends to express more of a strawberry fruitiness; and Bokisch's is as fresh as they come. In the best Southern French and Spanish tradition, this a completely dry style of rosé, exuding a bell ringing varietal fruitiness with cranberry/pomegranate-like zip, its body full yet fluid on the palate. Naturally Hispanophile grower/vintners Markus and Liz Bokisch would suggest Spanish style tapas, although the wine is great sitting on patio table by its lonesome. I've enjoyed the Bokisch with marinated shrimp and fresh chopped chile spiced guacamole in one of those restaurants where they mix the avocado in an oversized stone mortar at the table for you. Given my Hawaiian island inclinations, I also think this would be dynamite with simple fried little fish (like anchovy and sardines) and rice seasoned with everything from Japanese furikake (chopped seaweed and sesame seed seasonings) to pickled ginger, umé (sweet-sour plum), soy, and sesame seeds.

Rosé di Regaleali (Sicily) - The world owes Italian wine importer Leonardo LoCascio a debt of gratitude for discovering this perennial winner and bringing it to America. Made from indigenous Sicilian grapes, this is always a completely dry rosy colored wine, and its juicy, fleshy, mouth-watering flavors allow it to cross all kinds of food barriers. Red barbecued chicken is a no-brainer; so is meatloaf in an herby, mushroomy or tomato-laced gravy, or anything pink like salmon or half-rare tuna

Robert Sinskey, Carneros Vin Gris of Pinot Noir (Napa Valley, California - Although very little of this precious fluid is made each year, I was pleased to discover (during a meeting with Rob Sinskey last year) that this full fledged Biodynamic© winery is determined to keep this wine in its portfolio. Especially since this is this is as refined as a pink wine gets, yet always more exuberant than the occasional sightings of Marsannay rosés (also made from pinot noir) coming out of Burgundy each year. Speaking of which, whenever you find a recent vintage of French rosé from Marsannay, Chinon (made from cabernet franc) or Cassis (primarily from grenache), praise the lord and buy the bottle; and I would spend more time talking about such delicacies if their supply in the U.S. were more consistent. Typically, the Sinskey vin gris is very pale in color, bone dry, lithe, delicate, and bursting with fragrant, red fruit with rose hip tea-like suggestions: not something you have to think twice about with summer pastas in fresh herbed marinara or cold shrimp with sweet-spicy cocktail sauces; and although it's not exactly everyday (unless you live in Plan du Castellet like Mr. Lynch), some duck confit, cornichons and olive oil drizzled rockette would be nice.

Charles Melton, Barossa Valley Rosé of Virginia (Australia) - My first taste of this seriously bone dry and full structured pink wine was in one of L.A. star chef Joachim Splichal’s restaurants – matched with foie gras with rhubarb and strawberries! With fireworks, drums, and entire symphonies going off in my head, the wine’s luscious, cherry-bright fruitiness made this powerful dish even richer and more decadent. How many rosés can do that? Every year Charles Melton’s grenache based Rosé of Virginia is as rich and full as a pink wine gets. Therefore I suspect that it could do just as well with grilled fish with chutney, squab with figs, duck with plum sauce, or any other dish that combines meats and natural fruits.

The iconic Kermit Lynch (Berkeley, 2009)

Château de Trinquevedel, Tavel Rosé (Rhône Valley, France) - Imported by Kermit Lynch, this is the richest French rosé I know; firmly dry, yet effusively fruity, giving deep, full, lip smacking flavors just hinting at wet stones and green leafy herbs. Wines like this easily handle grilled chicken, roast turkey, squab, pigeon, and any game bird, especially with generous sides of squash and root vegetables.

Domaine Tempier, Bandol Rosé (Provence, France) - Also associated with Kermit Lynch, and produced by the Peyraud family, who has inspired legions of American gastronomes like Richard Olney and Alice Waters. Yet this is pink wine, not the stuff of royalty. What you will always find in Domaine Tempier’s rosé is something remarkably fresh, flowing, bone dry yet forwardly fruity – the essence of miniature sweet strawberries rolling across the tongue – finishing with a soft, stony smoothness. If you think ”Provence” when you pop a Tempier – ravioli and ragout, salt cod (or brandade) and anchovy, pesto and aioli, ratatouille and bouillabaisse, chicken with 40 cloves of garlic, etc. – you really can’t go wrong. In a pinch, Château de Pibarnon also makes an excellent Bandol Rosé – even dryer and firmer than the Domaine Tempier’s, but no less soulful.

Culinary matching 101: wines for classic blackened tuna

2010-03-28T14:47:00.000-07:00

In the mid-eighties Paul Prudhomme’s blackened redfish permanently entered the vocabulary of the average American restaurant-goer, but you can argue that all the variations of blackened tuna have become even more ubiquitous in restaurants and bars, and practiced by adventurous home cooks.

For over thirteen years I worked with one of America’s original Euro-Asian fusion (a.k.a. East-West or Pacific Rim) style chefs, Roy Yamaguchi, and during that period opened over two dozen restaurants for him, from Hawai`i to up and down the East Coast. One of the most popular dishes at the Roy’s restaurants, since day one, has been Yamaguchi’s blackened ‘ahi tuna (‘ahi being the Hawaiian name for the high quality, red fleshed tuna caught in the vicinity of the Islands) with a more Frenchified soy-mustard butter sauce (Yamaguchi is, after all, basically a French trained chef who applies fusion thought processes).

Yamaguchi’s blackened tuna also served as the most basic dish utilized for our wine/food matching staff training; part of our “wine & food 101,” which hundreds upon hundreds of servers as well as chefs experienced in this scenario: pen, paper, fork, knife, and usually five different wine glasses filled with five different wines.

As you will see in the recipe (snipped from Roy’s Feasts From Hawai`i) included at the end of this piece, there is a degree of difficulty (i.e. time required for multiple ingredients and steps) in Yamaguchi’s blackened tuna akin to what is considered "basic" in French cuisine, such as most of what you find in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art. So in that sense, it’s not really “101” in terms of preparation; but what makes it “101” is precisely the multiplicity of ingredients, giving it a variety of sensations resulting in “perfect” matches with not just one or two types of wines; but rather, with almost any number of different wines (in other words, “perfect” wine matches for any one specific dish don’t exist, except in the minds of irresponsible wine and/or culinary writers – hopefully, present company excepted).

Tasting wines with blackened tuna is “101” because it drives home this fundamental principle: that it is never so much a food type that determines “best” wine/food matches, but how the food type is prepared (i.e. the context in which food types are placed by their preparations). In this sense, looking at how wines are matched with blackened tuna gives you a good idea of how, or why, almost all wines and foods are matched.

How did we know this? Through repeated tastings, of course; hundreds and hundreds of them, involving hundreds of different people, each expressing preferences. Our typical selection of wines tasted with Yamaguchi’s tuna usually consisted of a typical, elegant, fruit driven pinot noir from California or Oregon; a classic, fruit driven California chardonnay; and a fairly dry sparkling wine from anywhere (France, California, Italy, Spain, etc.) – because usually these three basic wine types, would have the highest percentage chance of matching this particular version of blackened tuna, despite their contrasting characteristics.

Then we would add at least a couple of other wines to the mix: a crisp, medium bodied sauvignon blanc or pinot gris; a soft, fruity riesling or pink wine; a moderately weighted, fruit forward California zinfandel or Australian syrah/shiraz; sometimes, even a big, rambunctious cabernet sauvignon or viognier. It never hurt to find out what “happens” when boy or girl – and white, red, pink, still or sparkling wines – meets blackened tuna.

The major components of Yamaguchi’s tuna, effecting the consistently varied results regarding “best” wine/food matches:

• The fleshy, oily, saline taste of good quality tuna
• Palate stinging spices in the blackening spices as well as the hot mustard
• Saltiness from soy sauce
• Fatty, oily butter and cream in the French butter sauce
• Mild tartness from use of vinegar and lemon, as well as in pickled ginger garnishes
• Slightly bitter sensations in the blackening spices as well as garnishes like Japanese spice sprouts
• Slight sweetness or natural fruitiness in garnishes like pickled ginger and chopped cucumber
• When utilized (often in Hawai`i, but rarely outside the Islands), the salty ocean taste of fresh seaweeds
• Last but not least, umami-related sensations in blackening spices, soy, mustard, seaweeds, as well as the tuna itself (re my Deconstructing umami for more detailed treatment)

In our tastings, we would ask our staff to take a bite of tuna before a deliberate sip of each and every wine, and simply decide what they liked best. Then together, we would puzzle out exactly what it is about each wine that we like so much with the tuna. Our usual findings:

Chardonnay: On paper, the idea of blackening, or spicing up, filets of tuna seems like an unfortunate match with full bodied chardonnays; especially since the high alcohols as well as oak tannins (i.e. bitter sensations) associated with typical chardonnays theoretically makes the sensation of hot spices taste even hotter or more bitter – unpleasant. Where a chef like Yamaguchi turns the theory upside down is in the fact that this is not simply a spicy dish, but a spicy dish balanced by fatty sensations in the addition of beurre blanc style butter sauce as well as in the fatty flesh of high quality tuna itself. When talking about such sensory interaction, we’re talking about similarities of sensations; something many wine and food lovers may not prefer, but which many people actually like (this is why we drizzle sweet chocolate over vanilla ice cream rather than ketchup – the average person likes sweet on sweet, or combining similar sensations). And besides, there is plenty in Yamaguchi’s tuna that offers up contrasting sensations to typical full bodied, oaky chardonnay; such as the sweet/sour taste of pickled ginger, the salty taste of soy or seaweed. Combine that with the natural penchant of the aromatically fruity chardonnay grape to interact positively the earthy taste of mustard, it was never surprising to find that out of groups of a dozen people, there were always three, four, or even five individuals who really enjoyed the taste of blackened tuna with chardonnay.

Sparkling wines: Individuals expressing preferences for good, yeasty, fairly dry sparklers with blackened tuna would always cite a different reasoning from those who liked chardonnays: the refreshing contrast of sensations like effervescence, tart acidity, fairly light alcohol, yeasty and fruit perfumes, and (depending upon the degree) the residual sugars in typical sparklers when tasted with the spicy heat of the blackening spices and hot mustards in Yamaguchi’s tuna, as well as the salty/earthy taste of soy sauce and the fatty qualities in the tuna and butter sauce. The refreshing contrasting works well with the lightest, simplest sparklers, like Italy’s Prosecco, but is even more elevated when the sparkler is choice (like French tête de cuvée); which is why the match has always worked gone over in a big way in our restaurants.

Pinot noir: This third most popular match works for still a third different reason, all related to the so-called “fifth” sensation: umami. Without going into detail, umami is essentially the pleasing sensation the palate feels when interacting with foods containing elevated amounts of amino acids; which is why Parmigiano is sprinkled on pasta, mushrooms and truffles enhance meats, stock based sauces enhance dishes, or in Hawai`i, why ogo (chopped fresh red seaweed) “completes” tuna poke. Pinot noirs are, by nature of being red wines (i.e. fermented on skins), deep and complex in flavor. Yet among reds, pinots are also fairly soft, balanced, smoothly textured, buoyant and inundated with natural spice: qualities that give wines made from this grape the highest percentage chance of perhaps any other wines (white, red, pink or sparkling) of tasting delicious with dishes (any dishes, from white to red meats) prepared with high umami ingredients. In Yamaguchi’s blackened tuna: the fish itself, and especially the mustard, soy sauce, and blackening spices. Although it is not so much similar or contrasting sensations as umami that makes pinot noirs taste so good with blackened tuna, the fact that pinot noir is a softer (i.e. less bitter) type of red wine also helps with this fatty, fleshy fish, since high tannin reds (like those made from cabernet sauvignon and other “Bordeaux” grapes) are not good fits with the high iodine content of most fish. Finally, the slightly bitter taste of the peppers and sandalwood in blackening spices, hot mustard as well as spice sprouts do add a degree of balance to the slight bitterness of grape tannin and French oak sensations found in typical pinot noir.

Riesling: This white wine grape makes a huge range of wines: from bone dry to slightly sweet and very sweet; from extremely light (i.e. 7%-8% alcohol wines from Germany’s Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) to as full as any chardonnay (13%-14% alcohol wines from Alsace, Washington and California, Australia and New Zealand, etc.). But by and large, it is rieslings with just slight degrees of sweetness and light to moderate alcohol levels that do best with blackened tuna, as soft fruitiness in any wine offers delicious contrast to hot spices. Besides heat, residual sugar (in wines as well as dishes) balances salty ingredients (re the soy in blackened tuna), and the sugar/acid balance of classic riesling strikes an easy chord with sweet/sour pickled ginger. In our experience, however, we have found that dry style rieslings that are balanced with exceptional fruitiness in the aroma and flavor do just as well as rieslings with actual residual sugar (although overly tart, sour rieslings with narrow fruit profiles offer very little in the way of flavorful contrast). Conversely, we have found that rieslings tilted towards emphatically sweet fruitiness also make less desirable matches; since excess residual sugar tends to overburden the palate with sensations that seem extraneous in the context of a dish already laden with a multiplicity of sensations.

Medium bodied dry white and pink wines: Whites made from grapes like sauvignon blanc, pinot gris (a.k.a. pinot grigio), albariño, and grüner veltliner, as well as pink wines like dry rosé and vin gris, tend to be neither light nor heavy; and as such, would seem to be natural matches for aggressive dishes like blackened tuna. But in reality, we have always found that it is wines of at least some extremes -- like the weight and oak of chardonnay, the tannin and spiced berryish of pinot noir, or the tart, zesty edge of sparklers – that actual make the most positive impact. Wines of moderate alcohol, moderate acidity, moderate fruit intensity, etc. tend to taste just “moderately good” with blackened tuna. In short, wines that are “okay” with blackened tuna – but ultimately, not particularly exciting.

Heavy, light or medium bodied reds: On the other hand, high tannin reds dominated by dense, bitter sensations (like most cabernet sauvignons) as well as soft tannin reds characterized by accentuated fruitiness (that French Beaujolais) tend to offer too much extreme in the way of sensations to make an easy match for blackened tuna. But unlike medium bodied white and pink wines, medium bodied reds with soft tannins and a modicum of spiced fruitiness (besides pinot noir, softer styles of zinfandel, syrahs, syrah/grenache/mourvèdre blends, lemberger, etc.) do surprisingly well with blackened tuna. As long as the tannin levels are moderated (not outwardly rough or bitter) enough to work with the fish, and the fruit qualities are tinged with variations of peppery (peppercorn or chile) or brown (i.e. suggesting cinnamon, clove, cardomom, allspice, etc.) spices to bounce off the blackening and mustard spices, these types of red wines generally hold you in good stead.

There is, of course, a world of interesting wines now available to us, in restaurants and in stores, for fusion style dishes (see my piece, Basic guidelines to matching the Asian palate & fusion dishes). Whenever combining multifaceted dishes with complex wines, the best policy is to let common sense be your guide, think in terms of similarity and contrast, and don’t forget how umami can often pull things together. Ultimately, we are all ruled by personal preference; and so, if anything, the golden rule remains: to thine own self be true.

Roy Yamaguchi’s
BLACKENED ‘AHI TUNA WITH SOY MUSTARD BUTTER SAUCE

Soy-mustard sauce
1/4 cup Colman's mustard powder
2 tablespoons hot water
2 tablespoons unseasoned rice vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce

Beurre blanc (white wine butter sauce)
1/2 cup white wine
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon minced shallot
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1/2 cup unsalted butter, chopped
1/4 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground white pepper to taste

Blackening spice*
1 1/2 tablespoons paprika
1/2 teaspoon cayenne powder
1/2 tablespoon pure red chile powder
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
1/2 tablespoon ground sandalwood (optional)

Tuna
1 tuna filet (preferably Hawaiian 'ahi), about 2 inches thick and 5 inches long (about 8 ounces)

Garnish
2 or 3 tablespoons red pickled ginger
1/2 teaspoon black sesame seeds
1 ounce Japanese spice sprouts or sunflower sprouts (top 2 inches only)
1 tablespoon seeded and diced yellow bell pepper (optional)
1 tablespoon cucumber, cut into matchsticks (optional)

To prepare the soy-mustard sauce, mix the mustard powder and hot water together to form a paste. Let sit for a few minutes to allow the flavor and heat to develop. Add the vinegar and soy sauce, mix together, and strain through a fine sieve. Chill in the refrigerator.

To prepare the beurre blanc, combine the wine, wine vinegar, lemon juice, and shallot in a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the liquid until it becomes syrupy. Add the cream, and reduce by half. Turn the heat to low and gradually add the butter, stirring slowly (do not whisk) until it is all incorporated. Be careful not to let the mixture boil, or it will break and separate. Season with salt and pepper and strain through a fine sieve. Transfer to a double broiler and keep warm.

Mix all the blackening spices together on a plate, and dredge the tuna on all sides. Heat a lightly oiled cast-iron skillet and sear the tuna over high heat to the desired doneness (about 15 seconds per side for rare, to 1 minute per side for medium-rare). Cut into 16 thin slices.

For each serving, arrange 4 slices of the tuna in a pinwheel or cross shape on the plate. Ladle a little of the soy-mustard sauce in two opposing quadrants between the tuna, and ladle the beurre blanc in the other two quadrants. To garnish, put a small mound of the red pickled ginger on the beurre blanc on either side, and sprinkle the sesame seeds over the soy-mustard sauce. Arrange the spice sprouts, bell pepper, and cucumber at the very center of this pinwheel.

* There is a Yogi brand of sandalwood available by calling the company in New Orleans (504-486-5538). If you prefer, you can use 1/4 cup of any Cajun spice blend instead of making up you own blackening spice.

Pinot Noir & Chinese Red-Cooked Pork Belly

2010-03-19T13:29:00.000-07:00

Freestone Vineyard (with Philippe Pessereau,
viticultural manager), March 2010

When you taste 200-plus pinot noirs, as I did during the two weeks before, during and after my recent attendance at the tenth annual World of Pinot Noir in Shell Beach, California, this past March 5-6, 2010, you're bound to come up with an epiphany of sorts. For a complete report, including notes on the best wines tasted, please see my companion piece, Hanging with the Devil at the 2010 World of Pinot Noir, on Culinary Wine & Food Adventures.

I also participated in something called the Iron Sommelier seminar at this year’s World of Pinot Noir; as one of four sommerliers presenting two “ideal” pinot noirs with a dish prepared from a recipe of our choosing. My dish was a household favorite for sumptuous, spicy reds: Red Cooked Pork Belly, for which a good recipe adapted from Molly Stevens’ All About Braising (W.W. Norton & Co., New York/London) can be found at the end of this post. I matched this classic, Chinese style pork belly with two spice driven, snappy, cold climate grown pinot noirs: the roasted meaty, smoky spiced 2006 Hitching Post Cargasacchi Vineyard Sta. Rita Hills, and the round, juicy, strawberry, peppermint and anise/licorice spiced 2006 Maysara Delara McMinnville from Oregon.

Hanging with the Iron Somms (far left) at World of Pinot Noir

As expected, our audience found that both the Hitching Post and Maysara pinot noirs skipped lightly and fandango-y with the peppery, gingery, cinnamon and star-anise spiced qualities of the pork belly; the crisp acidity and round tannin centers of these black and red fruit driven wines titillating the palate with every bite, even at the fattiest ends. Alas, there was no “voting” in this particular Iron competition; not even an opportunity for jury rigging (as there were no judges). But I guarantee: it was a match those unaccustomed to the appreciation of Asian style food with pinot noir are unlikely to forget. Re the recipe...

RED-COOKED BORK BELLY with Bok Choy
Serves 4:

Braise
One 2-inch piece of fresh ginger, sliced into 6-8 coins and smashed
3 scallions, white and green parts, cut into 1-inch pieces
One 3-inch cinnamon stick
2 oz. Chinese rock sugar, smashed into small rocks with hammer (or ¼ cup brown sugar)2 whole star anise¼ cup dry sherry
¼ cup soy sauce
¼ cup dark mushroom soy sauce
5 cups chicken stock (or water)
1-½ to 2 lbs. pork belly, preferably skin-on, cut into 2-inch chunks

Bok Choy
1 lb. bok choy (1 medium head or 3 baby heads)
1 ½ tablespoons peanut oil
Coarse salt and fresh ground pepper¼ cup water

1. Braising liquid: In carbon steel or stainless steel wok, combine ginger, scallions, cinnamon stick, sugar, star anise, sherry, boy soy sauces, and stock or water. Bring to boil over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve sugar, and boil for 12-15 minutes to infuse liquid with spices.

2. Braise: Slide pork into the wok and lower the heat to gentle simmer. Braise, uncovered, turning pork with tongs from time to time to braise evenly, until meat is fork-tender, about 3 hours. Monitor heat so sauce simmers modestly, never vigorously. Lower heat if necessary.

3. Meanwhile, washing and trimming bok choy: Rinse bok choy thoroughly, paying close attention to inside hollow at base of each leaf where dirt tends to gather. Drain. Cut lower ribs crosswise into 1-inch pieces, and slice the leaves into slightly wider 1-½ strips. Set stems and leaves aside in separate bowls.

4. Simmer bok choy: When pork is tender, turn off heat and let sit. Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add bok choy stems handful at a time and cook, stirring, until stems throw off their water and soften, 4-5 minutes. Immediately begin adding leaves, stirring and tossing with tongs, and season lightly with salt and pepper. Add water, cover, and lower heat to medium. Simmer until bok choy is crisp/tender, about 5 minutes more. Set aside in warm spot.

5. Finish: With tongs, transfer pork to large platter and cover loosely with foil to keep warm. Strain the braising liquid medium sauce pan, and discard solids. Skim some but not all of clear fat from surface (some fat essential to flavor). Boil the braising liquid until reduced by one quarter to one half, about 8 minutes. Taste. Should be salty and intense.

6. Serving: Serve pork and bok choy with drizzle of reduced braising liquid.

Remembrances of menus past (Roy’s through the years)

2010-01-16T17:35:00.000-08:00

During the years that James Beard Award winning Chef Roy Yamaguchi and I worked together in our Roy’s restaurants (from late 1988 to 2001), composing dishes for specific wines became, for us, a kata-like discipline; and admittedly, we often combined sensations just to see what would happen, particularly among our guests. Never a dull moment at Roy’s, but at least we lived and learned.

We also collaborated with dozens of world’s most inventive chefs and wine personalities to stimulate ourselves, our staffs, and of course, to entertain our masses. Figures like Joachim Splichal, Paul Bocuse, Paul Draper, Traci Des Jardins, Kermit Lynch, Jim Clendenen, Madeleine Kamman, Randall Grahm, George Morrone, David Ramey, Mark Miller, Tony Soter, Cory Schreiber, David Rosengarten, Jeremiah Tower, Ronn Wiegand, Nobu Matsuhisa, Joy Sterling, Bradley Ogden, Ken Wright, Drew Nieporent, John Williams, Mark Miller, Julie Johnson, John Ash, Lynn Penner-Ash, Emanuela Stucchi Prinetti, Pamela Starr, Jonathan Waxman, George Bursick, Kazuto Matsusaka, and the late Jack and Jamie Davies (not to mention all the talented, inventive Hawaiian Regional Cuisine chefs – such as Roy’s close friend, Alan Wong – thriving in our own backyard) all marched through our doors in the Islands, sometimes several times over, to help us discover just how far we could stretch the boundaries of contemporary food and wine matching.

The memories, like belted experiences, live on in stacks of menus and newsletters. Here are some of the more memorable ones:

A DINNER for ‘45s
July 1991

The easiest way to handle classic, well matured French wines is to serve white fish with beurre blanc, followed by roast beef or grilled lamb in natural jus; but where is the fun in this predictable progression?

Yamaguchi and I were constantly called upon to devise menus for serious private collectors looking for a little more thrill than what they would normally do for themselves at home. Re this dinner in 1991, highlighted by two classic ’45 Bordeauxs:

Lobster Terrine with Asparagus, Olives & Mustard Aioli
Krug, Champagne 1975

Lasagnette of Wild Mushrooms, Sweet Basil & Pistachio
Montrachet, Louis Latour 1983

Wood Roasted Squab with Confit of Onion & Potato
Zind-Humbrecht, Tokay-Pinot Gris “Clos Saint-Urbain” 1983

Grilled Lamb Chop in an Explorateur Thyme Sauce
Château Mouton-Rothschild 1945
Château Latour 1945

Tropical Fruit Blanc-Manger
Château d’Yquem 1967

The simplicity of layering sheet pasta with a lightly creamed, scented basil and lobster sauce, and a royal mixture of nostril tingling fungus (chanterelles, enokitake, oysters, morels, shiitakes, and the like) with the creamy-sweet scent of pistachio, struck a resonating chord with soft, smoky, earthen, mildly nut toned taste of the eight year old Montrachet.

Super-powered (or “Parkerized”) whites from Alsace always present a culinary challenge, but the caramelized sweetness and oils combined in the squab and confit gave the huge (14%), fleshy, exotically sweet edged Zind-Humbrecht more than enough to take its measure.

I always liked the idea of blending a magnificent triple crème (Explorateur) and thyme into a natural sauce as a way of filling out the full scaled opulence of a classic Pauillac (the Mouton and Latour) at the height of maturity, without bruising the polish and bouquet that took years to build.

A SOCIETY of BACCHUS AMERICA BACCHANALIA
November 1994

Flat Iron Grilled Scallops with Crispy Lumpia & Mango
Pouilly-Fumé, Baron de Ladoucette 1990 & 1989

Hawaiian Seafood Sausage with Caramelized Fennel, Maui Onion & Tuscan White Beans
Riesling “Clos Ste. Hune,” Trimbach 1981 & 1976

Wood Roasted Rocky Senior Chicken with Kona Lobster, Sweetbreads & Truffle Oil
Corton-Charlemagne, Louis Latour 1983 & 1979

Full Moons of Oxtail with Porcini, BoKe’ Farm Escargot & Foie Gras
La Tache, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti 1972
Vosne Romanee “Les Petits Mons,” Leroy 1972

Kupua Cooperation Ranch Lamb with Puna Chèvre Crêpinette
Château Gruard Larose
1961 Double Magnum
1953 Magnum
1943 Jeroboam

Fresh Hawaiian Poha Berry Crème Brûlée
Château d’Yquem 1976

Vintage Hawaiian Chocolate Petits Fours
Blandy’s Malmsey, Solera 1808

What is it about wine collectors with d’Yquem and DRC? These wines became unavailable to the common wine lover (and even to the common wine professional) long ago; but there were still many occasions to have fun with them. The poha berry is a wild, natural Hawaiian variant of the gooseberry (it’s said New Zealand sauvignon blancs smell like gooseberries), and its typically soured green, sticky/oily sweetness added a sharpness to the palate that the big, fat vintage of d’Yquem perhaps lacked. The crème creaminess was just enough to make the contrast work.

If, of course, this was even noticed at the end of this Bacchanalian feast. For me, the highlight was the smoke tinged, free range chicken rolled with sweetbreads and lobster and bathed in a silky, sensuous double (or was it triple?) strength natural stock. If ordinary California chardonnay is for everyday roast chicken, this was surely the answer for the heady, charred, expansively matured Corton Charlemagne, electrified by its mildly acidic underpinnings and stony notes of terroir.

Steamed rounds of Asian rice paper were used to wrap slow roasted oxtail punctuated with goose liver, porcini and the meat of Hawaiian raised snails. It’s a far cry from beef vin à la bourguignonne, but pretty much accomplishes the same earthy, soft, savory meatiness that classic red Burgundy calls for.

DINNER for DAVID ROSENGARTEN of RED WINE with FISH FAME
June 1993

1 – The Salty Solution:
Rare Ponzu ‘Ahi Tuna with Sticky Mountain Potato Relish & Olive Soy Vinaigrette
Gunderloch, Nackenheimer Rothenberg Riesling Kabinett 1991

2 – The Acid Test:
Shellfish Donut Salad with Crispy Potatoes & Hazelnut Caviar Vinaigrette
Savennières, Château d’Épire “Cuvée Spéciale” 1991
Jurançon “Sec,” Clos Girouilh 1991

3- That Red Wine with Fish Thang:
Grilled Shutome (Hawaiian Swordfish) with Puna Chèvre Crêpinette and Bandol Sauce
Bandol, Domaine Tempier “Cuvée Spéciale” 1988
Au Bon Climat, Santa Maria Valley Pinot Noir 1991

4 – The Real Red Hot Chili Peppers:
Grilled Wild Boar in Korean Style Sauce
Roy’s “Anniversary Cuvée” 1989 Sparkling Wine (by Iron Horse, Green Valley)

5 – Some Like It Hot… and Sweet:
Bistro Style Nectarine Tatin
Vouvray “Moelleux,” Champalou 1989

It was a thrill for us to have the respected food and wine writer, David Rosengarten, entertain our guests; so we decided to entertain him in turn with some culinary points from his own classic treatise, Red Wine with Fish (composed with Joshua Wesson).

Admittedly, in the first course, the slippery, sticky taste of Japanese mountain potato (or satoimo - also undoubtedly the hairiest potato in the world) is an acquired one, but it added a textural dimension to the onslaught of interacting sensations (re the penetrating citrus of ponzu, the fatty red flesh of raw Hawaiian tuna, and the saltiness of soy) we wanted the Gunderloch riesling’s pointedly sweet/tart/stony character to play with.

Savennières (from the northerly Loire) and Jurançon (the French South-West) come from opposites sides of France, but are two of the most acidic white wines in the world (so also an acquired taste); but a circle of barely seared scallops and shrimp drizzled in a vinaigrette touched up with steely black roe reduced the wines’ perception of sharpness, allowing fruity flavors to mingle.

Hawaiian shutome is more tender and meatier than the usual type of swordfish; but by putting it in the context of red meat flavors (pungent, herbed Chèvre and minced meat wrapped in caul fat, and veal stock reduced with Bandol), we could swing that “red-wine-with-fish thang.”

I’ve always thought the best way to freshen the palate between doses of, say, hot, garlicky Korean spices is with a dry, effervescent sparkling wine such as that memorable ’89 “Anniversary Cuvée,” which I had personally blended (at Iron Horse Vineyards with Forrest Tancer) as an aggressively yeasty, crisp yet silken textured, faintly pink tinged pinot noir based blend. Also, as it were, a handy way of showing that fine and unique sparklers need never be relegated to the role of apéritif.

WHEN BOCUSE CAME to LUNCH
April 1994

Paul Bocuse dropped by after wading to shore from a Hawaiian canoe ride manned by six muscular, if not downright gorgeous, wahine just outside our restaurant windows. Of course, this was all carefully staged for press and everyone’s amusement, including this menu which makes an interesting study of progression through subtle variations of classic French champagne:

Fresh Island Mahi Mahi with Crispy Ogo & Sea Vegetables in Sesame Uni Sauce
Mumm, Cordon Rouge Brut

Kiawe Smoked Lobster Sausage with White Beans & Nalo Farm Greens in Cordon Rouge Caviar Vinaigrette
Mumm, Cordon Rouge Brut “Millésimé” 1988

Napa Valley Rabbit with Puna Chèvre Hash & Mexican Mint Marigold Mustard Sauce
Mumm, “René Lalou” Brut 1985

According to John Heckathorn, the longtime editor of Honolulu magazine who we sat next to Bocuse, the best part of the first course was not the flaky white, quintessentially Hawaiian fish (mahi mahi) itself, but the tiny, lightly batter crisped mounds of ogo (green Hawaiian seaweed) on the plate. I liked the ogo touch because it gave us the airy lightness and textural relief as a counterpoint to the silky beurre blanc, reflecting the crisply acidic yet finely textured contrasts in classic nonvintage champagne. Toasted sesame seeds mingled with the wine’s yeastiness, and the uni (sea urchin) gave the sparkler’s acidity something to bite into.

Mumm’s vintaged bottlings are fuller and yeastier, but still fluid and finesseful. Kiawe (Hawaiian mesquite) wood smokiness in the lobster sausage and specks of pancetta amidst the al dente white beans splashed with the champagne vinaigrette and three colors of caviar (mackerel, flying fish and sturgeon) effectively raised the intensity level without running roughshod over the wine’s length and grace.

But don’t take my word for it. Heckathorn went on to write (in Honolulu magazine), on Yamaguchi’s rabbit: During the last course I finally got Bocuse to comment on the food (up until then he was just cleaning his plates). A dish more typical of France than Hawaii, the rabbit was presented as a tenderloin sliced atop a hash made of Hawaiian goat cheese and mashed potatoes, the rack, its tiny bones still intact, served on the side… the bones gave you pause because you were reminded you were eating a real animal. But this was the best rabbit I’ve ever had, full-flavored yet mild.

My concern, of course, was complimenting the more intensely yeasted, caramelized, meatier texture of the “René Lalou.” The use of Chèvre gave a natural touch of similarity to the champagne’s acidity, but the brothy rabbit stock laced with the flowery, mildly licorice/tarragon-like quality of Mexican mint marigold was what really did the trick for me: giving a contrasting definition to both the well matured champagne and the meager white meatiness of the rabbit.

ADVENTURES with KERMIT LYNCH
April 1997

Kermit Lynch’s visits were almost yearly affairs, and we particularly enjoyed working with his French vin de pays (but not so much his high ranked Burgundy and Rhône Valley crus) because they would prompt us to stretch our culinary wings. One of the more adventurous forays:

Hawaiian ‘Ahi Tuna Three Ways --
Maui Onion Poke, Tiger Eye Roll & Blackened Rare in Hot Soy Mustard Vinaigrette
Mercurey “Les Montots,” A. et P. de Villaine 1994

Island Style Bouillabaisse
(Pacific Shellfish and Dumplings in Saffroned Super-Natural Broth)
Montlouis “Les Tuffeaux,” Francoise Chidaine 1995

Napoleon of Fresh Opakapaka, Scallops & Lobster
(with Braising Greens in Essence of Kona Lobster Sauce)
Tursan, Baron de Bachen 1993

Confit of Lamb & Roasted Garlic Salad
(with Nalo Farm Asian Mesclun in Warm Balsamic & Herb Reduced Natural Jus)
Irouleguy, Domaine Arretxea 1995

Hawaiian Vintage Chocolate Truffles with Anglaise & Kona Coffee Sauces
Banyuls, Domaine la Tour Vieille 1994

Served almost cold, modestly scaled pinot noir based reds like Mercurey are an easy choice with raw tuna, especially with earthy mustard, sweet onion and sesame oil components.

Bouillabaisse may be more typical of Provence than the Loire where the steely dry, chenin blanc based Montlouis is grown, but there is something about fragrant salinity of Pacific Island fish that rings true with the stony, chalky, lemony sharp qualities of the wine, especially when couched in the richly organic, flowery taste of saffron fused into a concentrated stock. A great example of the liberties that may be taken far from a wine’s region of origin.

Tursan has always been one of my all-time favorite whites: vinified from the little known baroque grape in South-West France, it mixes a creamy edged dryness with a lightly acidic core and fragrance that is positively tropical (mango, passion fruit, and papaya), making a strangely natural (supernatural?) fit with sweet Hawaiian snapper in lobster essences. What an undiscovered treasure!

Irouleguy is a rambunctiously black, peppery Basque blend of tannat and cabernet sauvignon, with a chewy texture to boot. But the wine has soul, and is really not so big in the final analysis; and so with the contrasting sweetness of lamb confit and balsamic jus, plus the balancing taste of mildly bitter Asian mesclun, the exotic nature of this red could start to gel.

Merlot master, Marco Cappelli

A FESTIVAL of MERLOTS with TAMARA MURPHY
July 1996

We’ve always covered the world’s waterfront of alternative style wines, but there was also a ton of work done with the “standard” varietals. The following menu was conceived by Roy Yamaguchi in collaboration with Seattle’s James Beard Award winning Tamara Murphy (at that time, presiding at Campagne). The guest winemakers present at this dinner in Honolulu: David Lake MW (Columbia Winery), Tom Rinaldi (Duckhorn Vineyards), Marco Cappelli (Swanson), and Rob Sinskey (Robert Sinskey Vineyards):

Crispy Nori Crusted Salmon with Enoki & Truffle Oil Vinaigrette
Swanson, Napa Valley Merlot 1994

Lamb Tartare with Scotch Bonnets, Mushroom Salad & Herb Chips
Duckhorn, Napa Valley Merlot 1994

Seared ‘Ahi Tuna with a Smoked Pepper & Citrus Glaze
Columbia, “Milestone” Red Willow Vineyard Merlot 1993

Boneless Quail Stuffed with Fig & Prosciutto on Almond Couscous
Robert Sinskey, “RSV Reserve” Los Carneros Merlot 1992

Black Chocolate Mousse Cake with Espresso Sauce and a Candied Twist

The Yamaguchi/Murphy menu for merlots reflects the broad range of food matches – incorporating hot (habanero in the lamb tartare) or sweet (fig in the quail), salty and umami (nori, truffle, and enoki mushrooms in the salmon), and even bitter and sour (smoked pepper and citrus in the tuna) sensations -- possible for a grape that portrays an outwardly soft, sumptuous fruitiness, even when brimming with equal doses of tannin, oak, and alcoholic strength, as those particularly full scaled merlots certainly did.

CHARDONNAYS of the 1990s with
MONTRACHET’S CHRIS GESUALDI
June 1995

In this orgy of chardonnays, rather than isolate each wine with a dish, we allowed our guests to sample all five wines with each course, each representing the remarkably concentrated, barrel fermented, largely cold climate grown style of chardonnay that was the cutting-edge in the early 1990s.

Chris Gesualdi, then the chef of Montrachet in New York, collaborated with Roy Yamaguchi to fashion three Pacific Rim style seafood dishes -- each packing a wallop -- that were as good as anything I’ve ever tasted, with a strong emphasis on the creamy, buttery aspects of the grape.

The third course had Gesualdi infusing lobster coral (unfertilized eggs) into his sauce, and the resulting force of this combination with the astoundingly rich, Montrachet-like whites (wham, bam, thank you ma’am) was certainly not for the faint of heart. But somehow we pressed on:

The courses:
Roasted Lobster with Chardonnay Ginger Lemon Butter
Sesame Seared Mahi Mahi Salad with Crispy Limu Ogo and Essence of Uni & Lobster
Herb Crusted Opah (Moonfish) with Summer Vegetables & Coral Butter
Three Napoleons of Lilikoi, Ginger & White Chocolate Crème Brûlée

The wines:
Au Bon Climat, Santa Maria Valley Gold Coast Vineyard Chardonnay 1993
Chalk Hill, Estate Chardonnay 1993
Saintsbury, Carneros Reserve Chardonnay 1993
Simi, Sonoma Reserve Chardonnay 1990
Stonier’s, Mornington Peninsula Reserve Chardonnay 1994

Guest Winemakers:
Jim Clendenen, Au Bon Climat (Santa Barbara)
Tod Dexter, Stonier’s Winery (Mornington Peninsula, Australia)
Nick Goldschmidt, Simi Winery (Sonoma)
David Graves, Saintsbury Vineyards (Carneros)
David Ramey, Chalk Hill Winery (Sonoma)

A PINOT NOIR ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION with
PATINA’S JOACHIM SPLICHAL
February 1998

I think few chefs love and understand California’s cold climate Santa Barbara grown pinot noir – for all its billowing spice, sass, silk, and intrinsic zest – as much as Joachim Splichal of the Patina and Pinot family of restaurants in Los Angeles.

For the ninth anniversary celebration of our original restaurant in Honolulu, I brought together Splichal with Au Bon Climat’s iconoclastic winemaker/proprietor, Jim Clendenen, and together with Roy Yamaguchi and his Chef de Cuisine Gordon Hopkins, they produced a marathon collaborative culinary event proving, in retrospect, to be one for the ages:

Joachim's Truffled Hors d'oeuvres on Spoons
Cold Heaven, Sanford & Benedict Vineyard Viognier 1996

Roy’s ‘Ahi Tuna Vegetable Tortellini in Ogo Nage
Au Bon Climat, Sanford & Benedict Reserve Pinot Noir 1992

Joachim’s Day Boat Scallops with Egg Pasta Sheets, Black Chanterelles & Truffle Oil
Sanford, Sanford & Benedict Vineyard Barrel Select Pinot Noir 1993

Roy’s New Angels on Horseback (Crêpinette of Oysters in Lardon Pinot Sauce)
Sanford, Sanford & Benedict Barrel Select Pinot Noir 1994

Joachim’s Cube of Potato with Brandade & Parsley Jus
Au Bon Climat, Sanford & Benedict Reserve Pinot Noir 1995

Roy’s Rack of Lamb with Confit of Portobello & Polenta
Au Bon Climat, Sanford & Benedict Vineyard Pinot Noir 1996

Joachim’s Venison Medallion with Foie Gras & Celery Root Remoulade
Au Bon Climat, “9th Anniversary Cuvée” (Rosemary’s/Sanford & Benedict) Pinot Noir 1996

Roy’s Black & White Chocolate Decadence with Freshly Dried Cherries

How do you spell umami? Try Splichal’s postmodern rendering of brandade (salt cod poached and pureed with olive oil) with the slinky, sweetly spiced, leather-on-palate-slapping ’95 ABC Sanford & Benedict Reserve; undoubtedly, similar to what you could experience on any sun washed day in the French Mediterranean town of Collioure with bottles of the sharp, leathery reds (never mind the whites and pinks) of that region. The palate knows when it experiences ecstasy.

Second case: Yamaguchi’s smoky, savory oysters wrapped with lardon in caul fat and a syrupy pinot infused sauce, reduced to melting qualities by the slippery sheen and sharply scented zest of the ’94 Sanford Barrel Select. That’s why I love pinot noir.

MO’ BETTAH PINOTS
A Culinary Ode to Wines of the Pinot Family
June 1997

This was one of our more memorable, month-long tasting menus simply because it involved wines of the pinot family in all their guises; re pinot noir and pinot gris, separated as they are by several centuries of viticultural evolution.

Terrine of Salmon & Crab with Red & Gold Pepper Coulis
Robert Sinskey, Carneros Vin Gris of Pinot Noir 1996

Pot-a-Feu of Hawaiian Fish in Fresh Sea Vegetable Nage
King Estate, Willamette Valley “Reserve” Pinot Gris 1995

Roasted Boneless Rack of Lamb & Portobello in Roasted Elephant Garlic Sauce
Babcock, “One Ton Per Acre” Santa Ynez Valley Pinot Noir 1995

Melted Puna Chèvre Mousse with Nalo Farm Mesclun in Shallot Sherry Vinaigrette
Au Bon Climat, “Bien Nacido La Bauge” Santa Maria Valley Pinot Noir 1995

Macadamia Nut Tart in Island Rum Sauce
Librandi, “Le Passule” Vino Passito

Of our numerous tasting menus, I liked this one because it illustrated some aspects of similarity-and-contrast 101: as in the fourth (salad) course, with its use of mildly acidic Chèvre to underline the snappy, mildly acidic quality of the cold climate grown pinot noir, plus the use of mildly bitter edged salad greens (typical for us: baby arugula, baby spinach, cress, watercress, mizuna, radicchio, romaine, escarole, Manoa and red leaf lettuce) to round out the mildly bitter, young red wine tannins.

When sensations are balanced within both the dish and the wine (and then between the dish and the wine), the palate does not taste the sharpness of acidity or bitterness of tannin, but rather, lively, refreshing sensations. It is like long term acclimation to painfully hot chiles: the more you use them, the less you notice them, and it eventually becomes invigorating.

You could find the same phenomenon in the salty/briny effects of the Hawaiian fish pot-a-feu balanced by the flowing minerality of a matching pinot gris; the umami strengths of the softer style Babcock pinot noir with the portobello and garlic infused lamb jus and veal stock reduction; and even the brightly colored fruitiness of the bell pepper coulis bouncing off the effusively fruity, neon colored vin gris of pinot noir by Sinskey.

Okay, the dessert was not matched with a pinot. But I had been in love with Librandi’s sun raisined moscato ever since my first visit to Southern Italy in the early nineties, and there was nothing I liked it better with than with sweet tarts of roasted Hawaiian macadamia nuts.

The palate is like the heart: it has its own mind, often not in agreement with your preconceptions or sense of what is right. But why fight it?

MENU for ROY’S ASPIRING CHEFS
September 1999

In the fall of 1999 Roy’s was in the midst of transitioning far beyond the Islands and into other parts of the country. We were making culinary jihad. Yamaguchi’s kitchens were always laboratories anyway, with 20 to 25 new dishes crafted each day by teams of future executive chefs working under Gordon Hopkins’ brutally (to be perfectly frank) intense supervision.

The basic principles of food and wine matching were very much a part of the process. The following was a working piece developed to illustrate menu progression and the Asian/fusion methodology of balancing taste and tactile sensations that touch the entire palate.

Complete with the wine descriptions printed on the menu to familiarize the chefs with the range of wines at their culinary disposal:

Hot Iron Kabayaki (Eel in Shoyu) Seared Sea Scallops in Sweet Ginger Kabayaki Butter Sauce
Domaine Delmas, Crémant de Limoux 1993 (light, frothy, appley fresh, off-dry “half sparkler” from the French South-West)

Steamed Hawaiian Snapper in Sizzling Hot Chinese Style Peanut Oil, Ginger, Soy & Cilantro
Weinhaus Heger, Pinot Gris 1996 (wonderfully crisp, balanced, stony dry, light and buoyant style of white from Germany’s Baden region)

Soy Charred Scallops & Mango Watercress Salad with Couscous in Thai Citrus Vinaigrette
Weingut Bassermann-Jordan, Riesling Kabinett Pfalz 1997 (delicate, off-dry, refined and minerally scented white wine from Germany’s Pfalz region)

Teriyaki Glazed Slow Roasted Hudson Valley Duck Breast in Black Bean “Dragon” Syrup
Beaux Frères, “Belle Soeurs” Oregon Pinot Noir 1996 (sultry, silken, fragrantly spiced and earthen red from a meticulously farmed Willamette Valley estate)

Shichimi Charred Rare New York with Lomi Lomi (Chopped) Tomatoes & Sizzling Truffle Oil
Robert Biale, “Old Crane Ranch” Napa Valley Zinfandel 1996 (intensely full, jammy, spicy, yet satiny smooth style of this uniquely Californian varietal red)

Wood Roasted Rack of Lamb in White Balsamic, Fig & Pomegranate Reduction
Treana, Paso Robles 1996 (lusciously full, original “Super Paso” blend of syrah, cabernet sauvignon, merlot, sangiovese & petitesSirah)

Napoleon of Strawberry and Haupia (Coconut Pudding) with Sugar Cookies & Lychee Ice
Bonnezeaux, Château de “La Chapelle” 1993 (sumptuously honeyed, zesty, headily perfumed late harvest style chenin blanc from the Loire River)

YOU SAY POTATOES and I SAY POI
Hawaiian Regional Cuisine & Wine Matching in New York
February 1999

When Yamaguchi and a posse of Hawaii Regional Cuisine chefs invaded New York City for the opening of Roy’s New York in 1999, I invited Joshua Wesson – the other mind behind Red Wine with Fish – to share some of his thoughts on the printed menu, which he did with his own inimitable flair:

D.K. Kodama's Panko Crusted 'Ahi Tuna with Wasabi Soy Butter, and
Asian Rock Shrimp Cake with Ginger Lime Chili Butter & Cilantro Pesto
Iron Horse, Sonoma/Green Valley Late Disgorged Brut 1992
JW: Savory shrimp and tuna hotted up with chili and wasabi met their match in the fire extinguishing fizz of Iron Horse’s deeply flavored, yet utterly refreshing, style of sparkling wine.

Philippe Padovani’s Big Island Hearts of Palm Salad
with Pan Seared Day boat Scallops, Prosciutto & Mango
Rex Hill, Willamette Valley Reserve Pinot Gris 1997
JW: Rex’s gris gris cooks up Cal-chard-like richness with mouthwatering Oregon acidity, well suited to the twin-forked taste of Philippe’s salty-sweet surf n’ turf style salad

Alan Wong’s Steamed Hawaiian Onaga in Truffled Nage
Murphy-Goode, “The Deuce” Barrel Fermented Fumé 1997
JW: MG’s pristine but earthy, toasty barrel fermented SB only enriches Alan’s truffled tropical swimmer

Troy Guard & Roy Yamaguchi’s
Thai Herb Grilled Lobster with Black Rice Risotto & Spicy Shrimp Sauce
Ken Wright, “Celilo Vineyard” Washington State Chardonnay 1997
JW: You gotta love the Roy & Troy team’s softly spicy shellfish dish with Ken Wright’s unusually crisp and flinty cool-climate coastal Washington chardonnay

Troy Guard & Roy Yamaguchi’s
Mongolian Rack of Lamb with Minted Fruit Compote & Euro-Asian Style Curry
Il Podere dell’ Olivos, Ragazzo Lenoso Riserva (Barbera/Nebbiola) 1994
JW: Who needs mint jelly when the Boyz under the Hood offer their own minty compote as a condiment of choice? Add that to Big Jim’s California twist to two big fruit Piemonte grapes, and you’ve got a match that boldly goes where no wine and food has gone before!

Noah French’s Hawaiian Medley of
Coconut Crème Brûlée, Yuzu Lemon Tart & Chocolate Macadamia Toffee Cake
De Loach Vineyards, Late Harvest Gewürztraminer 1997
JW: This hand harvested sumo-gewürz takes on a trio of sweets in a celebrity match for the heavyweight title of dessert champ. Are you ready to rumble!

BARRELS OF ZIN and BOOGIE NIGHTS
November 1999

For a good ten years running we would visit De Loach Vineyards during the late winter or early spring following each vintage, and purchase a full barrel of one of their super-powered single vineyard old vine Russian River Valley zinfandels. The idea was to give everyone back at home a chance to taste a wine that had never been bottled, in all its wild, pristine, unrestrained intensity.

Because it normally took a week for our guests to consume an entire barrel, we would pick the biggest (usually approaching 16%), blackest, spiciest De Loach zinfandel made each year – the essence of autumn! It was always an event, and a cloth staining mess, to pop in the spigot, and it was also the only day of the year when we would clear out space in the dining room for a live band (the first few years it was sophisticated jazz, and then we cut loose with successions of salsa, reggae, and even Cajun-Zydeco).

In 1999 the theme was “Disco Zin,” although I don’t think anyone could come up with any of those flared, hip hugging slacks from the backs of their closet. But it was also a serious night for zinfandel drinkers to experience just how food versatile this grape – making the biggest, richest, and perhaps the most peculiar of the world’s great wines -- can be, with its overridingly delicious sensations of peppery, clovy, blackberry jam.

Starting off with some rare library bottlings from previous vintages, and then building up to our barrel of 1998 juice:

Fresh ‘Ahi Tuna Tortellini in Natural Beef Broth
De Loach, Gambogi Ranch Zinfandel 1994

“Disco Wild” Risotto of Wild Mushrooms, Wild Rice & Aborio with Parmigiano & Truffled Vegetables
De Loach, Gambogi Ranch Zinfandel 1995

Nalo Farm Mesclun Salad with Crispy Gizzard Croutons in Warm Balsamic Vinaigrette
De Loach, Gambogi Ranch Zinfandel 1996

Wood Roasted Salmon in “Drunken” Saké Sauce with Waimanalo Eggplant, Tofu & Scallions
De Loach, Gambogi Ranch Zinfandel 1997

Rosemary Pork Loin Skewers in Fresh Basil Zinfandel Essence
De Loach, Gambogi Ranch Zinfandel 1998 (Barrel)

Bittersweet Hawaiian Vintage Chocolate Petits Fours

The half-sweet chocolate dessert was also adjusted to compliment the barrel of 1998 zinfandel so that everyone could boogie on down the night with one final glass.

Dreaming on (favorite drinking reds)

2010-01-05T16:11:00.000-08:00

I have this recurring dream. It's almost mid-day. We wake up late, and haven't yet eaten. So after stopping at a tiny charcuterie for some sausages, marinated olives, a round of local bread – tasting of freshly risen dough, crusted on the outside, silky on the inside – and a bottle of wine, we follow a winding brook at the foot of a steep hill outside the village, in search of a table in the sky.

The residual morning chill is still sharp in the air as our shoes crunch over some loose, schistous rocks, but we quickly begin to warm as we steady our footing, making headway up the slope. The landscape is a primeval mix of twisted scrub, giving off resiny, herby smells as we brush against them, along with lethal, gigantic sized agaves shooting up their thirty foot spikes.

Finally, the passing brook leads us to a small pool. We feel like jumping in, but when we dip our hands into it we're almost shocked by the stinging cold. So tucking our pack behind a rock and weighting our bottle beneath the water, we head off around a bend to catch a fuller view of the civilization below. The sun is now just post meridian, beginning to bathe the town’s distant red roofs and winding streets in swaths of brick and gold, and beyond it the earth appears to rise and dip with misshapen squares of scattered farms and homesteads, separated by taupe toned rock walls making lines like a Navajo blanket. Imbued by the entire fantasy, I look at my smiling partner and whisper those three magic words…

Shall we eat?

And if I'm not yet snapped back into reality by a ringing phone or knock at the door, this is where the dream really starts to cook. The garlic and spiced sausages jolt the palate, and the bread cracks and flakes; but it's the steely cold wine – which is red (isn't real wine red?) – that really gets me. Since we're shooting it directly from the bottle, we're not exactly savoring the "bouquet." However, the taste is like pure, undulating velvet – smooth, seamless flavors of some kind of sweet, purple stone fruit, mingling with cracked pepper and brown spices – and the aromas rush into the head from behind the palate, even long after the wine is swallowed. Better yet is knowing – this is my dream, mind you – that the wine was cheap, and there's a lot more where it comes from.

Which is why, when you think of it, I've probably remained in the wine business virtually all of my adult life. While dreams are nothing more than wishes, the reality is that there are always such wines to be found; despite the often overwhelming plethora of bottles and brands, at increasingly painful prices, that assault you every time you walk into a store.

When I first started in the business one of my biggest inspirations was the late, great Justin Meyer. He was one of the few winemakers (and I’ve met hundreds) who, when he would start to speak, my pen came out because I knew he would say something memorable. Looking at some old notes recently, I came across one of Meyer’s balder statements: “Americans pay too much for their wine.” This probably didn’t mean much to me before because I always believed people should spend whatever they feel like for a bottle of wine.

But now, over twenty five years later, I think I understand what Meyer was saying: there’s simply no correlation between the pleasure you receive and the price you pay when it comes to premium quality, commercial wine. Like Meyer, I’ve probably drunk too many wines that cost only $10 that I enjoyed a lot more than wines costing over $50 or $100. It doesn’t stand to reason, but my palate makes it so; especially taking in the factors of the foods I eat and the companions I keep. In many cases, better than a dream…

FAVORITE DRINKING REDS

Perhaps this explains those waking dreams: reminders that it’s the taste of the wine, stupid, not the 95 points or whatever is written on the wall or whispered through grapevines, that counts at the table. I’m sorry to say, but the dumbest thing a wine lover can do is believe everything he reads or is told.

Over the years my list of new “favorites” – which are invariably red (isn’t that the first duty of good wine?) – has never ceased to grow; and I suspect, even if they weren’t to his exact taste, Justin Meyer would have approved. Why? Because no one gave permission (call me stubborn, but I refuse to read reviews), yet they stimulate the pleasure centers all the same.

The following fave-raves might also give you an idea of the stunning range of deliciously different wines that might broaden your culinary perspective or, better yet, fit right in with the foods you’ve enjoyed all along. A good dozen choices, plus a lagniappe:

Jesse’s Grove, Earth, Zin & Fire (Lodi, California) – I was recently shocked - when presenting this in a professional wine/food matching seminar - by how the Earth, Zin & Fire effortlessly outperformed a top pinot noir, riesling and chardonnay in variant food contexts, with meats of every color. Thus, I’ve come to rely more and more upon Lodi grown zins like this for democratically priced, zesty reds to embellish one of my all time favorite meals: meatless spaghetti in souped up, sweet onioned, herbalicious sauces under mounds of grated Parmigiano. Oh, but this is also the perfect barbecue wine, too: mild yet tingly acidity and restrained tannin only elevate bouncy raspberry/blackberry jam aromas and flavors, tinged with cracked peppercorn – just for thing for grill branded, caramelized meats slathered in sweet, gingery soy or sweet/spicy/vinegary marinades. But when in doubt, cook the spaghetti and, to sweeten up the pot, pop a Lodi zin.

Parducci, Petite Sirah (Mendocino, California) – The current owners (Mendocino Wine Company) have not only turned this venerable old winery into the greenest in California (if things like organic grape growing, carbon neutrality, use of biodiesels and biodegradable packaging means something to you, Parducci has been leading the way), they have revived the brand in the area it counts the most: totally fresh, delicious wines, like this unbelievably well priced ($9-$12) petite sirah; exuding a sweet blueberry concentration spiked with pepper, and a dense, full, round, fleshy, purple robed body wrapped in moderate tannin and understated oak. Matching foods? You name it; starting with meatloaf in fresh mushroom gravy (in Hawai`i, we’d add an over-easy egg and steaming white rice), or anything having to do with steak: grilled, pan roasted, blackened, Louisiana Lightninged, smothered in onions, drenched in melted herby butter, bang up against a banister, or singed under your wife’s tanning lamp – really, all you need to do is make sure there’s something meaty to make this round, fleshy red wine work its magic.

Luchador, Shiraz (South Australia) – The only thing suspect about this wine is its silly (okay, “fun”), gimmicky lucha libre labels, depicting masked Mexican wrestlers (there are now four variations of such). But there are tons more that this wine has going for it: most notably, massive, forsooth macho, amounts of flavor, beginning with an exuberantly aromatic mix of blueberry, blackberry and Brie-like notes in the nose, and ending with thick, roly poly, cherry bomb fruit qualities in the mouth, unimpeded by dense, rounded tannins. Everything a good Aussie Shiraz should be, including a decent price ($15). As Steve Miller once said, somebody give me a cheeseburger!

Jose Maria de Fonseca, Domini (Douro, Portugal) - Since Port has fallen out of favor internationally in recent years, the Portuguese have been producing more robust, vigorously flavorful, outrageously well priced table reds exactly like this: made from the same grapes that go into classic Port, resulting in all the richness of Port, sans the alcoholic fortification. In the case of the Domini: a blend of touriga franca, touriga nacional and tinta roriz. Black color and opulent nose – sweet black fruits in a box of vanillin oak – and if you dig a little deeper, a taste of leather and stony, granitic terroir on the palate, merging in a fleshy, medium-full body, thickened by round, polished tannins. While retailing between $12 and $18, a vinous experience at any price.

Heron, Sexto (Terra Alta, Spain) - Laely Heron is an enterprising woman better known for her sourcing of some of the sexiest merlot based reds known to man, from France’s Languedoc region. Heron blended this uncommonly deep, substantial red from six grapes (hence, Sexto) grown in the high elevation, rugged, off-the-beaten-track terroir of Catalonia’s Terra Alta, just off Spain’s Mediterranean coast. Dry farmed, old-vine grapes like garnacha (33%), carineña (30%) and tempranillo (20%) give the wine wild, juicy qualities; cabernet sauvignon (6%), and syrah (5%) add undeniable power; and the rare lledoner pelut noir (6%) tops it all off with a sinewy, pungent tumescence. For $12-$14, sexto may never been better!

Laely Heron

Bodegas Zabrin, Atteca (Calatayud, Spain) – This wine would not be so ridiculously good if not for its ridiculously good price ($13-$15 in most retail markets). Made from 80 to 100 year old vines of garnacha (a.k.a. grenache, the workhorse grape of Southern France), the nose is hugely rich and sweet (like cocoa dusted berries) and enlarged by smoky French oak; soft, round, medium-full, spiced berry qualities on the palate, tied down by firm tannins, making for a good, savory yet dry finish.

Clos la Coutale, Cahors (South-West France) – Depending upon which side of the country you’re on, this wine will set you back anywhere from $14 to $20. So you may want to buy two bottles, because it’s truly difficult to just drink one: a simply gorgeous combination of weight and ease, with seriously plump flavors filled out by round yet meaty tannin. This is a blend of mostly malbec (giving a blackberryish juiciness) with tannat (adding muscle and the feel of density), and just a smidgen of merlot (perceptively lush notes oozing out between the grains). Some nights, I think I’ve sat and cried over this wine’s majestic confluence of sensations. Okay, maybe not. But no serious dreamer of velvety reds should live without this.

Emiliana NOVAS Carménère/Cabernet Sauvignon (Valle de Colchagua, Chile) – The carménère grape typically yields a wine scented, for all the world, like Tabasco and jalapeño-like peppers. But in this organically grown wine, the grape is fleshed out by the firm tannin and minty berry qualities of cabernet; its medium-full body filled to the brim with plump fruit wrapped in smoky oak, while nuanced chile spices add interest rather than distraction. I once found this to be a seamless match with a mildly peppery arugula salad, tossed with Parmigiano, pine nuts and a soft, winey vinaigrette; but you should think things like rare beef sandwich with a pungent mustard or horseradish, pulled pork with a mess of sweet vinegared, salted frisée or cress (peppery greens help to round out the red wine tannins); although if there’s some truffle oil in the cabinet, well then, splash away!

Pircas Negras, Malbec (Famatina Valley, Argentina) - Malbec may be one of the "lesser" black skinned grapes that originated in Bordeaux, but in the high elevations of Argentina it is considered the “king”; and like any good king, it truly rocks across the palate with amazingly thick, juicy, massively muscled yet satiny smooth qualities, suggesting smoke, scrubby herbs, and sweet, wild raspberry. This brand (imported by Organic Vintners and qualifying as vegan) is a rock solid introduction to Argentina’s world of malbec; and if you haven’t yet experienced the thrill and value of it, then you’re in for a treat – especially for the $10-$11 price.

Bodegas Agapito Rico, Carchelo (Jumilla, Spain) – Carchelo is what you see on the label of this unusual blend of the mourvèdre (called monastrell in Spain), merlot, syrah and tempranillo grape varieties that I've been enjoying for well over a decade. The best way to describe it is that it gives $24 worth of flavor for a $12 price. Another way is to think of being fed meltingly rich, chocolate covered raspberries by lacy, satiny, black silk gloved hands. Any questions?

Bodegas Bretón, Loriñon Crianza (Rioja, Spain) – This is one of many fine examples of smooth, pungent, soft-as-suede $12-$13 tempranillo based reds coming out of Rioja today. The nose is punctuated by the red plummy, burnt leaf and beef consommé-like qualities of the grape, and there’s a feminine feel to the wine’s long, willowy, light to medium weight and tannins. All adding up to something of exceptional food versatility – easy enough for grilled fish, yet beefy enough for any meat, white or red, especially when coming off the barbie (since charring brings out the smoky nuances of the Loriñon).

Planeta, Cerasuolo di Vitoria (Sicily, Italy) – Sicilian reds made from the thick, black nero d’Avola grape have been popping up everywhere in recent years; but for the average Joe, the hard, bitter qualities of those wines are an acquired taste. The Cerasuolo – made from only 60% nero d’Avola – is fattened up by 40% frappato, effectively transforming the wine into a bowlful of plump cherries, while adding gingery nuances in the aroma and flavor; the nero d’Avola asserting its usual deep pigmentation and cracked pepper spice. At $16-$20, this makes an exotic, dense yet easy drinking red, especially with peppery charcuterie and lush, semi-soft cheeses with the usual fruit preserves. Throw in a side of lobster (think Chinese black bean sauce), a pound of cayenned crawfish or pulled pork with or without the barbecue spice, and you’ll find that few wines are as food resilient as this.

Alex Sokol Blosser

Sokol Blosser, Meditrina (Oregon, Washington & Paso Robles) – At $18-$22, this proprietary red stretches it insofar as “everyday” pricing; but oh, how it throttles the senses: ripe, sweet, plump cherry fragrances tinged with wild raspberry, flowing fluidly across the palate in waves of zesty sensations, redolent of berries and cherries. The current (fifth) edition of this nonvintaged blend is composed of Dundee Hills (Willamette Valley) grown pinot noir, Columbia Valley syrah, and Paso Robles zinfandel; proving once and for all, that when it comes to satisfyingly good drinking wine, it ain’t never the meat, it’s the motion.

A dude's Thanksgiving (wines for turkeys)

2009-11-04T14:50:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again: to ruminate on wines and turkeys. From the perspective of undoubtedly many a wine professional – spending Thanksgivings at tables with as many as a dozen different bottles of wine at a time (the most ever for me: some five dozen bottles shared with Greg and Gary Butch’s families at their restaurant, Elizabeth on 37th in Savannah... thanks, boys!) – I think I can do this.

But first, about our quarry:

• In kindergarten we learn that turkey is a native American bird that Pilgrims hunted with oft-times depicted (and oft-times erratic), flaired blunderbusses (precursors to the shotgun – imagine the damage Dick Cheney could do with that). As new parents joyfully discover to this day, turkeys are also kids’ favorite things to draw (just trace spread fingers, add feet, and color to your heart’s content).

• A large percentage of 16th century Europeans, when first presented with the North American turkey, thought it of eastern origin (or else, they thought America was part of Asia). Thus the French called it coq d’Inde (the “cock of India”); which, maddeningly enough, they do to this day. Good reason, I suppose, to boycott French wine every Thanksgiving (not...).

• Even before the first Jamestown Thanksgiving (circa 1620), the turkey was a favorite of European nobility. In 1549, for instance, Catherine de’ Medici served 66 of them in one feast. Considering her historical influence on French cuisine, it’s a wonder that a later monarch didn’t say les laisser manger coq d’Inde.

So considering the longstanding Italian and French connection, I suppose that wine lovers have been pondering the question for some time: what wine with turkey? A few years ago some of our hipper friends were tooling around with deep fried Cajun recipes (d’Inde frite, as Paul Prudhomme maddeningly calls it), involving 12 gallon pots (more like industrial drums) filled with sizzling lard or something more polyunsaturated. For safety reasons I think you should consult The Prudhomme Family Cookbook before proceeding further.

But what wine with a ten to twenty pound fryer? Well, if you’re a Prudhomme you might say that it doesn’t matter as long as it’s served in a wide mouthed mason jar (when K-Paul’s in New Orleans first opened house wines were served like that). But if you happen to live in the swampy Southeast, or a place perpetually sunny like Texas, Southern California or Hawai`i, I suggest correctly stemmed wine glasses filled with something white, cool and refreshingly fruity like a riesling from Germany; or perhaps better yet, an American style riesling like that of Washington's Pacific Rim and Oregon's Chehalem. Crispy fried skins practically scream for crispy white wines; and besides, cooking out in the open air (deep frying turkey under cover is an invitation to local fire departments) can sometimes work you up a sweat, so no-fuss, light and easy rieslings make all the sense in the world.

Riesling with deep fried turkey may be a gau-ron-tee (in the words of Justin Wilson), but what wine with turkey stuffed with the traditional croutons, sage and other herbs? After all these years (and I hate to break this to my hipper friends), I have to say that the best match for saged bread stuffed turkey is the traditional, super-oaked, big, bouncy California chardonnay.

So you “hate” chardonnay? Get over it. It doesn’t have to be uncool. Neyers Vineyards, for instance, makes classically balanced, creamy oaked chardonnays that are just as cool as any wine. I’m also partial to the California chardonnays by Tandem (owned by Greg La Follette, original winemaker and architect of Flowers), Au Bon Climat (by the incroyable Jim Clendenen), DuNah, Porter-Bass, Dutton-Goldfield, Ramey, Roessler, Keller, Patz & Hall, Mer Soleil, d'Alfonso-Curran, and Babcock, not to mention those of Ken Wright and Woodward Canyon from Washington. Dudes, these chards abide: all lovingly barrel fermented the way it's supposed to be done (if you respect the original Burgundian methodology), giving the richly textured (and yes, smoky-charred) qualities that embellish the taste of herbs and roasted flavors in the skin and natural gravy of traditional turkeys. And if the turkey is roasted in a charcoal grill or hibachi, even more so a match for good ol' smoke-of-oak American chardonnay.

Have you heard of Marcelle Bienvenu’s paen to South Louisiana cooking, Who’s Your Mama, Are You Catholic, and Can You Make a Roux? Check out her oyster-rice dressing, complete with chicken livers and gizzards. Stuff your turkey in similar fashion, sprinkle some chili flakes over the skin. Start at 425 F. at midnight, take it down to 300 F. and let it crisp up all night long; rest it in the morning, and dish it out at noon.

The perfect vinous foil for the Bienvenu turkey? Here, I go for something a little lighter, but no less flavorful, than a chardonnay: pinot gris, bay-by (in the fall we all start talking like Dick Vitale). I’m talking about lush, creamy textured styles of pinot gris with just enough acidity to titillate the taste of an oyster stuffing: those of California’s Babcock, Handley and J immediately come to mind; and from Oregon, those of WillaKenzie, Soleña, Cristom and King Estate (including King's new, lower priced Acrobat pinot gris) absolutely rule. What the hey, you can do almost as good with pinot grigio from Italy (if it’s by Zenato, Tiefenbrunner, Kris, Lageder or Felluga); or from Alsace, France (if you’ve also forgiven the French, the Pinot Gris bottlings of Ostertag, Deiss, Weinbach or Zind-Humbrecht).

Then there is any one of the even more richly stuffed styles of turkeys: like cornbread with chile peppers (or ham hocks or collards), wild rice with wild mushrooms (or truffles, for the congenitally spendthrift), or with assertive breads like sourdough and brioche (mixed with lardons, celery, combinations of chervil, sorrel, tarragon, etc.). This is where red wines become the higher percentage match, although I say this with the eternal caveat: turkey can be a dry bird, and so red wine choices probably need to be lighter in (potentially) palate drying tannin. This means that you’re better off with gentle, soft tannin reds like Beaujolais from France (look for grand cru bottlings, like those of Morgon, Chiroubles or Moulin-à-Vent) or anything made from pinot noir, as opposed to more palate-jarring reds like those made from the cabernet sauvignon or merlot grapes.

California zinfandel and syrah (a.k.a. shiraz) can be robust with tannin, but I say they have the advantage over cabernets and merlots with richly stuffed turkeys because of their sweet toned, often jammy fruitiness (particularly good when you mix in the inevitable cranberry relish). For a current list of top zins, see Not your daddy's Zin; for the best and latest syrahs, see The state of Syrah.

But pinot noir remains the easiest yet most elegant match. Which pinots am I enjoying these days? From California: La Follette’s Tandems (he produces a stable of exotically spiced, cool climate Sonoma Coast pinots) are tops on my list, followed by Kathy Joseph’s irresistible Fiddleheads (she makes great ones sourced from both Oregon and Santa Barbara), Au Bon Climat, Failla, Hitching Post, Costa de Oro, Pey-Marin, Alma Rosa, Badge, d'Alfonso-Curran, Belle Glos, Melville, W.H. Smith, Patz & Hall, Flowers, Etude, Babcock, Pessagno, Campion, Lane Tanner, Papapietro-Perry, MacPhail, Small Vines, Porter-Bass, and Merry Edwards... so many great pinots, so little time!

From Oregon, my current favorite pinot noirs are those made by Penner-Ash and Seven Springs, although I’ve always liked Rex Hill, Foris, Cooper Mountain and King Estate for value and accessibility; Ken Wright, Soter or Brick House for sheer purity of pinot-ness; and Cristom, Maysara, Bergström, Beaux Frères, Chehalem and Domaine Serene for pure, unadulturated pinot power (in the refined, wild berryish Oregonian vein, of course).

Wine shoppers, start your engines – and enjoy the holidays!

Wine miracles by the bucket (inside Paola di Mauro's kitchen)

2009-10-29T14:17:00.000-07:00

In Italy, as you might well know, wine has always been a food, not necessarily something that you drink. The gastronomy itself is very regional, much of it as old as the hills, and probably even more of it as stylish or innovative as anything the Italians do. That’s the miracle of the Italian wine and food culture: its propensity to renew itself in delicious, and inspiring, ways.

The last time I was in Italy, which was always miracle enough for me (an overgrown kid from Hawai`i), I did what you do when you visit: get run off the road by the hell-bent natives, while meandering through those ageless towns perched atop impossibly steep, craggy hills, awash in colors seemingly more golden, deeper brown, a more Sistine blue than anywhere else in the world; the natural light from above bouncing off shimmering lakes lying like giant mirrors under the sky.

I think the most beautiful lake of all may have been the one called Albano, in the township of Marino located just twenty minutes outside of Rome. Some of the popes must have also thought of it as a miracle, too, since they built a summer home there on its bluffs -- an Italian “Châteauneuf-du-Pape,” or so I’m told.

This area around Lake Albano is also a posh neighborhood, complete with a history befitting its address along the old Appian Way, amidst a wealth of moneyed and not-so-moneyed-anymore marquis and, nowadays, even a fabulous underground wine restaurant. I dropped (literally) in that eatery, called Antico Ristorante Pagnanelli; and if you like sipping incredible (and incredibly reasonable priced) wines to acoustic guitars and violas in deep, vaulted cellars and tunnels beneath the Nuova Appia, you'll have a good time. I wouldn't be surprised if the pope, who still lives next door, has his own private underground entrance.

Antico Ristorante Pagnanelli

Practically across the street from the pope's palazzo and the Pagnanelli's restaurant is another miracle: the home of Paola di Mauro, one of the greatest cooks in Italy. I said cook, not "chef," since Paola's kitchen looks like anyone else's home kitchen; no high tech equipment or cold steel countertops, just pots, pans, bottles, wooden boxes, utensils and cutlery strewn about in cramped quarters. Then again, there lies the difference, because how many other home cooks have a little vineyard, a grove of olive as well as fruit trees, and a working winery just outside her kitchen door? But you have to forgive her for this since this is Marino, after all; a very old neighborhood that dates back to the days of fun and games at the Colloseum. Groves, vineyards, and meandering tunnels simply come with the territory.

It seems that in the mid-sixties Paola bought her property from another lady who was originally from Bordeaux in France. So French grapes such as cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot, sauvignon blanc and sémillon are still to be found in Paola's vineyard, alongside native Italian varieties like trebbiano and malvasia di Lazio. It just made sense for Paola to continue to make wine from her backyard – at first, both reds and whites, for her own amusement, and then for family and friends.

And wouldn't you know: the wines of Colle Picchioni, the name of Paola's estate, soon became the darlings of the wine insiders' world. Gambero Rosso, Italy's equivalent to the Wine Spectator in the U.S., gave Paola's red wine (made from merlot and the two cabernets) its highest rank (a symbol of three "glasses"). The internationally known, and feared, wine writer named Robert Parker has been most generous with his own 90-plus ratings. And as little as they produce – less than 1,200 cases, a mere drop in a bucket in Italy's ocean of wine – Colle Picchioni can now be found in some of the toniest restaurants in the world, in places as far off as Tokyo, Berlin, Beverly Hills, New York, and (to Paola’s amusement) Disney World.

But the miracle is not that Paola's wines have become famous, nor the fact that she is actually better known – at least to the Italian food gastronomes who speak of her as reverently as Alice Waters does of Lulu Peyraud – for her cooking. It is also a miracle that she and her son, Armando, still actually produce wines in the fashion that they, rather than critics like Robert Parker, prefer. And this is wine that is meant to go with the food Paola cooks in her kitchen.

Let me be a witness. The first wine Armando poured for me – at the kitchen table while Paola was pan frying with pungent rosemary and olive oil – was a two year old Colle Picchioni Marino Bianco Donna Paola: a soft, dry, fluid white wine, rather light and almost oily on the palate. What it wasn't was something big, thick, oaky, fruity or awesome – none of the flag words for the most highly rated wines of today. It is, in fact, an old fashioned wine; small in stature and rather plain, or square; almost boring by the standards of contemporary, internationalized wine.

While we sipped and talked about their friends in Santa Monica, California (Valentino’s Piero Selvaggio is one of Paola’s culinary disciples), Paola brought over her white bean soup – made from a different bean, a little more fava-like, from the better known white beans of Tuscany – over which Armando drizzled olive oil and dried chile flakes, and then stirred in a tiny dollop of blood red paste made from tomatoes, bell peppers and olive oil. The taste was smooth, soothing, yet tingly and robust; each sensation intensified by the round, easy, mildly oily texture of the Colle Picchioni white. Call it a food and wine epiphany. It often is when seemingly simple things add up to something unexpected, like the roar of great waters (or in this case, unassuming wine) knocking you from the saddle on the road to Damascus.

Then Paola finished what she was cooking in the pan, bringing a ceramic pot to the table containing her "Roman lamb." Nothing cute about the name, since she lives in Rome and this is lamb; but lamb in the way she had been cooking it over the past thirty years: bony morsels with chicken livers and other odd ends, rosemary, dried anchovy, white vinegar, pepper, and generous doses of the all-pervasive olive oil (for a reasonable facsimile, please re this recipe for abbachio alla Romana)

"Now we will show you why in Rome we drink white wine with everything," says Armando, "even with red meat." And indeed, what was plain as the Italian hills was how easily the oil and herbs in the lamb pulled together with the soft, oozing quality of the white wine. "The dish is not a difficult one," added Paola, "but neither is the wine. Great wine and food is not always complicated."

That reminded me a conversation I had with the Italian winemaking genius, Riccardo Cotarella, just a few days before at his dinner table in Umbria. "Drinking wine is a pleasure,” he had said, “and so you should always judge a wine by how much pleasure you feel when you drink it."

Via di Colle Picchioni

The rare wines of Colle Picchioni may fulfill this elemental advice, but you needn't look far to find other wines that achieve the same thing: Italy's Frascati and Soave Classico, Sicily’s nero d’Avola, wines made from verdejo, tempranillo and garnacha grapes in Spain, the little torrontés of Argentina, picpoul and Cahors from South-West France, lembergers from Washington and Austria, Oregon’s disrespected syrahs, California’s underestimated petite sirah and near-forgotten charbono, the under-appreciated rieslings and even more misunderstood gewürztraminers and scheurebes of Germany… these and zillions of other wines that are bound to impress you more by their unconscious ease on the table than by any numerical ratings found in the wine magazines.

Have you already seen the memo? I apologize if it came from me, since I just can’t help thinking: the miracle of wine is that it is not at all a pot of gold shimmering in the hills – 90-plus point wines of astronomic prices that are that way mainly because they’ve become objects of attention of collectors who are really nothing more than syllogomaniacs (obsessive-compulsive hoarders) with money to burn and habit of believing everything they read – but rather, something as easy to find as your next good meal, at home or at the next stop along the road. As long as there’s decent, food worthy bottle of wine to go with it!

Chicken (recipes & wine matches) everybody loves

2009-10-24T17:09:00.000-07:00

Let’s talk chicken and wine matches. But why? The way I see it:

I learned long ago that ordering chicken in every restaurant gives you a pretty good idea of how good, bad, or detail oriented every restaurant's chef is. I know why, as a result, Blue Hill in New York, Zuni in San Francisco, and Le Pigeon in Portland are among my favorite restaurants in the country: they do chicken right.

Chicken loves bottled company, and picking a good one is not one of life’s most difficult tasks. The great thing about chicken, of course, is that there are 1,001 ways to cook it; and undoubtedly a 1,001 different wines to go with it. Well, probably more than that. But for someone with as catholic a taste as mine, this is heaven, plain and simple.

Chicken must be eaten with wine because that’s what elevates it no matter how it’s made. No one breathlessly writes home to say, "I found the perfect tea for har yee kai” (“beggar’s” chicken); or that "the classic Creole fried chicken beverage is a Big Gulp." But they do say that Bourgogne rouge is the natural match for coq au vin; and that a good barbera, or else Chianti, makes as much sense with cacciatore as coffee with a doughnut. Some things you gots to have it.

So what do you say? Let’s share some favorite chicken and wine matches. I’ll start with mine:

Chicken Cacciatore

The familial Italian chicken is cooked either with tomatoes, herbs and white wine, or braised with black olives and anchovy – or sometimes all of it at once. Tuscany’s Chianti Classico and Brunello di Montalcino, which are made from the red sangiovese grape, have the natural acidity and cherry tomato-like fruitiness to strike the perfect balance with this style of chicken. Of those from Chianti Classico, I look for Castello di Ama, Fonterutoli, Fontodi, La Massa, Emma and Badia a Colitbuono; and from Montalcino, some of the greatest heights are reached by La Magia, Barbi and Altesino. But still, fine sangiovese based reds don’t have to come from one of those chichi producers of Tuscany.

Other excellent, and often exceptionally well priced, sangiovese style wines from Italy include those from the regions of Carmignano (Capezzana makes a bunch of delicious ones), Sangiovese di Romagna (Zerbina’s a terrific value), Morellino di Scansano (Aia Vecchia and Fattoria le Pupille’s are full and velvety), Rosso di Montalcino (I like Uccelliera and Rosso di Casanova di Neri’s), and the illustrious, yet still reasonably priced Vino Nobile de Montepulciano (my favorites being Avignonesi and Poliziano).

Barring that, there are other red wine grapes – notably barbera and dolcetto – cultivated in both Italy and California (and bottled by the names of the grape in both places) that offer soft, zesty edged fruit qualities similar to sangiovese, making as effortless a match with cacciatore style chicken as the red wines of Tuscany.

Coq au Vin Blanc

Chicken simmered in red wine, bacon, pearl onions, mushrooms and garlic cloves is wonderful with red pinot noir from France, California, Oregon, or any place you can find soft, silky examples of this naturally earthy-spicy red wine. But for coq au "vin blanc" – substituting white wine for red in the cooking – I’ve found that the better match is a dry white wine with a modicum of stony earthiness, without the weighty fruitiness that is more typical of California’s popular chardonnays, without the lemony sharp edge of typical sauvignon (or fumé) blancs, and without the perfumey fruitiness of, say, riesling or moscato.

So for me, the classic chicken-in-white-wine matches come from France: the round, mineral and smoke nuanced whites of Burgundy’s Mâcon (think Verget’s Saint-Véran or Robert-Denogent’s Pouilly-Fuissé) and Côte de Beaune (like Marc Colin’s Saint-Aubin, or the Meursaults by Pierre Morey or Francois Jobard). Even stonier are the smoothly dry bottlings of pinot blanc and pinot d’Alsace of Alsace (those of Marcel Deiss, Charles Schleret, Kuentz-Bas and Ostertag being strongest in the terroir qualities a coq a vin blanc loves).

In California, not all chardonnays are distractingly fruity. In the cooler climates like the Sonoma Coast and Santa Barbara, there are some crisp styles with mineral qualities being produced (especially those by Au Bon Climat, Tandem, Keller, Neyers, DuNah, Porter-Bass, and Dutton-Goldfield’s Rued Vineyard); and you’ll find similar, moderately scaled chardonnays in Oregon (by Argyle, Eola Hills, King Estate, and best of all, Ken Wright and Seven Springs) as well as in Washington State (those of Woodward Canyon, Amavi, Abeja, Januik and even Château Ste. Michelle are always among the best).

But who says the world of coq au vin blanc turns around chardonnay? The pinot blancs of California (those of Chalone, Au Bon Climat and J. Wilkes, for starters) as well as Oregon (WillaKenzie’s and Ken Wright’s are as good as it gets, although Foris makes a nifty little one in the south side of the state) fulfill the same culinary need when it calls for a white wine that’s not too heavy, not too light, not too tart, and not too soft or fruity.

Lemon or Ginger Chicken

The familiar Chinese style dishes – in sweet /sour lemon sauces, or steamed with ginger and garlic – call for more exotically perfumed white wines that combine both acidity and traces of residual sugar. But this does not mean, as often assumed, that the best choice is gewürztraminer – a lychee scented white wine that has a tendency towards low acid and slightly bitter qualities (as commonly found in the gewürztraminers of France’s Alsace, and many of the dryer styles of California). Heavy, bitter styles of gewürztraminer have a tendency to taste unbearably harsh with sweet/sour dishes, and the dishes sweeter and more sour than necessary.

The best white wine for strongly flavored Chinese styles of chicken is riesling; lush enough to merge seamlessly with gingery spices, and feathery fine, gentle and balanced enough to echo sweet/sour notes. The lightest yet most intensely scented and refined rieslings in the world come from Germany; particularly the kabinett quality styles from the regions of the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer (strictly personal favorites: Weins-Prüm, Mönchhof, Loosen, Milz, Selbach-Oster, Zilliken, von Hövel, and von Schubert), Rheingau (Weil, Künstler, and Kesseler), Rheinhessen (Gunderloch), and Pfalz (Burklin-Wolf, Pfeffingen, or von Bassermann-Jordan).

In Washington State, Chateau Ste. Michelle has been turning out fresh, balanced, lusciously fruited rieslings since the ‘70s, although Pacific Rim (sourcing in Washington’s Columbia Valley) and Oregon’s Chehalem are undoubtedly making the finest rieslings in the Northwest today. In the Southern Hemisphere, the rieslings by Leeuwin Estate in Western Australia and Villa Maria in New Zealand are wonderful, tropical-scented whites showing just hints of sweetness, balanced by enough zesty acidity to harmonize with sweet/salty/spicy/gingery Asian style chickens.

Chicken Etoufée

In North America, and around the world for that matter, the Cajun-Creole style of casserole chicken may very well reign supreme. Versions such as Paul Prudhomme's – given great density (but not overly thickened) by roux, the "holy trinity" of onions, bell peppers and celery, and a dozen or so other spices and seasonings – are both complex and mercilessly intense. For something so good, the only thing to drink with it is a great wine

Etoufée likes wines equal to it in depth, heft, and layers of spice. This would mean a good red wine, but not one with a dry, hard taste that would deaden the palate; and the wine that best fits this description is California’s zinfandel – especially the velvety, peppery-cinnamon-and-clove, berry jam-like scented zinfandels produced in Sonoma by the likes of Carol Shelton, Quivira and Ridge.

Of those from Napa Valley, zinfandel fanatics swear by Robert Biale and Turley Wine Cellars, although my current fave-raves are those of Tres Sabores and Frog’s Leap. Sourcing from other parts of the state, producers like Neyers, Rosenblum, Cosentino, St. Amant, Jesse’s Grove, Macchia, Michael-David (especially their Earthquake), Cedarville, Perry Creek, C.G. di Arie and Miraflores makes outstanding all-American styles – big, brash, unabashedly fruity – for this all-American style of chicken.

Chicken Paprikas

The late Roy Andries de Groot once proclaimed his recipe for Hungarian style of chicken – browned with goose fat, then braised with onions, garlic and, finally, a sauce pigmented by generous doses of the mildly spiced paprika chile before thickened in the end with sour cream – as one of the most glorious dishes in the world, and I can’t say I disagree (look for my favorite recipe at the end of this post).

For paprika laced chicken, de Groot’s classic choice was always a lovingly cellared, old French Bordeaux or California cabernet sauvignon – soft, yet rich enough to absorb the avalanche of sweet, spicy, succulent flavors in paprikas style chicken. The problem being, de Groot’s idea of “cellaring” was a vintage at least 20 or 25 years old. Most of us zip down to the nearest liquor or grocery store to pick up our wine to drink tonight, and we’re lucky if it’s more than three years old.

So in lieu of something cellared, I recommend a soft, luxuriously fruited, California grown red wine made from the merlot grape (Salexis, Selene, Swanson, Neyers and Peju’s are five that continue to stir my old passions for the grape); or else one of elegant yet dense, juicy “Bordeaux” style blends of merlot, cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc from California (some new and old favorites: Robert Sinskey’s Marcien, Lang & Reed’s Right Bank, Murphy-Goode’s All In and Wild Card Clarets, Worthy’s Sophia’s Cuvée, Justin’s Justification and Isosceles, St. Supery’s Élu, and Babcock’s Fathom) or Washington (where Va Piano’s Bruno’s Blend, Sleight of Hand’s The Illusionist, and the sangiovese laced Manina Cali and Long Shadows Saggi are my current faves).

OUR FAVORITE CHICKEN RECIPES

My experience of lemon and ginger chicken dishes is deeply ingrained in the Chinese restaurant experiences of my younger days in the Hawaiian islands, and recipes for these are found all over the net. For the best chicken cacciatore, I strongly recommend Marcella Hazan’s The Classic Italian Cookbook: and for classic chicken etoufée, I don’t see how anyone can go wrong with the recipe in Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen.

For other classic wine matches, we’ve improvised own versions of older recipes over the years. To of those favorites:

Rihana’s Coq au Vin Blanc

8 pieces chicken thighs (mostly) and legs (or one 5 lb. chicken, cut in serving pieces)
24-30 pearl onions
Salt and fresh ground black pepper
6 oz. bacon strips or slab, squared or cubed
8 oz. button mushrooms, quartered
1 tbsp. unsalted butter
1 bottle (750 ml.) white wine (inexpensive chardonnay will do)
1 medium yellow onion, quartered
2 stalks celery, quartered
2 medium carrots, quartered
3 cloves garlic, crushed
6-8 springs fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
2 cups chicken stock or broth

Cut off root end of each pearl onion and make an “x” with knife in its place. Bring 2-3 cups water to boil and drop in the onions for 1 minute. Remove onions from pot, allow to cool, and peel (onions should slide right out of skin). Set aside.

Blanch bacon briefly in boiling water; drain, and dice or cube. Fry to render fat; remove meat and set aside, and save fat for frying.

Sprinkle chicken pieces on all sides with salt and ground pepper. Place chicken pieces, a few at a time, into a large (1-2 gallon) sealable plastic bag along with flour; shake to coat chicken completely. Remove chicken from bag, and fry in bacon fat, just until crust is crisp. Set chicken pieces aside.

In same pan, add pearl onions to fat, sprinkle with salt and pepper, sautéing until lightly brown (approximately 8-10 minutes). Remove onions from pan and set aside. Transfer chicken into a 7-8 quart enameled cast (like Le Creuset) or cast iron Dutch oven.

Add mushrooms to the same 12 inch sauté pan, adding 1 tbsp. butter if needed, and sauté until liquid is released (approximately 5 minutes). Store onions, mushrooms and bacon in airtight container in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Pour off remaining fat and deglaze pan with approximately 1 cup of wine. Pour this into Dutch oven along with chicken stock, quartered onion, carrots, celery, garlic, thyme and bay leaf. Add all of the remaining wine. Preheat oven to 325° F.

Place chicken in oven and cook for 2 to 2-1/2 hours, or until chicken is tender. Maintain a very gentle simmer and stir occasionally.

Once chicken is done, remove it to a heatproof container, cover, and place in oven to keep warm. Strain the sauce in a sieve and degrease (discard carrots, celery, thyme, garlic and bay leaf). Return the sauce to a pot, place over medium heat, and reduce by 1/3 (depending on how much liquid you began with, this should take 20-45 minutes).

When sauce has thickened, add pearl onions, mushrooms and bacon, and cook another 15 minutes or until heated through. Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary; remove from heat, add the chicken and serve.

Serve from Dutch oven with either long grained white rice or lightly buttered egg noodles. (note: if sauce is not thick enough at the end of reducing, you may add a mixture of equal parts butter and flour kneaded together, starting with 1 tbsp. each; whisk this in the sauce for 4-5 minutes, and repeat if necessary).

Chicken Paprikas

Over the years we have taken some necessary liberties with Roy Andries de Groot’s original recipe (we don’t, for instance, usually have the goose fat called for in his Feasts for All Seasons handy); and of course, the variations come every time the chicken hits the pot. This is, however, a close approximation:

1 whole 4-5 lb. chicken, disjointed (thighs and back necessary for flavor)
3 tbs. unsalted sweet butter
1 lemon
2 large sweet onions, finely chopped
6 large white mushrooms, thinly sliced
4 thin slices pancetta (or two strips thick bacon), sliced in squares
1/2 cup white wine
3/4 cup chicken stock
Half bunch Italian parsley, chopped
Hungarian sweet paprika
Olive oil
Ground peppercorns and salt to taste
1 pint sour cream
10-12 oz. wide egg noodles

Rub chicken pieces with salt and juice of halved lemon, and set aside. In a large pot (preferably cast iron or Le Creuset), brown pancetta or bacon with drop of olive oil over medium heat. Add butter, and when melted sauté the onions and garlic until wilted. Add paprika (2 to 3 tbsp.) and stir into onion mix until it attains a fiery red color. Immediately add chicken pieces two or three at a time, browning them until both sides are impregnated with the paprika. Add sliced mushrooms, followed by white wine (burn off some alcohol), and then chicken stock. Lower temperature, cover pot with lid, and let it simmer for about 45-60 minutes, smelling the wafting perfume while enjoying a glass of merlot.

Remove chicken pieces, and stir in sour cream until the sauce reaches a creamy consistency, adjusting seasonings to taste. Add back chicken pieces, stir in most of chopped parsley, and over low temperature let pot stew for final ten to fifteen minutes while egg noodles are boiled al dente.

When noodles are drained, place in large, wide bowl and coat with half of paprika cream sauce; lay chicken pieces over noodles and top with rest of sauce. Garnish with rest of chopped parsley, and serve.

Red wine with fish revisited

2009-10-22T19:45:00.000-07:00

The concept, red wine with fish, is now as firmly entrenched in culinary phraseology as red wine with meat and white wine with fish. Exactly how does this work, and why?

To get a handle on this, you need to go back to the basic methodology first explicated some twenty years ago by David Rosengarten and Joshua Wesson in their book, Red Wine with Fish (sadly out of print today), based on the premise that all wines and foods find their match in two basic ways:

Similarities - When there are similar taste sensations in both a dish and a wine (example: the buttery sauce in a fish dish enhanced by the creamy or buttery texture of an oak barrel fermented white wine)

Contrasts - When sensations in a wine contrast with sensations in a dish to positive effect (example: the sweetness of a white wine balancing the saltiness of a dish like ham or cured sausage, and vice-versa)

The how’s, in the simplest way I can put it:

Since more than anything, it is the bitter or hard tannin components found mostly in red wine that are obstacles to matching fish or shellfish (i.e. excessive contrast, like ketchup on ice cream), you turn to red wines with soft or almost no tannin to speak of.

Since almost all fish and shellfish like wines with some degree of acidity (i.e. complimenting contrast, like lemon squeezed on a filet, or walnuts on a sundae), you utilize red wines with at least a modicum of tartness.

Since red wines are indeed best with meatier dishes, you apply this principle to meatier, as opposed to delicate, types of fish (going for heightened similarity, like syrup on ice cream)

Since many dishes we eat are sums of their parts (example: a banana-cherry-walnuts-hot fudge-whipped cream sundae as opposed to a plain scoop of vanilla), we increase the chances of successful red wine matching by cooking our seafood with ingredients or techniques that are more likely to match red rather than white wines in terms of similarity and contrast.

Since red wines, by nature (i.e. fermented with skins, as opposed to whites which are not), are more complex than white wines, we go one step further in our food preparation by consciously utilizing ingredients with some degree of umami – “delicious,” high amino acid related sensations, which soft, complex styles of red wine such as pinot noir love (re my previous post, Desconstructing Umami).

For those of us in the restaurant business, the option of serving red wine with fish has been just what the doctor ordered because of the current consumer preference for red over white wines. In a multi-course dinner, for example, we can start with a sparkling or white wine with a seafood appetizer course, and then dive directly into a succession of red wines matched with either seafood or red meats.

Then there is the simple fact explaining why: many seafood courses simply taste better with a red rather than white wine; given both the way many red wines are made today (with more emphasis on smoothness of texture and balance of sensations), and the way we and many of our favorite chefs cook seafood today (with lots of red wine matching components). Drinking red wine with fish just makes sense.

Oh, many of us will always have a predilection for thick, heavy tannin, super powered reds like cabernet sauvignon; just like for all the popularity of seafood, we will always love a good, charred, juicy chunk of steak. But if you prefer seafood and at the same time red wines, with sensible guidelines dialed into your own tastes there is no reason why you cannot enjoy a “perfect” match in every meal.

That said, some specific red wine friendly foods we have known and enjoyed well:

All tuna all the time

Seared rare or prepared raw (i.e. variations of sashimi, tartare or poke), the higher grades of Pacific ‘ahi tuna are the seafood lovers’ steak. Because of its red fleshed, high fat meatiness, tuna is one of those fishes that 99% of the time are better matched with red wines than with whites. Negligibly tannic, fruity red wines, like France’s Beaujolais vinified from the gamay noir au jus blanc grape (Joshua Wesson often describes this grape as a “cross dresser” – a red that thinks it’s a white), are natural tuna matches. But when you crust it with bitter peppercorns, char it with grill lines, or dress it up in sauces beefed up with earthy soy, umami rich veal stocks or meaty demi-glace, all of the sudden red wines with stronger tannin underpinnings find balancing notes of similarity.

The all-star choice for tuna, in these post-Sideways days, is of course pinot noir. “Pinot noir with everything” is a mantra in many restaurants today, and for good reason: it is the one grape variety producing reds overlapping into virtually all food types – seafoods, leaner cuts of red meats, playfully cooked “other white” meats looking for moderate tannin, and even salads and appetizers better matched with wines with perceptible underpinnings of acidity.

Charred or smoky salmon

Although pinker, less meaty, and slightly stronger in fish oils than tuna, salmon still falls into a category of fish that are usually better matched with red than white wines. I’d put this percentage of this working at 80%; but when you apply preparations resulting in more aggressive sensations – like smoking, wood roasting or grilling, or crusting with pungent herbs and/or peppercorns – you strike notes of similarity pushing the percentage of successful red wine matching closer to 99%. Particularly pinot noir, a wine best finished in French oak, adding the woodsmoky qualities that amplify the grape’s intrinsic spice qualities.

In the Pacific-Northwest, for instance, pinot noir has long been a cultural gastronomic match as natural as Chianti in Tuscany. Native American inspired, open fire, alder or cedar plank cooked salmon is an easy one; but also other regional inflections such as pan seared salmon finished with wild berry infused demiglace (bringing out the berry perfumed qualities of Oregon grown pinot noir), or salmon glazed with sweetened soy marinades or ponzus reflecting the strong Asian-Pacific influences (both sweet and umami sensations mingling with the grape’s perfumed, earth and spice qualities).

But it’s not just pinot noir that works for salmon. In the past, the Wine Spectator’s Harvey Steiman has made credible cases for fruit forward, zesty edged red zinfandels as natural salmon matches. When the salmon is roasted with, say, herbs like basil, dill or chives, or even finished with sun dried tomato or cheese, the even zestier, woodsy, finely textured red wines vinified from the sangiovese grape (i.e. Chianti Classico, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano or Rosso di Montalcino) might make more sense; as would typically sprightly, floral and spice scented wines made from blaufränkisch (also called lemberger or limberger) from Austria or Eastern Washington. Try salmon simply charcoal grilled with pungent vegetables (squash, fennel, scallions, etc.), and see if even a lower acid, yet soft and smoky nuanced red like Tempranillo (from Spain’s Rioja or Ribera del Duero) doesn’t make a seamless match. Indubitably.

Oysters any way

At the Grand Central Oyster Bar, conveniently esconced in New York’s Grand Central Station, they’ll tell you that a soft, zippy pinot noir is just as good a match for raw oysters as a sharply dry sauvignon blanc. This might not work for you, but if it does it’s because of umami factors – the savory, high amino acid components of oysters combined with propensity of softer tannin, spice and earth nuanced reds like pinot noir to embrace that sensation. But if you’re skeptical, here’s the trick: grill the suckers (over wood or charcoal on a grill topper or just aluminum foil punched with holes), and you’ll find the smoky sensations in both wine and bivalve working in even more delicious synchronicity. But whether you’re consuming oysters by themselves, baked in any number of ways (from high umami bacon to sweet sensation black beans), or adding them to stews or other mediums (like Southern style oyster stuffed steaks), the point is that oysters are a red wine natural – don’t think twice, it’s all right.

Mussels

Like oysters, strongly earthy mussels – even when stewed as it usually is in seafood stock and white wine – are one of those dishes that open up to either crisp dry whites (offering contrasting notes of acidity) or softly textured reds (offering similarities of earth tones). An interesting thing to try is juxtaposing the two wine types, the white served chilled and the red served slightly chilled (60 minutes in the fridge), and you’ll see how Wesson and Rosengarten’s theorem works in two different ways.

Charred scallops

One of the longtime signatures of San Francisco’s Traci Des Jardins is scallops pieced with truffled mash potatoes. She’s also not opposed to browning in butter with smoked bacon and Brussel sprouts, or any ways that arouse the senses with clarity of smell. As far as I’m concerned, whenever scallops are flash charred and scented with earth tones and umami driven sensations they become dishes for pinot noir – especially those from Burgundy in France, where the pinot perfume always seem more sharply defined, the tannins more supple, and the terroir notes more pervasive. When scallops are combined with winey balsamic syrups, cured meats like prosciutto, or pungent vegetables like spinach or mushrooms, they are more likely to respond to finely textured reds like pinot noir.

Mixed seafood dishes

Two of the most famous ways of mixing fish and shellfish together in one dish are in the form of bouillabaisse and cioppino – the former fused together by one of the most elemental of spices, saffron, and the latter a San Francisco treat laced with tomato and wine. Then there are the endless variations of paella – rice dishes also based on saffron and cooking in earthy seafood stocks. Whenever you combine seafoods in these classic ways you are essentially piling on a plethora of high umami components – the one taste sensation that sings most sweetly with soft, multifaceted forms of red wine. Both saffron and tomatoes only intensify the need.

Then there is the universally beloved freshwater crustacean, crawfish: in the recipes that evolved in Louisiana – etoufée and jambalaya – strongly skewed towards red wine friendly ingredients like chopped onions, bell peppers and celery (the Cajun-Creole “holy trinity”), along with umami-rich tomatoes, earthy okra, pungent scallions, and layers upon layers of spices and seasonings that demand the complexity of red, rather than white, wines. The most reliable match? Probably all-American red zinfandels, with their typical jammy sweetness that smooth over strong seasonings, and the wine’s peppercorn spiciness that relates well to Cajun-Creole spices.

None of this is a matter, as Cole Porter put it, of “anything goes,” but rather a matter of what makes sense. If you prefer red wine and you love seafood, then you choose the wines and cook in a way that make it happen, which is just not difficult in these days of hugely variant wines and foodstuffs.

Grandson, James, checking out the crawfish before they hit the pot

The positive taste of brett in wines and food matching

2009-10-15T09:56:00.000-07:00

The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast. One of the controversies that emerged in the 1990s concerns an extremely common, but often glossed over, taste factor in wine called Brettanomyces; often shortened to “brett” in the parlance of winemakers.

Brett is basically one of the many natural species of yeast that begins to make its presence known in red wines after fermentation, while they are aging in the barrel. Although I have found few vintners anxious to discuss it, the winemaking community has long known that Brettanomyces, more than anything else, is largely responsible for the earthy, leathery qualities long associated almost exclusively with European wines, although it is by no means foreign to New World wines.

During all my years of California wine judging, in fact, picking out wines with subtle or excess brett has been as routine as picking out wines with notes of volatile acidity, oxidation, madeirization or hydrogen sulfides. Not too long ago, many wine writers and restaurant/retail professionals were still shamefully misrepresenting this attribute to consumers as aspects of terroir or climat – that is, resulting from unique environmental conditions of specific regions and vineyards – and would speak of it in reverent, and sometimes even mystical, terms.

The “glove leathery” nuances found in red Burgundy, the “sweaty saddle” common in Spanish reds and South-West French reds (like Ribera del Duero, Rioja, Madiran and Saint-Chinian), and even the handsome, leathery complexity common to many of Bordeaux’s grand crus: all of this is essentially the manifestation of a component that oenologists generally classify as a “spoilage” yeast. At worst -- when left uncontrolled in wineries (judicious use of sulfur dioxide is the most effective method of suppressing brett) – Brettanomyces laden wines begin to taste “mousy” or metallic, or else barnyardy and all-too-often, manure-like.

Brett is common to wines coming out of fairly new wine growing regions – like many cold climate grown New Zealand and Australia pinot noirs – where winemakers are just beginning to get a handle on their craft. Yet strong leather, even manure-like manifestations of brett are also common to fairly well established regions, among new and old wineries alike. Examples: cabernet sauvignons coming out of Chile (like the ultra-premium Errazuriz and Domus Aurea), Australia’s Barossa Valley (Torbreck, one of the better known of those producers), as well as California (from Robert Mondavi to Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars). Château Musar from Lebanon’s Bakaa Valley – one of the darlings of the British wine trade – is particularly rife with this character. Even more distressing is the fact that many of these high brett wines retail in the $50 to $100-plus range – as if having this stinky “European” taste qualifies for ultra-premium pricing!

In the nineties Brettanomyces became something of a controversy within winemaking circles when more and more New World producers began to supplement their technology with traditional, Old World methods of vinification: particularly things like natural yeast fermentation, minimal sulfuring and cellar intervention, and greater tolerance of high pH levels (the level of wine’s acidic strength) than previously accepted. In wine judgings, as a result, we would find higher incidents of brett in categories such as “small production pinot noir” (case productions of, say, 500 or less). The goal, of course, was to utilize European style handcrafting to achieve more intense, unbridled natural flavors, particularly when sourced from special vineyards. Letting the terroir, so to speak, speak more loudly in the glass.

I would often find these small batch wines to be very attractive, but many others the opposite – almost repulsive. Why would many vintners deliberately skirt the fine line between subtle and excess brett; between love and hate? My personal theory: because wine writers tend to have a higher tolerance of brett than ordinary consumers (who usually believe whatever writers tell them anyway). If wines that retain, say, French-like or “rubber boot” qualities garner higher ratings from certain well known writers, why not? Do the math: high scores + critical success = greater demand, higher prices and financial success.

This is why you might read about, say, a 2006 Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste ($40-$80 current retail) that is rich, velvety, full of cigarbox and blackcurrant fruit, but also positively oozing with barnyard animal-like aromas and flavors. Yet all you read from Robert Parker (who gives it a 92) are words like “classic crème de cassis,” “pure personality,” and “beautiful density.” Jancis Robinson (who gives it 17.5 out of 20) chimes in with phraseology like “overlay of spice” and “all-over-the-palate experience.” But nary a word about the obvious brett. Why? Like I said, I think most of the better known wine writers either don’t smell it or just don’t care when they do. It’s bad enough (if you don’t enjoy the smell of barnyards in wine) that they’re swaying you by meaningless numerical scores; but when they don’t even mention it in the descriptions… don’t get me started!

Not all writers, of course. One of the more vociferous critics of brett when it occurs in California wines has been Ronn Wiegand, an influential MW/MS. One morning he told me, “As far as I’m concerned, Brettanomyces is a serious flaw that tends to blur grape and regional distinctions. I never really liked it in French wines, and I certainly don’t think it belongs in California wines.”

There has to be some irony to the fact that after many years of being compared unfavorably to French wines, California wines are being knocked when they taste too much like them. David Ramey (pictured, right), one of the California winemakers Wiegand admires most, once shared this perspective with me: “In my experience wines that are known to be made as naturally as possible, like France’s Beaucastel and Pichon-Lalande, are often found to taste ‘better.’ No question, Brettanomyces plays a part in these wines - so where’s the problem?” At the same time, however, Ramey makes it very clear that "it's not a wise commercial policy to make wines with brett for the American market, so we have a zero brett policy here at Ramey Wine Cellars, despite working with native yeasts, high pH's and bottling unfiltered -- the classical means of elevage include techniques that eliminate brett in one's cellar."

Tony Soter, one of the winemakers I admire most, and whose wines at Etude were never been accused of being French-like, takes a more tolerant stance: “This is a sad issue, because it takes all the mystery out of those great French wines that, frankly, I love.” As for his own wines, Soter admits, “I’ve played with Brettanoymyces, although at relatively low levels, because it does compliment a wine somewhat. The point, however, is that ultimately it should be wine drinkers, not writers, who should decide what they like, and whether brett in a wine is good or not.”

In one of his old newsletters (now compiled in his book, Inspiring Thirst), Kermit Lynch went so far as to say that the opposite of a "bretty" wine is the type of sterile, unnatural wine he has long decried, calling the nitpicking of wines with animal, underbrush, leather or even barnyard aromas an insiduous "Attack of the Brett Nerds." Lynch has plenty to beef about because knee-jerk reactions to brett are often confused with earthy yet enthralling manifestations of garrigue - in Southern French wines in particular, time honored distinguishing marks of terroir - with this spoilage yeast; which is easy to do because of sensory similarities (for example, simply rub a twig of fresh rosemary between your fingers, and you'll retain an animal-like smell on your fingers that is pungently organic, and most definitely not brett-related).

And in fact, besides Beaucastel and Pichon-Lalande there are many, many other wines of the world that are produced with subtle qualities of brett that amplify, and thus improve, natural fruit and other organic elements, adding up to magnificent expressions of terroir: for me, the mysteriously deep, dark Madiran by Château Lafitte-Teston immediately comes to mind; so does the massively scaled Domaine de la Granges de Peres from Languedoc, the spice-box scented Gigondas by Domaine du Cayron, the magnificently deep reservas of Spain’s Tinto Pesquera, the powerful yet pillowy textured Falesco Montiano by Italy’s ingenius Riccardo Cotarella, Antinori’s legendary Tignanello, and on the home front, Randall Grahm’s groundbreaking string of Bonny Doon Le Cigare Volants… the hits go on and on.

How does that song go? If loving you is wrong, I don’t want to be right… so maybe we need to take the bull by the horns, and talk about how we can match foods with the finer brett laced wines of the world, working with the yeast to come up with something even more exciting.

IDEAL FOOD MATCHES FOR BRETT NUANCED WINES WE HAVE LOVED

Not only is Brettanomyces a welcome complexity in many wines, its presence can make for some interesting food matches. Some guidelines and experiences:

First, there is probably nothing you can do from a culinary perspective with wines in which brett is way over-the-top – riddled with a pervasive aroma of leather to the detriment of fruitiness, or else a basically unpleasant, barnyardy stink. Excess brett – like excess alcohol, acid, volatile acidity, tannin, oak, or any other elements – will not make a dish taste better, and nothing you can do to a dish might make the wine taste better (and for you “breathers” out there: no amount of time in a decanter will rid a wine of stink either). Unbalanced wines of any sort always have a low percentage chance of working with food.

However, wines with subtle brett qualities can be quite useful. I’ve enjoyed softer, moderately scaled reds with leather or even gamy undertones in seafood settings; particularly fish or shellfish with strong marine notes of earthy quality. Who wouldn’t, for instance, prefer a light, snappy sangiovese based red over any white wine with pasta and mussels in an herb scented tomato sauce? Earthy red Bandol is often served with bouillabaisse laced with saffron (one of the most complex earthen spices of all) to delicious effect, especially with dabs of garlicky aioli; and in the Bay Area, I’ve enjoyed some funky, small batch pinot noirs with The City’s many variations of earthy and saline cioppinos.

For deeper, sturdier red wines (like cabernet sauvignon, syrah, or Southern French style blends) tinged with brett, gamy meats like venison and leg of lamb are no-brainers, and meaty birds like squab, pigeon, Muscovy duck and even goose are not a bad idea either. But you can play with lightly gamy notes in a wine with any meat, gamy or not, with the use of earthy ingredients such as wild mushrooms, organ meats, bone marrow, lardons or pancetta, homemade sausages, horseradish and fennel, root vegetables, earthy varieties of Chèvre, cumin and tumeric, and in more elegant settings, truffles (and truffle oil), foie gras, or with creative use of the trufflish Mexican delicacy, huitlacoche (corn smut, which I once enjoyed in a ravioli with crimini, spinach and achiote chili sauce).

Use of pungent, fatty or chewy organ meats — like tripe (especially cut thick, as in meñudo), liver, kidneys, sweetbreads, tongue, beef tendons, and the rind, belly, feet, chitterlings, trotters and head meat of pork – are all of the right textural and aromatic “stuff” for earth toned wines.

Just as use of fruit (fresh or dried) in dressings, finishing sauces, or condiments compliments a gamy meat, it goes a long ways towards brightening the fruit qualities of red wines with low key brett. Vegetables that are naturally sweet (like beets and yams) or slightly sweetened (squash and onions) can do the same.

Some brett-laced wine and food matches we have known and loved:

In Berkeley, a succession of mildly gamy 20 year old reds (a Chave Hermitage, followed by a Vieux Télégraphe Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Domaine Tempier Bandol) with a potato casserole generously layered with black truffles

At the Joel Palmer House in Dayton, Oregon, a pungent, essence-of-wild three-mushroom tart with a soft, fragrant, yet distinctly leather glovish Adelsheim Willamette Valley Pinot Noir

In a South Australian wine country restaurant, a lamb’s brains in mustard sauce with a wildly earthy Rockford Basket Press Shiraz

At Bay Wolf in Oakland, a ravioli of wild mushrooms and spinach in an aromatic porcini broth with a lush yet meaty-game nuanced Au Bon Climat Santa Maria Valley Pinot Noir

At Matsuhisa in Aspen, an ankimo (monkfish liver) paté with caviar and a bright strawberry, blackberry, pepper and leather laced Torbreck Juveniles (Barossa Valley grenache/shiraz/mataro)

At home in the Islands, an oyster stuffed game hen in a ragout of giblets, onions and porcini with a leather-on-lace Allegrini La Grola Valpolicella

In one of our Island restaurants, a lusty confit of duck, roasted garlic and offal in a white bean cassoulet with a mild but pungent, unsulfured, unfiltered, un-nothinged Morgon by Foillard

In my most recent home in the Rockies, a simple cube steak pan roasted with alderwood smoked salt, cracked pepper and sweet-hot paprika – and finished with a smothering of shallots, mushrooms and red wine deglaze – with Spain’s Dehesa la Granja, brimming with sweet blackberry coated in leather and roasted meat

Home again in the Rockies, a saddle sweat scented cumin laced ground bison chili served with Hebrew National dogs and Cheddar; finding a natural match with a virile, suede nuanced and textured Altos las Hormigas Malbec from Argentina

One final home remedy – spinach pasta with chopped chorizo and sweet onions in classic, Italian herbed tomato sauce and generous shavings of earthy Pecorino, washed down with a zesty, leather wrapped cherry toned Peppoli Chianti Classico by Antinori

But maybe you don’t dig snails, monkfish liver, lamb’s brains, cioppino, or the taste of Brettanomyces in your wine. That’s your call. After all, in the end that’s all that matters.

Kermit Lynch, the original wine adventurer
(photo by Peter DaSilva, The New York Times)

When in Rome (or the Hawaiian isles)

2009-10-13T13:44:00.000-07:00

When in Rome, everyone knows, you do as the Romans do – including eat, and drink, and hang around outdoor cafés from early afternoon to the wee hours of the morning.

When in Rome, you drink Frascati. When in Florence, it’s more likely Chianti; in Pamplona, probably Rioja; in Strasbourg, Alsatian riesling or pinot gris; in Nice, Cassis rosé or blanc; or in Paris, Chinon, Saumur-Champigny or Beaujolais. But why? It’s cultural, it’s tried-and-true, and why fight it? Man gotta eat, after all; and as Woody Allen once said (at least about cavemen), “frequently there must be a beverage.”

There is a lot to be said for the natural regional wine and food matches of the world, but also a lot about how global influences wash up on our shores wherever we are. In Hawai`i, for instance, we don’t really make our own wine to write home about, but we do have an enormous range of foodstuffs at our disposal. The Islands are, after all, the “melting pot of the Pacific”; and since this pot is very much multi-cultural and cosmopolitan, so are our choices of wine – from everywhere, with an everywhereness about them. Globally inspired wine and food matches as good as anything in Rome, or anywhere else for that matter.

So if you do ever find yourself in the Hawaiian Islands, where the sand is as soft as silk and the water clear and bright like a Mother Nature’s bathtub (doesn’t that warm winter vacations sound like a good idea?)...

do keep some of these tried-and-true matches in mind when you order up some of the local delicacies:

• Poke style raw tuna (with soy, sesame oil, sweet Maui onions, fresh chopped seaweed and chili pepper): classic, spicy fruited pinot noirs (from Oregon, California, New Zealand or France); or Austria’s zweigelt or lemberger (the latter, also from Washington)

• Flash seared raw tuna in wasabi mustard sauces: French Champagne; Italian prosecco; or most dry California sparklers; softer styles of pinot noir or most fruit-forward red wine blends (for sampling of the latter, see Basic guidelines to matching the Asian/fusion palate)

• Lomi lomi salmon (chopped salmon, tomato and green onions): dry yet fruity rosés (Bandol, Tavel, Cassis or Marsannay from France, Rosé di Regaleali from Italy, or California’s SoloRosa); off-dry German rieslings (halbtrocken or QbA); verdejo from Spain; or Portugal’s Vinho Verde

• Spam Musubi & Sushi (most varieties): dry rosé (Southern French, or California pinks made from pinot noir); France’s Beaujolais (especially grand crus like Morgon, Fleurie or Moulin-à-Vent); sparkling shiraz from Australia; or softer, moderately priced pinot noirs (Oregon, California, or Austria)

• Huli-huli chicken (rock salted and charcoal grilled halves): almost any good California or Australian chardonnay; or pinot gris from Oregon, Alsace or Austria

• Kalua pig (roasted, smoke flavored, rock salted pork): more intense, off-dry German rieslings (especially kabinett); deeply fruited, well oaked California zinfandel or petite sirah (especially from Lodi or Sonoma's Dry Creek Valley or Rockpile AVA); or from Spain, tempranillo (like Cigales, Rioja, or La Mancha) or garnacha based reds (Montsant or Priorat)

• Hawaiian beef stew (i.e. pipi stew; tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, celery and onions): soft, velvety merlots (California, Chile or Italy); richer Spanish reds (reserva bottlings from Rioja, Ribera del Duero, Priorat, or Mencía); silkier styles of sangiovese (especially Chianti, Carmignano, Rosso di Montalcino or Vino Nobile di Montepulciano); cabernet franc based reds like Bourgueil, Chinon or Cahors from France

• Mahimahi (dolphinfish) in lemon butter sauces: Austria’s grüner veltliner; creamier textured (i.e. lightly oaked) California sauvignon (a.k.a. fumé) blanc; lighter, crisper, minerally style chardonnays (from Mendocino or Santa Barbara, Oregon, Washington, or Mâcon in France); or Italian whites made like Arneis or Gavi

• Miso butterfish (marinated black cod): dry style rieslings (Alsatian, German trocken, and dry styles from California or Australia); Spain’s albariño; most dry French champagne or méthode Champenoise sparklers from California; most ginjo sakés

• Chicken katsu (panko crusted) or grilled salmon with ponzu dips: crisp-edged sauvignon blanc (especially Sancerre or Pouilly-Fumé from France); France’s Picpoul, Muscadet, Montlouis or Savennières; Italy’s friulano or pinot grigio; torrontés from Argentina

• Korean style short ribs of beef (i.e. kalbi; soy/garlic/ sugar/sesame seed marinades): spicy, aromatic Australian shiraz or cabernet/shiraz blends; California, Washington or Southern Oregon syrahs; or else California zinfandels (bigger the better)

• Teriyaki beef or pork (sweet soy/ginger marinades): richer, ultra-premium pinot noirs (California or Oregon); Argentine malbec; or rounder, softer cabernet sauvignons (Australia, Chile, or low to medium priced Californians)

Surf's up!

The drunken samurai’s way of wine (and surprising Asian food/wine matches)

2009-10-12T17:33:00.000-07:00

Some curious, yet totally sensible, thoughts concerning why certain foods, and food and wine combinations, always seem to be so "right" for us once occurred to me when I reading about the period of Shojin Ryori in late 19th century Japan.

Influenced by the austere lifestyle of samurais and Zen Buddhists, Shojin Ryori was basically a vegetarian temple approach to cooking which placed emphasis on food of five colors (green, red, yellow, white and black-purple) and no less than six different tastes (hot, sour, salty, sweet, bitter and “delicate”). Still profoundly influential in Japanese cooking today, Shojin Ryori probably amounts to the most successful formalization of a specific cooking style ever achieved. Think of it. The French had Escoffier, and we've had Julia Child. But how many of the French consciously cook like Escoffier, and how many Americans actually follow Julia? Certainly not a vast majority, like you still find in Japan.

You could surmise that it's the Japanese temperament and culture that lend itself to such formality, but I would proffer an even simpler explanation: Shojin Ryori looks, and tastes, and even feels "right." How many of us have no idea of what we're eating in a Japanese restaurant, butappreciate the beauty of the food nonetheless?

There are many other foods, of course, which exemplify this sense of universal rightness. For Italians it's pasta, tomatoes, olive oil, Parmigiano, porcini, and when the season arrives, truffles. Why do Germans swoon over white asparagus, Russians crave their borscht, and Cajuns pick their brides by how they make roux? Some things are just that important.

The important thing that all of these foods have in common is a taste that is more than sweet, sour, salty and bitter – the four basic sensations felt on the palate – but also round, complex, almost titillating to all the senses, including that of sight, smell and sound. Earthy qualities -- which you certainly find in the intriguing shapes of mushrooms, gnarly oysters, and seaweeds -- tend to be very much a part of this. In fact, more and more foodies are becoming accustomed to the concept of umami, originally coined by a Japanese scientist to define this "fifth taste" (although more pedestrian terms like "savory" and "delicious" are just as accurate), which occurs in foodstuffs or dishes high in amino acids (see my previous post, Deconstructing Umami). But even if you don’t understand it, it is enough to know that umami significantly enhances the sensory perception of foods that do more than sustain the body, but also tweak our curiosity, appeal to our sense of aesthetics, and rock us ‘til the cows come home.

I once read a story by David Rosengarten, who talked about a Frenchman who recommended Sancerre -- the flinty-smoke scented, light and lemony dry white wine of the Loire River region -- with charcuterie, the sausage meats of that region. "But why?" asked Rosengarten. Because it is a priori, said the Frenchman -- it stands before reason. If that is not rightness, I don't know what is.

In Alsace, on the French side of the Rhine, the charcuterie is served with sauerkraut, and the a priori choice of wine would be the dry yet flowery scented, crisply acidic, and often headily alcoholic (in very ripe years) style of riesling produced in that region. It makes sense because the riesling fragrance always hints at sweetness, while the crisp acids and full alcohols of these white wines match the sweet-sourness of the sauerkraut, helping the palate digest the spicy fattiness of sausages. More importantly, all the sensations, given by both wine and food, combine to create a perfectly delicious whole -- better than the parts eaten, or drunk, separately.

Lately I've been finding this phenomenon – that delicious harmony of multiple elements – in places with far less gastronomic history than along the rivers of France. I often used to wonder, for instance, what to drink with sticky sweet, spicy, vinegary, barbecued baby back pork ribs, with which I’ve tried just about everything, except kava and peyote tea. Crisply balanced rieslings have always been a problem because they aren't always strong enough to handle the fatty, gristly ribs. The sweetness of most white zinfandels ends up tasting redundant with sweet-spicy pork ribs. Fruity red zins have worked pretty darned well, but sometimes their tannin levels are too when the marinades are spanking hot or on the sweet side. All of which, for years, left me wanting more…

Then sitting at a hoity-toity chef’s counter in Chicago, I tested out a plate of sticky, spicy baby back ribs with a genshu ("cloudy" or “rough filtered”) style of saké called Rihaku Dreamy Clouds. This authentic, creamy textured Japanese saké was typically full in alcohol (15.6%), lusciously fruity (without being too sweet), buoyantly balanced, and totally without the rough tannin or souring acid of red or white wines. This was a "wine,” all right, but made from rice, not grapes; and perhaps better than most wines made from grapes, it had all the elements needed to take the sticky ribs to places I never thought possible. Maybe it was the time, and maybe just the place. But the combination left me feeling strangely like a samurai, on a path towards a strangely, if not perverse, nonvegetarian state of Shojin Ryorism.

Another odd turn once came up in an Orange County (CA) shopping center, of all places, in a standard issue Italian restaurant where I could not help but be intrigued by a simple dish of risotto cooked in a mildly truffled mushroom broth, topped with pungent shavings of Parmigiano. I thought: this dish is saturated with umami, so why settle for the predictable match of an Italian Chianti Classico or pinot grigio? Why not one of those new, dryish, ice cold styles of ginjo or daiginjo style sakés, which offer just as much of the minerally, silky qualities of white wines made from grapes to match the earthy, creamy taste of mushroom risotto? I happened to have a slightly chilled bottle of saké on me (don’t ask!), so I asked my waiter for a white wine glass (I drink my fine sakés from glass tulips, not wooden boxes). After trying this unorthodox combination, I have to say: works like a charm!

But oh, some wine-foodie experts might say, saké is way too alcoholic and much lower in acid than white wines like arneis and pinot grigio. Aren’t high acid/low alcohol wines the highest percent matches for food? First of all, I see nothing in a brothy, mushroomy risotto that suggests that high acid and moderate alcohol is necessary. In fact, I would suggest that the relatively low acid, full alcohol, and high umami quality of a dry or semi-dry saké give it even more of an advantage in such food contexts. If, of course, saké is “wine” enough for your taste.

Which brings me to a sub-text: few things may be as overrated by contemporary gastronomes as the importance of acid and dryness in wines. There are many foods – from pasta in oils and fish in butter, to sushi, ham hocks and clam bakes -- that are perfectly delicious with decidedly low acid, unabashedly fruity wines such as chardonnay from California, Washington sémillon, müller-thurgau from Germany, Australian marsanne, reds and rosés of Southern France, and yes, sakés from Japan. So the next time you hear an expert pontificating about the need for acidic, dry wines for food, I suggest that you run from the room screaming.

Finally, there is my loosely formed, personal theory of wine/food matching that I call Musashi, or “Drunken Samurai.” Musashi was a legendary figure from 1600s Japan whose self-taught style was the opposite of the geometric, disciplined, almost scientifically defined style of kenjitsu (Japanese sword fighting). But it was precisely this unorthodox, ungainly and unpredictable style that made Musashi virtually unbeatable as a swordsman.

How many of our best food and wine experiences have been just as unexpected, totally unpredicted, yet in the end triumphant? Old rules like white-wine-with-fish, and even new rules like red-wine-with-fish, often fall by the wayside when we are actually enjoying such things at the table. Why? I think it is because we have a tendency to want to pigeonhole elements of food and wine combinations, forgetting that the ultimate test is how delicious everything really tastes. Not how it's supposed to taste.

Like the time I put together a Hawaiian style poke – raw tuna tossed in soy sauce, sesame oil, chopped sweet white and green onions, coils of fresh seaweed, and splashes of chili pepper water – with a glass of slightly sweet German riesling, next to a glass of full tannin Oregon pinot noir to compare. Every saw, old and new, tells us that German riesling has all the balancing elements needed for decidedly salty, sweet, oily and spicy foods like poke, yet it was the slightly bitter and dry pinot noir that kept saying to my palate, I taste better. This was because red wines like pinot noir are what they are – earthy, harmonious, velvety textured sums of their parts, rather than defined by their parts. More simply put: perfectly delicious.

Or like the proverbial slash of Musashi: unsuspected, yet unfailingly true.

SOME SURPRISING ASIAN FOOD/WINE MATCHES

Wine may not be indigenous to the cultures and gastronomies of Asia. But there are now more than enough variations of wines made around the world today to find some perfectly delicious, if not surprising, matches for nearly every Asian style dish. If you love wine, and you love Asian foods, all the more reason to try them:

Asian Foods with German Riesling (Dry to Kabinett Level Sweetness)

Quintessential German style rieslings – penetratingly scented, juicy rich, light and fine as silk, with a whispering sweetness balanced by perceptible acidity – are usually the first wines cited for Asian foods. Think of how you might make a healthy stir fry – balancing toothsome squares of tofu or thin strips of meat with at least equal amounts of crisp vegetables, a trace of an oil balanced with soy, lemon or rice vinegar, salt and cracked pepper, a touch of a chili sauce or multi-spice seasonings, and served with fragrant jasmine rice. You can't go wrong when you figure in a fragrant, deftly balanced German riesling, whether bone dry (if balanced with lush fruitiness and minerality), “half-dry” (balancing slivers of sweetness), or slightly sweet (Kabinett style).

It may be understandable why someone would say that Asian cooking is not good for wine. Badly balanced cooking -- and badly balanced wine, for that matter – is not good for anyone. But when principles of harmony and balance are executed in your stir fry, and are intrinsic in your choice of wine, then you’ve got yourself a perfectly delicious, and dramatic, match.

Asian Foods with Viognier

White wines made from the viognier grape are actually an unorthodox choice for Asian style foods for two reasons -- they tend to be low in acid and full in alcohol, somewhat like chardonnay. But unlike chardonnays, viogniers tend to be extremely fragrant -- billowing with exotic fruit and honeysuckle-like perfumes, and suggestions of violet and white pepper. The finer styles of California grown viognier are amplified by plush, mouthwatering, almost sweet (even if the wine is technically dry), dense and silken textured flavors.

Chinese cooking in particular -- such as duck in hoisin plum sauces, chicken in gingery or citrusy syrups, and savory sauced napa cabbage, choy sum, mustard greens, and other toothsome vegetables -- can be tilted towards sweetness balanced by a mild bitterness and saltiness. In Southeast Asia, fish is often coated with curries and coconut milk, strong pastes made from coriander root and peppercorns, or stuffed with scallions, fatty pork, garlic cloves and even spicy hot Serrano chilies. In these food contexts, the aggressively full, hefty, peppery qualities of viognier are often superior to the more feeble alcohol and higher acid qualities of riesling.

Viognier doesn't work, however, in cases where dishes are overly sweet, or numbingly hot -- in other words, badly balanced Asian cooking. But when full flavored Asian dishes are prepared correctly, a good, balanced viognier can contribute an exotic note of its own to the overall experience.

Asian Foods with Zinfandel

The jammy, lusciously raspberryish, black peppery spiced aromas and flavors of first rate California zinfandel – especially those of moderate or at least rounded tannin structure - are a sensible if unorthodox choice with barbecued pork or beef ribs coated in sweet/spicy marinades (especially when Asian chili seasonings or sauces are used). A proper zinfandel has the red wine tannin to handle fatty, charred meats, yet the cushion of fruitiness to enhance, rather than fight, the hot spices.

But peppery spiced zinfandels are also surprising with aggressive forms of Southeast Asian cooking, such as grilled coriander chicken served with sweet/salty/spicy dipping sauces (nam jeem), raw beef with pepper salt, beef stir fried with spicy ginger, and hot pot dishes such as eggplant (cooked with ground pork, coriander, dried shrimp, garlic, and shallots) served with fried beef jerky. Whenever there is a presence of peppercorns, some vinegary zest, or slightly hot garlic, chile and gingery sensations, a zesty, peppery, fruity zinfandel finds another surprising food element.

Asian Foods with Southern French Varietals & Blends (Syrah, Grenache & Mourvèdre)

The entire premise of balancing Southern French style varietals reds and blends – syrah utilized for its floral, spicy, structural fullness, grenache for its plush, mildly peppery red fruitiness, and mourvèdre for its dense, meaty texture – draws comparisons to the balancing of ingredients and sensations in Asian style cooking. Beef pork ribs in sweet, salty, peppery, vinegary, spicy hot, and even downright sticky sauces tend to be problematic for Bordeaux varietals, but not so much for the Southern French.

The advantage of Southern French blends is that their tannin is moderated enough so that they don’t taste so bitter in relation to sweet, sour, salty or spicy sauces, yet retain enough red wine phenolics to digest fatty meats. This opens the door for the peppercorn-like components natural to syrah and grenache to find pleasing flavor bridges in dishes that make use of chiles and other spicy ingredients.

Then there is the factor of umami – specifically, the reaction of salt and acidity when activitated by foods high in amino acids (such as mushrooms, aged cheeses, seaweeds and natural stocks) – which effectively reduces bitter tastes in both wines and dishes.

In the presence of high umami ingredients - like Chinese hotpots of black fungus and chicken - typically spicy, sweetly fruited, earth toned Southern French reds tend to taste “milder,” while dishes become more savory. In fact, pure varietal syrahs – particularly the fruit forward (as opposed to hard and tannic) styles of Australian shiraz, and many of the new style syrahs coming from California’s Central Coast or Southern Oregon – seem to help the palate achieve umami-related sensory adaptations with considerable ease. It’s no surprise that the dominant style of cooking done in Australia today is pervasively Asian, and the Aussies have no problem, philosophically or sensory related, consuming their biggest Southern French varietals and blends with it!

Asian Foods with Rounder Italian Red Varietals (Dolcetto, Barbera & Sangiovese)

The range of red wines made from these grapes not only in Italy but also, now, in California is astounding. Each has its charms – dolcetto a zesty black fruitiness, barbera an even zestier edged, palate sticking fruitiness, and sangiovese (i.e. Chianti, and reds of Montalcino and Montepulciano) a mildly zesty, cherry fruit complexity – and all are marked by qualities of slightly elevated acidity, low to medium tannin, and earth related characteristics manifested in multiple ways, from burning leaves and licorice to roasted meat and leather-like nuances.

Given these structural and aroma/flavor advantages, there are few wines that perform as well with Chinese or Southeast Asian style hot pots of beef or pork; especially when punctuated by peppercorns, garlic, scallions, and the licoricey tastes of star anise, cilantro or coriander, and sacred basil. Then there is the seemingly vast range of small production Italian and California wines that utilize these varietals as blending elements – sangiovese with cabernet sauvignon, sangiovese with tempranillo, barbera with nebbiolo, zinfandel with barbera, et al. While unorthodox, the good thing about these innovative “Italianate” wines is that they fit in with many of the unorthodox styles of fusion cooking being done all around the world.

To wit: if Asian cooking is untraditional with wine, the best wines for Asian foods may very well be the most untraditional, imaginative blends.

Given these structural and aroma/flavor advantages, there are few wines that perform as well with Chinese or Southeast Asian style hot pots of beef or pork; especially when punctuated by peppercorns, garlic, scallions, and the licoricey tastes of star anise, cilantro or coriander, and sacred basil. Then there is the seemingly vast range of small production Italian and California wines that utilize these varietals as blending elements – sangiovese with cabernet sauvignon, sangiovese with tempranillo, barbera with nebbiolo, zinfandel with barbera, et al. While unorthodox, the good thing about these innovative “Italianates” is that they fit in with many of the unorthodox styles of fusion cooking being done all around the world.

Into the Realm of Good Sense

There is no reason to fear wine with Asian foods as long as your choices are based upon the premise that the highest percentage chances of achieving a perfectly delicious match are found in

Crisply balanced, moderately scaled whites, or

Sweetly fruit forward reds (whether light or big) that are also round, smoothly textured, and (especially) spice toned.

To that, you can probably add sweetly aromatic, smoothly dry or off-dry pink wines, not to mention crisp, lively sparklers.

But when you think about it, if you can find wines to match the most difficult Asian foods, you can probably find just as many to match more of the foods we love to eat; like spicy marinades, salty chips and creamy dips, generously mayo-ed salads, souped up ramen (I add fishcake, sesame oil, nori strips, spinach or even chard), and even fully loaded hot dogs (for me, naked without a meaty chili, sauerkraut and sweet onions), cheeseburgers (either Tabasco and sharp Cheddar, or Maytag blue cheese and sweet relish). If wine is to ever become an American staple, it has to be treated like one: as a sensible part of our lives and meals!

Not your daddy's zin (zinfandel's amazing food affinities)

2009-10-11T15:09:00.000-07:00

One thing we know about California’s zinfandel: it is a far, far more food versatile wine than usually assumed.

But it wasn’t always like that. A couple of decades ago the country was still awash with pink colored “white zinfandel”; and focusing on the other two “fighting varietals,” chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon, many of the mainstream California wineries went so far as to drop red zinfandel from their lineups. This may have been good thing, because all it did was dramatize the inevitable resurgence all the more; towards the end of the nineties, when artisanal producers began pushing their big red zins, recalling some of mammoth zins that came and went with the seventies. Like micro-minis, fondue, VW bugs and martinis, there are many things never really go away – they just come back with a vengeance.

But going back long before the grape’s pink wine heyday (remember, white zin wasn’t “invented” by David Bruce until 1969, then subjected to further experimentation shortly thereafter by Monteviña and Sutter Home), zinfandel was always a red wine, albeit an animal of different stripes. The previous generations - like John Parducci, Samuele and August Sebastiani, and the first two Louis Martinis (pictured below/left) - liked their zinfandel fairly soft, simple and restrained, yet with zesty fruit qualities practically begging for tomato sauced spaghetti.

But let’s not sell the old time zins short. It’s important to have good wine for spaghetti; not only that, but also for fettuccine tossed with mushrooms and Parmigiano, or linguine with clams, mussels, tomato, garlic, and earthy, grassy Pecorino. This is where the moderated zinfandel classics like Parducci, Louis Martini, Sebastiani, and coastal blends by Ridge Vineyards start to shine. If anything, ever since the days when spaghetti came to be called “pasta,” there hasn’t been enough of these lighter, snappier red zins to go around.

But let’s face it: as a variety of pure and distinct character different from anything else in the world, zinfandel really comes into its own when vinified into something big, huge, even humongous. The special characteristics of the grape – the sweet raspberry and blackberry jam, mixed as it often is with exhilarating whiffs of freshly ground pepper, cinnamon, clove, and oak like burning leaves of autumn – do not really become defined unless grapes are picked with enough sugar to reach alcoholic strengths of 14% at the least, and 15% or 16% to be even better.

I, for one, might prefer my red zin light and zesty, but I’m certainly no apologist for the big zins. I just take the logical course: drink the lighter zins with pastas, the bigger zins with the big meats, and the in-betweens with the in-between dishes.

To get a handle on the sensory components of latter day zins, let’s look at a one recent, widely lauded classic: the aptly named Earthquake Zinfandel made by Michael-David Vineyards in Lodi. What does an Earthquake have that most non-zins don’t?

1. A thickly corded musculature of tannin and alcohol (usually close to 16%). To heck with subtlety.

2. A heady nose, beginning with sweetly concentrated blackberry and bing cherry aromas, ripe without being overripe or pruny, underscored by pepper grinder spice and pungent, toasty, sweet oak.

3. A terrific balancing acidity – pushing the natural fruit qualities to the front of the palate – filled out by the wonderful feel of glycerol (a higher alcohol component), giving a velvety, viscous feel, and overall sense of balance despite the wine’s behemoth proportion.

For aficionados of this enthralling style, it’s gratifying to see Lodi’s ancient, fourth or fifth generation farmed vineyards – like that of Michael and David Phillips, Jesse’s Grove, and St. Amant – finally put to good use: turned into red rather than pink wines. Ridge Vineyards, among all others, deserves the credit for keeping the interest in full scaled zinfandel alive during the dark days when pink zins ruled the roost; producing an uninterrupted series of single vineyard bottlings each year, notably from sites planted in the old Italian tradition of field mixing (zinfandel vines interspersed with grapes like petite sirah, mourvèdre, carignane and alicante bouschet, usually finding their way into Ridge’s final blends in varying yet generous proportions).

Taking up the torch, over the past twenty years Rosenblum, Ravenswood, Turley Wine Cellars, and Carol Shelton have been mining similar sources of old vines up and down the California coast, and are continuing to push the envelope insofar as zinfandel heft (16%-17% alcohol bottlings not unusual) and intensity. Still others – like Grgich-Hills and Robert Biale in Napa Valley, and Quivira, Davis Family and Mauritson in Sonoma – seem to consistently craft zinfandels of equal parts power and balance, while in the Sierra Foothills (Amador and El Dorado), fairly new names like Cedarville, Perry Creek, C.G. Di Arie, and Miraflores are leading the charge towards hitting that sweet spot intersecting raw power and varietal definition.

Carol Shelton

But are contemporary big Zs good enough for food? I wouldn’t argue if you say that beef is always best with cabernet sauvignon, but I’ve been amazed by how well a sturdy, sweetly berryish zinfandel goes with roasted prime rib bathed in horseradish tinged natural jus, or a simple charred sirloin doused in Tabasco. But how about this: thin slices of beef steeped in soy, palm sugar, sesame, garlic and ginger in the fashion of Japanese, Mongolian and Korean marinades, charcoal grilled or seared on a smoking hot iron, and plopped on steamy white rice. It is, in fact, the spicy, sweet berry concentration of typical big zins that allow these wines go where no cabernet sauvignon ever can on the table: with fusion or Asian style treatments of beef, in sauces based on soy rather than demi-glace or ketchup.

It’s also said that lamb calls for cabernet sauvignon, or else classic red Bordeaux. In the late seventies wineries like Clos du Val, Monteviña, and Carneros Creek made a number of positively black, jammy, cinnamon-and-pepper spiced zinfandels, with pumped up body, oak and tannin; and that’s when I first discovered the joys of such wines with legs of lamb caked with sweet mustard, lamb chops grilled on the barbie with chunks of eggplant, and entire racks coming out of the roaster dripping with buttery bread crumbs and slathered with sweet mint jelly.

Then there is the “other” white meat: almost any variation of pork; from Italian sausages to chorizo, or from chops pan fried with pungent herbs (like rosemary and herbes de Provence) to roasts smothered in wine, herbs, or zesty barbecue sauces. Big zins and pork are such natural partners, you’d have to be either blissfully ignorant or a hopelessly effete snob to say that big, bad zins don’t make good “food” wines.

But will big zins age? The more pertinent question: who cares? After years of trying zinfandels cellared for ten or more years (including one marathon wine/food tasting, involving ten to twenty year old bottles of Ridge zinfandels with Ridge’s longtime head cheese, Paul Draper), I’ve reached this conclusion: there is nothing more delicious than a good, three to five year old red zin. After that, I just don’t think they get any better (older maybe, but not “better”).

In fact, I think I may prefer big zins right out of the barrel, having gone so far as purchasing full barrels over the years and serving them to my guests completely unbottled, in order to get wildest, most pristine zinfandel berry taste possible (being a part owner of multiple restaurants gives you that advantage). If anything, it’s safer not to lay down big zinfandels. After eight years even the finest begin to shed the explosive fruitiness that defines the grape.

THE IDEAL ZINFANDEL FOOD MATCHES

A few more remarks on the food possibilities of zinfandel:

For bigger sized zinfandels (closer to 15% or 16% alcohol), bring on the fattiest or wildest, full flavored meats – venison, boar, buffalo, elk, and maybe even squab or goose – and slather them with the seasonings and spices (including hot chilies, if balanced with ingredients that are mildly sweet, salty, sour, etc.) you like, because zinfandel’s combination of tannin, acidic zest, and sweetly fruit forward flavors go where few other reds can.

The zesty fruit quality of moderately scaled (softer tannins and less than 14% alcohol) zinfandels actually makes it a good candidate for red-wine-with-fish combinations (providing you grill, sauce, or season the fish with zin-friendly methodology).

Variations of earthy tastes such as mustards and mustard greens (as underlying components that help reduce bitter tannins), bell peppers and chile peppers (can heighten grape’s peppery spice), peppercorns and corning (the grape’s “jammy” sensations can handle some salting), garlic and onions (accents the grape’s sweetness), caramelized beets (embellishes zinfandel fruitiness, as well as mushrooms and goat cheeses (zinfandel has just enough zest to balance acidity in Chèvre) all get along famously with zinfandel’s unique multifaceted profile.

Marinades in combination with wood or charcoal grilling, smoking and roasting to create caramelized flavors can “sweeten” the briary, berry taste of zinfandel, and round out its rougher edges.

Use of sweet/acidic fruits like tomatoes, berries, and cherry can also match the varietal profile and reduce the effect of tannins in young, unruly zinfandels.

The aromatic Mediterranean herbs like rosemary, bay leaf, oregano, thyme, sweet basil, marjoram and savory add contrasting notes to zinfandel fruitiness (but not so much fragrant herbs like mint, cilantro, dill and tarragon); arugula, cress, dandelion and other peppery/nutty greens play to the grape’s spiciness; and spare, thoughtful use of star anise, juniper, mace, ginger, caraway, clove, sumac, and seeds of anise, poppy and sesame can all work with peppercorns to embellish the sweetly spiced varietal character.

Plump sausage meats, with black or red peppers and seed spices; especially when used as meat stuffings (or plopped between buns, for that matter).

As with all fine wine and food matching, avoid extremes (like overdosing with herbs or overly complicated, multiple saucing) and imbalances (especially over-salting with rock salt or seafood stocks, heavy handed sweetening with sugar or fruits, or acidifying with vinegars, etc.). No big, burly red wine is 100% forgiving. In the end, it makes as little sense to detract from a zinfandel’s obvious charms as it would to clobber a simple dish with a super-sized wine.

Finally, while like most deep flavored red wines, zinfandel is easily complimented by deep flavored, firm, aged cheeses like Parmigiano, Pecorino, Manchego, Cheddars and Goudas, they will cross lines to softer cheeses given specific zin-friendly components. For instance, Italian herb crusted Chèvres and white truffle specked Boschetto al Tartufo merge effortlessly with the sweet berry jam qualities of even the biggest zins. By the same token, a Chili Pepper Pecorino’s subtle spice and grassy edge brings out the peppery spice in the varietal, while the deep, crystal-caramelized taste of "super-aged" Goudas (Beemster 18 Year Old or XO) underscore the richest zin's oak laden fruitiness.

STRETCHING CULINARY BOUNDARIES: ZINFANDEL MENUS PAST

The nineties were a zin-fruitful time for our restaurants. For a good ten years running we would visit De Loach Vineyards (in those days still owned by Cecil De Loach; but today, by France's Boisset Family) in the early spring following each vintage to taste, select, and then purchase a full barrel of one of their super-powered single vineyard old vine plantings from the Russian River Valley. The idea was to give everyone back at home a chance to taste a wine that had never been bottled, in all its wild, pristine, unrestrained splendor.

Because it normally took four to five nights for our guests to consume an entire barrel, we would pick the biggest (usually approaching 16%), blackest, spiciest De Loach zinfandel made each year – the essence of autumn! It was always an event, and a cloth staining mess, to pop in the spigot, and it was also the only day of the year when we would clear out space in the dining room for a live band. During the first few years, we focused on zinfandel and jazz combinatons, giving our guests a potpourri of choices – dishes loaded with zin-friendly components to savor and swing to.

Hawai`i's alto sax king, Gabe Baltazar

Our menu in October 1995:

Jazzed Up Menu for the 1994 De Loach Pelletti Ranch Zinfandel • Wood oven pizzette of braised lamb, artichokes, Feta and olives
• Cassoulet of Hawaiian escargot with oxtail, potatoes and spinach
• Cold smoked oysters with salmon roe, horseradish and sour cream
• Half moon pasta of beef shortribs with baby greens and roasted shiitake jus
• Fresh sautéed clams and New England lobster in zin laced natural stock
• Pan roasted pork medallions with vine ripened Big Island tomatoes, bitter mesclun and black pepper olive oil
• Herb roasted rack of lamb with sun dried tomatoes, capers and dill
• Imu oven baked ‘ahi tuna steak crusted with pancetta corn duxelle
• Tapenade grilled ribeye of beef with red pepper aioli

After a few years we began to move away from sophisticated jazz, cutting loose with other themes as much for our musical pleasure as to expand on our culinary thoughts on zinfandel/food matching. I was particularly happy with our Spanish themed menu in 1996, matched to a ten-piece salsa band; all courses (except the dessert) focusing on how brightly the zinfandel fruit shines when contrasted by earthy, at times garlicky and even oily, ingredients:

Salsa Menu for the 1995 De Loach Pelletti Ranch Zinfandel
• Champinones marinated wild mushrooms
• Almejas en salsa clams in garlic, olive oil and Nalo Farm herbs
• Caracoles snails in onion, garlic and concasée
• Wood oven filet of ‘ahi tuna in big zin sauce
• Saffroned paella with mussels, clams and opakapaka (pink snapper)
• Cinnamon grilled rack of lamb in fresh mint butter and jus
• Bacon wrapped filet of Kulana beef in wild game offal sauce
• Caramelo Miranda exotic fruit flan

In 1997 we made room for dancing and a Cajun-Zydeco band, well knowing what a rollicking accordian, soaring fiddle, spoons and frottoir (rubboard) does to heighten the blood pressure, which a black, unfiltered, unfined, unfettered zin does without any help at all. That year I think we had to pull some guests down from atop tables. But as in the previous year’s menus, the ingredients were particularly earthy; this time, in a thickened plethora of reddish/golden brown ingredients (like the color and texture of good roux), giving delicious contrast to the spiced-up red and black berry qualities of that year’s barreled zin:

Fais Do-Do Menu for a 1996 Three-Barrel Blend of De Loach Old Vine Zinfandel
• Blue Plate Spéciale of barbecued shrimp with Creole tartar, bourbon stewed oyster, marinated calamari and crispy Louisiana style crab cake
• Crispy panéed veal with crab béarnaise and roasted red pepper sauce
• Y Ki Ki style etouffée of shrimp, mussels, lobster and scallops with red beans N rice
• Bronzed baby Hawaiian swordfish with roasted pecans, jalapeño and brown lemon garlic butter
• Blackened rare filet of ‘ahi tuna with andouille, corn and creole mustard sauce
• Terroirized bone-in ribeye of beef with rustic spice rub and natural blood jus
• Oven warm Hawaiian sweetbread and raisin bread pudding in bourbon sauce

Jumping to 1998, we brought out the oversized caps and tropical shirts for a reggae rhythmed culinary theme, highlighting a barrel from De Loach’s Gambogi Ranch – the biggest, blackest, juiciest, yet plainly delicious zin we could find:

Ska Menu for the 1997 De Loach Gambogi Ranch Zinfandel
• Z-Rad dutchy of scallion wrapped U10 scallop in ginger plum sauce, green zebra tomato carpaccio with mozzarella di bufala in caper mustard seed vinaigrette, half moon of ‘ahi tuna and grilled vegetables in sweet Maui onion jus, and Hangtown Fry oyster in lardon zin sauce
• Jerk chicken sausage rasta pasta with autumn root vegetables
• Tortellini of shrimp and prosciutto in roasted garlic jus and pesto butter
• Green herb stuffed baby artichoke and wilted spinach salad in warm balsamic vinaigrette
• Miso marinated hamachi (yellowtail) with wasabi mash in shiitake oyster sauce
• Mixed grill of peppercorn ‘ahi tuna, Hudson Valley duck, baby back ribs and Waimanalo corn
• Napoleon of lamb loin, truffled potato and portobello in zinfandel beet sauce
• Tropical fruit napoleon with guava jelly sauce

Zin-friendly mesclun

In 1999, our theme was Disco Zin, complete with flared, hip hugging slacks and disco balls. But it was also an even more serious night for zinfandel drinkers to not only experience just how food versatile this grape can be, especially when its pepper, clove, and berry jam qualities are allowed to explode straight from a barrel and into the glass. But in this particular year, Cecil De Loach also decided to bring some library bottlings from previous vintages of our barrel selection – a '98 from Gambogi Ranch – which prompted us to devise courses building up from older bottlings to the budding barreled zin. As it were, dishes focusing on the black-as-moonless-night, essence-of-blackberry jam qualities for which the Gambogi has long been known:

Disco Zin Menu for a Vertical & Barrel of De Loach Gambogi Ranch Zinfandel
• Fresh ‘ahi tuna tortellini in natural beef broth - De Loach, Gambogi Ranch 1994
• Disco Wild risotto of wild mushrooms, wild rice and aborio with Parmigiano and truffled vegetables - De Loach, Gambogi Ranch 1995
• Nalo Farm mesclun salad with crispy gizzard croutons in warm balsamic vinaigrette - De Loach, Gambogi Ranch 1996
• Wood roasted salmon in “drunken” saké sauce with Waimanalo eggplant, tofu and scallions - De Loach, Gambogi Ranch 1997
• Rosemary pork loin skewers in fresh basil zinfandel essence - De Loach, Gambogi Ranch 1998 (barrel)
• Bittersweet Hawaiian Vintage Chocolate petits fours - De Loach, Gambogi Ranch 1998 (barrel)

Memphis blues again (the glories of barbecue, soul food & wine matches)

2009-10-10T19:08:00.000-07:00

Oh, mama, can this really be the end? Thank you, Mr. Dylan, for your prophetic line.

I absolutely adore Memphis, Shelby County, Tennessee: historic epicenter of the blues, place of birth and final rest of Elvis, and once my temporary home. I could feel these gods in the air whenever I walked outside my Downtown apartment onto Main St., steps away from Beale and the mighty Mississippi. The view from my rooftop overlooked the muscular, bending river and the picturesque Memphis Bridge connecting to Arkansas. It was with genuine regret that I finally departed, after finishing up a six month job back in 2007.

Besides music, Memphis is all about barbecue. They hold by far the largest, wildest, most extravagant barbecue fest in the world each May, right alongside the Mississippi (imagine row after row of barbecue tents, extending about five football fields long and wide). Although the entire South boasts great barbecue (having sampled it, from the Mississippi to the coastal islands), I never had to leave Memphis proper for, perhaps, the smokiest, sexiest, most succulent pulled pork, rib tips and pork slabs in the world. Memphis is known for dry rub – piquant mixes of red spices, charred and caramelized on roasted pork – but the city’s barbecue sauces take the back seat to none.

Then there’s soul food. I always wondered exactly what it was, but living in Downtown Memphis brought it home for me. One of the first places I visited when I landed in the spring of 2007 was the Cotton Museum, housed in the historic Memphis Cotton Exchange on Front St. (i.e. fronting the Big River), one block from my doorstep. There they bring you the centuries old story of the South – King Cotton, slaves from Africa, the resulting cultural mix, the momentous musical evolution, and then, of course, the diets. Essentially, the masters ate the loins, and the slaves got the tails, feet, skin and chitterlings (intestines) of the pig. Like much in our culinary history, necessity turns into predilection; or if you will, misery into the foods, as well as music (i.e. the blues) that inspire and feed our souls today.

Soul food, of course, is also fried or smothered chicken, cat and buffalo fish, meatloaf (gourmet quality here), yams, collard greens, boiled cabbage, okra, peach cobbler, pecan and sweet potato pies. Then there’s one of my favorite Memphis idiosyncracies: barbecue spaghetti. Reminds me, in a different way, of chili spaghetti of my youth (and most of my adulthood, for that matter) in Hawai`i. Barbecue spaghetti is as roll-in-the-mouth sticky, spicy, sweet and succulent as it sounds.

So that’s what I miss about Memphis. And always, of course, for me there must be a beverage. During my six months there a favorite thing to do was walk into a joint (new one or favorite), order up two or three plates to go, take it back to my apartment and sit down with glasses of wine (always a new one, and two or three opened ones in the fridge). I’m a big believer in leftovers, of course; so I could go for days in Southern bliss, washing down barbecue with fruits of the grape.

Some of my tried-and-true matches:

Interstate B-B-Q’s Rib Tips
Always having a oral fixation (as a baby, a famed drooler), my rib preferences have always been for the soft, chewy cartilage on the bone ends, and Interstate’s was my favorite. Jim Neely and his family smothers his smoky tips in a vinegary picquant red sauce. Favorite wine choice: red, picquant zinfandel, especially from Lodi (Earthquake, Macchia and Jesse’s Grove being three house favorites), although the snappier Sonoma grown zins (like those of Quivira and Ridge Lytton Springs) always did just as well for me. Why? Lush, almost sweet jammy fruitiness combined with snappy acidity, blackpepper/clove spices and thick, meaty bodies typical of classic zins make the consumption of sweet/spicy/vinegary rib tips all the more juicy – like the most natural wine/food combination in the world.

Melanie’s Soul Foods’ Oxtails
I was often off on Tuesdays, which is oxtail day at Melanie’s. The trick was always to get there by 11 a.m. (a tall order for us night owls), because after that you’re out of luck (lines at Melanie’s are longer and more continuous than the Krispy Kremes’ in their heyday). But when I made it, I could never wait to break out a good bottle of Rioja (two reasonably priced favorites: Bodegas Bretón’s Loriñon Crianza and the Coto Real Reserva), which always provided just the right amount of breathy earthiness, soft leather-glovy textures, and pinch of acidity to match the melted fat, gelatinous, meaty taste of Melanie’s stewed oxtails. Beaujolais (preferably a plump, unsulfured Morgons from one of the infamous “Gang of Five” – Thévenet, Lapierre, Breton, Foillard or Chamonard) would be my second choice; although once I enjoyed the oxtails with a dense, earthy, brazenly sun-ripened yet rounded red from the Terra Alta region of Spain’s Catalonia called Sexto, made by Heron Wines. You get the picture: make it a smooth yet rich, soulful red (preferably European), and you can’t go wrong.

Cozy Corner’s Barbecue Chicken and Cornish Game Hen
Cozy Corner’s barbecue meats –best partaken with Cozy Corner’s spicy barbecue spaghetti and cole slaw (even the cole slaw is spicy at Cozy Corner) – are inundated with nostril penetrating smokiness, packed with thick, phenomenally expressive sauces (their spices touching all the taste buds – sweet, spicy, sour, bitter and umami). The fruitiness of softer style zinfandels (like Jesse's Grove's Earth, Zin & Fire and Laurel Glen's ZaZin) makes an the effortless match, but the more blatantly sweet oaked, smoky, sun ripened fruit forward qualities typical of Australian shiraz might be even better. I’m always partial to the syrahs of winemaker Sparky Marquis (co-originator of Marquis-Philips), who now makes an amazing South Australia shiraz under the Mollydooker label. Other top, value priced choices: Torbreck’s Woodcutter’s, d’Arenberg’s Footbolt, and Gemtree’s organically grown Tadpole.

Central BBQ’s Dry Rub Rib Slabs
Each specialty house in Memphis has its own “secret” rubs (variations of paprika, onion powder and cayenne, and taking it from there), and it’s in the roasting mediums that you get further distinctions. Central’s slabs comes out of the slow cook ovens extremely earthy and caramelized: lessons in sensory overload (you can also order “wet” slabs at Central BBQ, but sauces can blur the subtleties – yes, even jackhammer sensations have refinements – of dry rubs). The best wine matches are thick and meaty, with enough tannin and chewy wood to absorb the fat and stinging red pepper spice. Sounds like a job for petite sirah, and it is. For starters: those of Earthquake, Rosenblum and Two Angels deliver the uncontained tannin and sweetness of fruit (like peppery blueberries) you expect in this grape; although my current fave-rave petites are those of Truett-Hurst, Carol Shelton’s Rockpile Reserve, C.G. di Arie, and Parducci’s True Grit. Pure syrahs, of course, often have enough cracked pepper qualities to dial in the red and black peppery spices of Memphis dry rubs (the syrahs of Paul Lato and Skylark in California, and Spangler in Southern Oregon are among the most peppery I have recently found). Then again, there are never enough excuses to reach for an actual petite sirah… so there!

Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken
Give Gus his due: his chicken hits you like a wall of red-hot lava (presuming you’d ever survive that) – crackling sharp and unrepentantly spicy on the outside, lusciously drippy on the inside (I’m a thigh man, so that’s the way it comes out). Nothing is pre-made at Gus’s – whether you’re at a table or waiting for take-out, the wait is a good 20 to 30 minutes for your food… you just can’t hurry this. But as soon as I’m out the door with my fiery packages, I’m running as if I were carrying a time bomb. And when I finally make it to my door, it’s still ready to explode (ka-boom!). How do you spell relief in wine lingo? White wines with slight sweetness and samurai sharp acidity, which means riesling – especially the German off-drys, like Zilliken’s scintillatingly tart Saarburger Rausch Kabinett, and Gunderloch’s racy, stony Jean Baptiste. If you opt for either the steely sharp styles of riesling from the Saar (von Hövel’s are my second favorites, after Zilliken’s) or the emphatic, dried honey veneered styles of the Rheinhessen (besides Gunderloch’s, look J&H.A. Strub’s and Heyl zu Herrnsheim’s), you can’t go wrong.

Sidetrack: these rieslings also do the trick with the country style hams of Tennessee; with one caveat: this style of ham entails extreme, heart stopping salt consumption -- something you might not think is still done in this supposedly sane day and age – but no matter, because German riesling cures all!

Williams St. Grocery’s Chitterlings and Pig’s Tails
What can I say? The intestinal tracts and tail-ends of the trusty hog are truly gelatinous, razored-vinegary, toothsome experiences, best mopped up with the store’s buttered “hot water cornbread” (something shaped like swollen pancakes… don’t ask, just eat): delicacies as much at home with razor sharp rieslings (i.e. like the aforementioned – look for their driest bottlings, called trocken or halbtrocken) as with light, dry, but unmercifully tart whites, such as Austria’s grüner veltliner, Spain’s albariño, Savennières from France’s Loire, or else a mouth puckering Picpoul or Jurançon from the South of France. Whatever you do, if you’re consuming Southern style chitterlings and pig’s tails, do not go half-way with your choice of high acid in the wine (a California sun-kissed fumé, for instance, would be a wimp’s way out), for if there ever was a time for wine steeped in lemon or lime sensations, this is it.

The acid test: sauvignon blanc food matches of our dreams

2009-10-09T13:52:00.000-07:00

SAUVIGNON BLANC vs. RIESLING

Although I do not fear low acid wines for food, there’s a lot to be said for crisply balanced, elevated acidity natural to varieties like sauvignon blanc and riesling.

In the mid-nineties I invited Peter Merriman, one of the founders of the Hawaiian Regional Cuisine movement, to prepare a meal for me in his style. Whether he’s aware of it or not, Peter’s own palate tends to veer on the acidic side. So his style of cooking was just the thing I was looking for:

Quesadilla of Puna goat cheese, Kahuku shrimp & roasted macadamia nuts

Fresh Sharwell avocado, pomelo & orange salad with watercress & arugula in fresh lime with honey

Sesame crusted onaga (Hawaiian ruby, or red, snapper) with papaya relish, spicy mango sauce & organic Big Island greens

And the two wines I selected to match:

Bonny Doon, “Pacific Rim” Riesling (Washington/California/Mosel)
Cloudy Bay, Sauvignon Blanc (New Zealand)

Although the possibilities offered by the unusually dry yet flowery, fruity qualities of Bonny Doon’s new-wave style Riesling are always intriguing, instinct and experience told me that the even higher acid, powerfully aromatic Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc – from one of the world’s coldest climate growing regions – might prove to be the more natural partner for these acid driven dishes.

Pumelo

What I didn’t predict, however, was how well both wines would do what they’re supposed to do, which is make a dish taste better than it would without wine. A classic example of how this works is French goat cheese (Chèvre) matched with Loire River style sauvignon blancs (such as Sancerre). Sharing common qualities of sharp acidity and somewhat earthy grassiness, Chèvre and Sancerre have long been considered one of the predictably best food and wine combinations in the world.

The goat cheese produced in the Big Island of Hawai`i, however, is a tad milder and less acidic than traditional Chèvres of France; something probably true about artisanal goat cheeses produced elsewhere in the U.S, from California to the Georgia. In the same fashion, the taste of Hawai`i’s Kahuku raised shrimp is somewhat milder than shrimp raised in most parts of the mainland U.S. So if it was just a mild dose of acidity and flavor that Merriman’s goat cheese and shrimp quesadilla needed, it certainly was found in the moderately crisp, fruity scented Bonny Doon riesling. But making an even more dynamic statement, the exuberantly zested, melony, citrusy and grassy qualities of the Cloudy Bay seemed to slice, dice and beg the palate to come back for bite after bite of shrimp and goat cheese in the quesadilla.

In the second course, the dominant factors were the buttery avocado, the pomelo’s plump, pink grapefruity taste, and the slightly bitter edge of the greens. With the lime infused vinaigrette acting as a conduit, the riesling’s crisp, fragrant fruitiness did a neat job of balancing out the leafy, citrusy taste of the salad. But again, it was the more intensely flavorful Cloudy Bay that added an even more palate freshening dimension to this tropical style dish.

With the onaga – a meltingly soft, mild and lush white Hawaiian fish – Merriman snuck in a Malaysian chili spice into the mango sauce, and so this sweet/spice interplay as well as the crunchy fresh quality of the green beans all seemed to benefit equally by the steely edge of the riesling and the lavish, leafy greenery in the sauvignon blanc. Two wines, from two different grapes from different parts of the world, and both making these light, contemporary tropical island style dishes even fresher and livelier to the taste.

Some conclusions:

Dishes utilizing vinaigrettes, citrusy (higher acid) fruits, chili spices, and slightly bitter edged mesclun and other greens could definitely benefit from higher acid varietals like riesling and sauvignon blanc (and maybe to a lesser extent, medium acid varieties like pinot gris, albarino and torrontès).

Although one may be conditioned to reach immediately for authentic Loire River grown Sancerre or Pouilly-Fumé when dishing out a good Chèvre, you can also find a good match in any number of the world’s newer, crisp acid styles of sauvignon blanc, such as those of New Zealand and the West Coast of the U.S. – especially when goat cheese is used as a component in a dish with other ingredients.

Dishes utilizing tropical fruit as a component, or in a relish or sauce, do particularly well with more highly perfumed, tropical fruit toned varieties – beginning with exuberantly fruity rieslings, and extending to the aromatic, fruit driven styles of sauvignon blancs from the New World.

THE IDEAL SAUVIGNON BLANC FOOD MATCHES

Observations specific to this extremely food versatile grape:

Sauvignon blanc is a quintessential white wine calling for white meats (from fish and shellfish to chicken, pork or other-white-meats). Its typically crisp acidic edge and moderately medium weight does not lend itself to anything beyond that (it does not “cross over” into red meats).

The crisp, lean taste profile of sauvignon blanc does not lend itself well to dishes containing disproportionate amounts of butter or cream (use only with balancing ingredients like lemon and capers, lest the wine turns unpleasantly sharp and the dish too fatty or oily). Exceptions: the rare cases when sauvignon blanc sees some barrel fermentation or oak aging (Robert Mondavi’s Reserve Fumé and Duckhorn’s Sauvignon Blanc from Napa Valley, Chalk Hill’s in Sonoma, and the sauvignon blanc dominated L’Ecole No. 41 Luminisce from Washington are some classic versions of the latter) does give you the opportunity to balance oily with tart sensations (like fish, chicken or veal in a the classic lemon caper butter sauce).

While the finest sauvignon blancs are replete with sweet melony (and sometimes citrusy, fig-like, and/or tropical mango/passionfruit) fruit qualities, its propensity towards nuances of green herbs, cut grass or weediness in the aroma and flavor make it a natural with dishes utilizing leafy green herbs (parsley, basil, chervil, and cilantro), and to a more limited extent, the more strongly scented herbs (rosemary, thyme, marjoram and oregano).

By the same token, herb nuanced sauvignon blancs do well with dishes utilizing bell peppers (especially when roasted), olives, fennel, spinach, watercress, arugula, and most green leaf salad vegetables.

Restrained (nota bene) use of aromatically similar chile peppers (most varieties) as well as chili spices, pastes and even curry mixes all stand to benefit from sauvignon blanc’s contrasting qualities of moderate alcohol, palate freshening acidity, and melony suggestions in the nose and flavor.

Restrained use of lemon, citrus, pomegranate, tomatoes and other acid oriented fruits underscore sauvignon blanc’s natural acidic qualities.

Besides Chèvre, other mildly acidic cheeses (Greek Feta, Le Banon from France, Cabrales from Spain, Pecorino from Italy, and extra sharp Cheddars) can work well with Sauvignon Blanc.

Feel free to grill or smoke, as this often brings out the minerally or flinty qualities of sauvignon blanc (especially those of France’s Loire River – Sancerre, Pouilly-Fumé, Quincy, Cheverny and Menetou-Salon).

While sauvignon blancs are pretty much ideal for richer, fattier white meats (lobster, pork, whole chicken, etc.) with the use of complimenting ingredients, its moderately weighted, crisp quality makes it even more adept with lower fat seafoods or white meats (oysters, clams, flaky white fish, breasts of chicken, authentic veal, etc.).

While sauvignon blanc is one of the few varieties that handily match mild vinegars (particularly winy balsamic, sherry and rice wine vinegars), these components still need to be used in balance with other complimenting, or contrasting, ingredients lest the match turns into an exercise in sourness (in the dish as well as wine).

Since salt is more easily balanced by sweetness, don’t expect bone dry sauvignon blancs to work like a charm with highly salted or cured foods (although it can be done if a salty food component is balanced in the dish by specifically sauvignon blanc-friendly ingredients).

For the same reason (the grape usually has tartness, not sweetness), use pickled vegetables with care in a dish.

While sauvignon blanc is indeed a food versatile grape, it does not cross easily into the realm of Asian foods (use of ginger, star anise, shoyu, kaffir, ponzu, and disproportionate use of sugar, garlic, etc.). Better to leave that to more fragrant or aggressively spiced varieties (i.e. riesling and maybe viognier among whites, and pinot noir and syrah among reds).

SAUVIGNON BLANC FOOD MATCHES OF OUR DREAMS

Some of the more spot-on sauvignon blanc matches we have experienced over the years:

Crispy fried calamari with fennel, pasilla peppers, red onions and lemon aioli with a creamy, peachy, snappy Napa Valley sauvignon blanc by Source-Napa Gamble Vineyard at Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen in St. Helena

Deep yellow, deviled Biodynamic® eggs with fresh celery with a wildflowery fresh, lemony crisp yet silky Patianna Estate grown sauvignon blanc from Mendocino

Lobster-sweetbread ravioli with morels in a truffled foamy broth with a fuller style, airy cream and tropical fruit scented Cade Sauvignon Blanc at Meadowood in Napa Valley

Spring green salad with Chèvre and citrus in a caramelized bell pepper vinaigrette with a refined, stony scented Château Carbonnieux blanc (sauvignon blanc predominant white from France’s Graves in Bordeaux)

Fresh snapper seviche with tequila, lime and roasted sweet peppers with a flinty, lemony zested Sancerre by Reverdy

John Ash’s grilled marinated prawns with fresh melon salsa, matched with a light, mildly crisp and easy Lake County sauvignon blanc by Fetzer

Quenelles of lobster, scallops and leeks in a shiitake shellfish consommé with a light, spring-fresh Frog’s Leap Sauvignon Blanc from Napa Valley

Risotto of lobster and sea vegetables with English peas and asparagus with an intensely herbal, zesty New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc by Brancott

Wood grilled Anaheim chile stuffed with shrimp, mint and red pepper couscous with a lush, vibrant, silky textured Sonoma grown sauvignon blanc by Matanzas CreekSpicy shrimp ravioli in a citrus achiote vinaigrette with a crisply balanced Ferrari-Carano Fumé Blanc

Spicy shrimp ravioli in a citrus achiote vinaigrette with a crisply balanced Ferrari-Carano Fumé Blanc

Myths of wine & food matching and dry wine/chocolate matches

2009-10-08T21:09:00.000-07:00

Oh, to be blissfully unimpeded by thought or effort when matching wine with food. There’s nothing wrong with the “drink-whatever-you-like” approach when it comes to that. Not much different than eating: whenever you’re hungry, just open up a favorite canned food or stop by the nearest fast food joint on the way home.

But if like giving what you eat considerably more thought – planning your menu, weighing the proportions of herbs and spices, picking out vegetables at peak freshness and value prices – you know darn well that you’ll usually end up with something far better than a can or drive-through.

The same for wine: if you’re perfectly capable of picking out the perfect wine for your planned menu, then you know darn well you’ll get an even better meal than if you just pour whatever you happen to have hanging around. There is, after all, such a thing as ideal wine and food matches, and the choices aren’t nearly as narrow as you may think.

In fact, the way wines are made these days – of finer balance, and thus greater food versatility, than ever – the choices are even broader than the old guidelines; i.e. white-wine-with-fish and red-wine-with-meat. The problem with the “old rules?” The fact that in numerous circumstances, red wine tastes wonderful with fish, and white wines are often rich and full enough for even red meats.

So the first thing you need to do, once you’ve made up your mind to pick out wines as lovingly and carefully as ingredients for your meal, is to throw out those old rules, and to begin thinking more freely based upon principles of common sense, not what you’ve heard or read in some book.

With that, here are some of those culinary myths that are better left dead and buried, along with some thoughts related to basic principles of sensible wine and food matching. Those myths:

Ludicrous: that “great” wines make the greatest food matches…

In actuality, almost the opposite is true. Because I can’t put it any better, I’m going to let Kermit Lynch (quoting from his Adventures on the Wine Route) explain this to us:

When a woman chooses a hat, she does not put it on a goat’s head to judge it; she puts it on her own. There is a vast difference, an insurmountable difference, between the taste of a wine next to another wine, and the same wine’s taste with food…

Test it yourself. Take two impreccable wines, the Domaine Tempier Bandol rosé… and a bottle of Château Margaux, which many critics consider the finest Médoc of the day. Compare the two side by side. Award points. Do not be surprised if the Margaux wins handily. Now serve the same two wines with a boiled artichoke and rate them again. The Margaux is bitter and metallic-tasting, whereas the Bandol rosé stands up and dances like Baryshnikov… which is the better wine? Which wins?

In other words, that a “great” wine rates a lofty “score” is neither here nor there when it comes to food matching. If you’re preparing a Peruvian style seviche, for instance, a lemony crisp, tropical scented $12 Argentine torrontés has a far higher percentage chance of making an exciting wine match than a big, broad $25, 92-point chardonnay. But if you’re stewing chicken with fresh herbs and dumplings, that $25 chardonnay is guaranteed to taste a heck of a lot better than a $50, 95-point cabernet sauvignon.

The ins and outs of wine and food matching are all over this humble Web site, culinarywineandfoodmatching.com; and so if you care as much about looking up the perfect recipe for a perfect coq au vin blanc, then it makes sense to pay a little attention to one of many perfect wine matches for that as well.

Poppycock: that lighter style "food wines" are excuses for weak, inferior wines…

If you take a look at many of the wines of the world in regions with the greatest, most time honored culinary heritages – like Chianti in Tuscany, Sancerre in France, Rioja in Spain, and even the various pink, white and red wines of the French and Italian Riviera – you can see that the wines consumed there are actually quite light, easy to drink, and relatively lacking in the taste of oak and the feel of high alcohol which characterizes most of the "serious" wines of today.

Just because a wine is light in body and flavor doesn't make it inferior. The fact is, lighter, less expensive wines are more likely to go better with food just based on the fact that they are less likely to kill a dish, the way ketchup would on paté and brown gravy would on ice cream. Just because a wine is big and strong does not make it a better wine for your dish. This is why the great, light, easy drinking “food wines” of the world, both traditional and new, exist in the first place.

Nonsense: that big "oaky" chardonnays don't go with food…

There’s a lot of reverse snobbism these days, saying that big, rich American style chardonnays are uncool, or even just for “chicks” (thank you, Bridget Jones). This is a shame because there are actually a lot of dishes with which a full bodied, even super-oaky style of chardonnay – one loaded with not just sweet apple flavors, but also vanillin, smoky or even charred tastes – would do a lot better than a lighter, pure fruit style of wine. Smoked or wood grilled meats, for instance, love a smoky, oaky wine. California, Washington, and many Australian styles of chardonnay tend to be quite full and richly oaked to the point of creaminess (or as they say, “buttery”), which is perfect for your everyday roasted chicken, dripping in naturally buttery, fatty juices.

Then there are pork roasts, braised veal, sautéed sweetbreads, wood grilled swordfish, salmon in poaching broths… the list of oaky chard lovin’ dishes goes on and on. In fact, there probably is no better wine for a holiday turkey – especially if cooked in a charcoal or wood roaster and stuffed with chardonnay friendly sage, bread crumbs, and even seafood sausages or oysters – than any number of these "big, fat mamas," as David Rosengarten once described these unsubtle, yet perfectly delicious, styles of wines.

Hogwash: that higher acid wines are always best for food…

Wines with crisp, lemony sharp acidity are indeed wonderful for food; especially if you're having plainly cooked fish that an acidic white wine can zip up just like a squeeze of lemon. But put that same fish in a buttery sauce, or a rich, creamy or slightly salty shellfish stock reduction, and all of the sudden a high acid wine tastes thin and puckery, and the dish tastes oily and filling.

In other words, low acid wines have as much a place with food as high acid wines. In fact, low acid wines are what Mediterranean gastronomy is all about! When you look at most of the wines of Italy and Southern France, the vast majority of them are all fairly low in acid, and even "fat" with fruitiness, which only makes sense with foods driven by the taste of olive oil, plump beans and nostril tingling garlic. Hey, I’m not saying that the people who live along the north shores of the Mediterranean have got it all going on, but they seem to be enjoying life just fine.

Hooey: that sweet wines interfere with the taste of food…

In many cases, yes. But in many other cases -- a sweet/sour/salty Chinese dish, chili spiked Thai food, a sweet/chili laced barbecue sauce, slices of cured peppery sausages, a salty baked ham glazed with pineapple, or even a pizza with sweet tomatoes and caramelized onions – wines with a touch of sweetness, such as riesling or even white zinfandel, are a better balanced match than completely dry wines. Especially when dishes are really hot and spicy – in which case, slightly sweet wines can cool and freshen the palate in a way that dry wines can’t.

Balderdash: that salads and vinaigrettes are bad for wine…

Leafy greens tossed in harsh, acidic cider vinaigrettes are no good, with or without wine. But vinaigrettes made with soft, round, aromatic fine vinegars – such as balsamic, sherry, or rice wine vinegars – actually enhance, and liven up, the taste of wine. Throw in lush, vine ripened tomatoes, crunchy sweet onions, and salty, sensuous chunks of Roquefort, and you've got a fine match with off-dry riesling, a fruity chenin blanc (like a Vouvray from France), or a well chilled pink wine made from grenache, zinfandel or pinot noir.

How about the ever-popular Caprese salad (mozzarella di bufala, rounds of beefsteak tomato and ribbons of basil drizzled with pungent EVOO)… goodness, is there anything better than a soft, dry, viscous Frascati or Verdicchio from Italy? For salads made with fresh herb crusted goat cheese, it's hard to beat a crisp, dry sauvignon blanc (from New Zealand, or fumés from California and French Sancerres). Throw whole grain mustard into the dressing, and top things off with shredded duck or slivers of cold beef, then light, fragrant reds such as California or Oregon pinot noirs and Beaujolais (made from the gamay noir grape) from France come into play.

The bottom line: when it comes to salads, the choice of wonderfully matched wines is as endless as the delicious things you put in them.

Claptrap: that the richest foods need the richest wines…

This way of thinking will take you only so far. It works for red meats – big, rich cabernet sauvignons, for instance, are just right for fatty beef and lamb dishes. But when you slow cook red meats, achieving more intense, caramelized, complex flavors, a round, soft, even feminine pinot noir is more likely to beat out a big, brash cabernet sauvignon or merlot any day. Make it a Coca-Cola pot roast, then bring out the light, sprighty Beaujolais… so many rich food settings when bigger is not better.

For things like oysters, lobster, shrimp, crab and other sweet shellfishes, white wines that are fairly light, dry and crisp – such as sauvignon blanc, pinot blanc, or pinot gris (a.k.a. pinot grigio) – tend to make a fresher combination than thick, heavy chardonnay based whites from California or Burgundy in France. Spicy hot Asian seafood and vegetables dishes can be as rich as they come; and in this context, full bodied, dry style gewürztraminers from Alsace or California usually taste harsh and bitter, whereas a feathery fresh riesling or a medium sweet, low alcohol Italian moscato is more likely to soothe the palate, taming the hot sensations of exotic spices.

Bunk: that chocolate is an "enemy" of wine…

While not a card carrying member of the champagne-with-chocolate club, I say that anyone who hasn't had a Tawny Port with dense, bittersweet chocolate just hasn't lived. It's true that typical, sweet chocolates wreak havoc on things like bone dry champagne and sweet white wines, but sweet red wines handle – in fact embellish – the taste of chocolate with aplomb. Other sweet reds of this type include black, juicy Banyuls from France, rare Recioto di Valpolicellas from Veneto, and the occasional "varietal" ports (such as Justin's Cabernet-based Obtuse) and “Late Harvest” zinfandels from California.

But wait, there’s more…

CHOCOLATE & DRY RED WINE MATCHES

Does chocolate necessarily require just sweet red wines to make a good match? In recent years I have been tackling that question in earnest, experimenting with a number of chocolate matches with wines going beyond sweet reds, and have found that dry red wines can indeed make delicious matches providing these factors…

The chocolate is made with the addition of zero or little sugar, plus zero to almost minimal amounts of the usual “fillers” (like milk, butter or eggs) to dark chocolate bases.

The chocolate might contain the bitter shavings of raw cacao.

The chocolate is flavored with wine-friendly, scented ingredients

Withal, I have found that hand rolled or truffle molded chocolates made in this fashion can compliment an amazing range of dry red wines, as well as some sweet whites. A few particular favorites:

Framboise laced chocolate with silky, raspberryish cabernet franc or cabernet franc based blends (suggestions: Lang & Reed’s Napa Valley Premier Étage or Justin’s Paso Robles Justification)

Hazelnut specked chocolate with refined, woodsy Tuscan sangiovese (suggestions: Avignonesi’s Vino Nobile di Montepulciano or Castello di Fonterutoli’s Chianti Classico)

Espresso bean chocolate with lush, nut nuanced Amarone (personal choice/favorite: La Colombaia’s Amarone della Valpolicella)

Mocha flavored chocolate with tobacco-smoky, earthy, berryish Spanish tempranillo based reds (suggestions: Remirez de Ganuza’s Rioja or Tinto Pesquera’s Ribera del Duero Crianza)

Milk chocolate with shaved raw cacao, with fuller, black fruit toned pinot noir (suggestions: Radio-Coteau’s Sonoma Coast, Tandem’s Sonoma Mountain, Du Mol’s Russian River Valley, or Dierberg’s Santa Maria Valley bottlings).

Black chocolate with shaved raw cacao, with velvety, fruit forward, medium weight cabernet sauvignon (suggestions: Faust’s Napa Valley, Murphy-Goode’s Terra a Lago, or Justin’s Paso Robles cabernets)

White chocolate with key lime, with fragrantly sweet Moscato (suggestions: Saracco’s moscato d’Asti, St. Supery’s California moscato, or the Foris muscat Frissante from Southern Oregon)

Sound like a party? Works for me!

Basic guidelines to matching the Asian palate & fusion dishes

2009-10-07T20:27:00.000-07:00

In the early 1990s a well-meaning consumer had the temerity to take some of Hawai`i's new fusion chefs to task in the editorial pages of one of Honolulu’s daily newspapers. "Pacific Rim food is over-done," he opined, "and fusion cooking (is)… a ridiculous experiment gone awry... bizarre... complicated... frou frou!”

Although I personally worked with, and encouraged, pretty much the best of Hawai`i's Asian and fusion chefs, I can't say that I found those comments particularly hurtful. For one thing, it was often true; new Island cooking could be bizarre. Then again, this was the kind of cooking that captured the fancy of Island visitors and locals alike -- not to mention the lion's share of international press – and it would have been foolish for even modestly talented chefs and restaurateurs not to incorporate these new ideas.

The ironic thing, as most food culturists observe, is that there is virtually no cuisine in this world that does not represent some kind of fusion. The Italian cooking that we know today has evolved at an incredible pace since the 19th century, influenced by foodstuffs and techniques borrowed from all over the Mediterranean, and from faraway as China and America. The various cuisines of India, China, Thailand, Vietnam, and throughout Asia grew from cultures of people utilizing everything at their disposal, including all they could absorb from neighboring countries and cultures.

In American shopping malls, sushi, spring rolls, streudel, pizza, pierogi, falafel, rellenos and Polish dogs are sold side by side with nary a blink; and there's a good reason why many of these foodstuffs bear little resemblance to foods of the same name in their original countries: they've been thoroughly melted, or Americanized, into a larger pot. And it is always a matter of time before foods begin to "fuse" into something different, to the point where the untraditional becomes something of an “old” tradition… or so it always seems.

What I found particularly interesting about the occasional criticism of Hawaii's evolving cuisine was the degree of response to similar developments in other parts of the world. When I first visited Australia in 1992, for instance, I expected to find classy wine and maybe some classically defined foods with an Anglo-Aussie bent. Instead, what I found was scores of well trained, disciplined chefs applying a host of East-West, North-South, cross-cultural approaches to an enviable range of meats, seafoods, and produce for a justifiably proud and appreciative populace.

And why not? For a country once known for little beyond roast lamb and a black yeast paste called vegemite, dishes like Tasmanian rock oyster in ginger black bean beurre blanc, or wallaby roulade with native warrigal spinach chips, amount to exciting progressions in imagination and regional self-realization.

At the same time on the opposite side of the globe, Californian, Asian, and Mediterranean influences came together to form an even more peculiar culinary movement known as Modern British Cuisine. A Decanter magazine once quoted one of its ringleaders, Anthony Worral Thompson (his prawn mango ceviche, pictured left), to say: "Most Modern British chefs have trained at a serious French level and gained a good understanding of food, what works together and how it works, and when you've got that you can experiment." Basically, according to Thompson, this movement grew out of a "plundering" of ideas and ingredients -- Thai spices, Japanese soy, Irish oysters, Italian Parmesan, French truffles, Old English puddings, Baltic herring, etc. -- until it became only “a question of time before 'theirs' becomes 'ours.'" Call it progress, or gastronomic plagiarism -- the important thing for Thompson was that it was “great to have an identity and restaurants we can be proud of.”

Sound familiar? In disparate places, a building upon different (or indifferent) traditions, bringing new levels of culinary self-respect and resulting commercial success.

So are the world's newly defined "regional" cooking styles half-baked or over-done? I'm not sure if either is possible. While perhaps not as eclectic as Hawaii, virtually the entire North American continent is, after all, a melting pot. Americans have never really needed to "plunder" other traditions; they live and breathe them as we speak. I recently saw a book on Southern Appalachian cooking called Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread & Scuppernong Wine that described itself as "a celebration of foodlore handed down from Scotland, England, Ireland, Germany and the Cherokee Nation." If that's not fusion cooking, I don't know what is. Dramatic cultural crossings beyond previously known bounds have been the norm for such a long time, we'd be remiss if we didn't celebrate it!

From the wine perspective, the cultural and commercial ramifications associated with the latest and most visible culinary variations have resulted in two things:

A stronger need to expand our taste for globally sourced wines to match this growing culinary diversity

Gravitation towards wines tailored towards new foods rather than just for power, finesse, regional or varietal definition, big scores, or any other factors

If you’ve looked at the wine lists in some of today’s hipper restaurants, you are already aware of the astounding range of wines now being aggressively merchandised alongside the usual cabernet sauvignons and chardonnays: teroldego from Trentino, riesling halbtrocken from the Saar, spätburgunder from the Pfalz, lemberger (a.k.a. blaufränkisch) from Austria or Columbia Valley, cabernet franc from Chinon or Bourgueil, malbec from Cahors or Mendoza, and grenache, syrah, mourvèdre, roussanne, marsanne and viognier from everywhere from Australia’s McLaren Vale to Maipo in Spain, from California’s Central Coast to France’s Languedoc-Roussillon.

So why are restaurateurs subjecting consumers to such new fangled regions and grapes? It's easier to understand when you know why they’re needed: to match new fangled foods, particular those entailing Asian/fusion ingredients and cooking techniques. These emerging culinary styles can be bewilderingly varied – utilizing Thai spices, Japanese seasonings, Chinese vegetables, Italian herbs, and French style sauce reductions, often in one dish! In these contexts, even the most unusual wines become, well, usual – appropriate out of pure, sensory necessity.

So here are some observations on such new complications, along with a few remedies:

Lemberger (a.k.a. blaufränkisch)

The Asian/Fusion vs. European Palate

Wine, of course, is a product indigenous to European culture and gastronomy. Since wine is not natural or traditional in Asian settings, the combination may be problematic. But it is not an impossible one. What it takes is a little more imagination. It also takes a special effort to understand the problematics because nothing in the world will discourage everyday consumers from wanting to enjoy wine with Asian or Asian/Fusion foods, “natural match” or not

The major difference dishes prepared with Asian/fusion thought, and dishes prepared in traditional European styles, is the fact that Asian/fusion chefs endeavor to touch all parts of the palate as equally and intensely as possible. A good introduction to how Asians approach cooking can be found in Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid's beautifully illustrated book called Hot Sour Salty Sweet, a "Culinary Journey Through Southeast Asia." According to Alford and Duguid,

The basic (Southeast Asian) palate is hot, sour, salty, sweet, and sometimes bitter. If you order a green papaya salad from a street vendor in Thailand, the last thing the vendor will do before serving the salad is to give you a small spoonful of the salad, asking for your opinion. If you'd like it hotter, more chiles will be added; if you want it saltier, more fish sauce; more sour, lime juice will be added; sweeter, more palm sugar... And while this balancing act takes place in an individual dish like a green papaya salad, it also shapes a meal, determining what dishes should be served alongside others…

To the Duguids’ list of sensations you can also add umami (re my earlier post, Deconstructin g Umami), significant in cooking styles all over the world. While the many strands of Asian foods do not make classic wine matches because of the emphasis on multiple sensations, Asian cuisines are classic and traditional in their own right – just in different ways from European cuisines. These ways entail different ingredients, of course, but also differences in the exacting of balance and harmony in the cooking. It is not enough, for an Asian or fusion chef, to achieve intensity of sweetness, sourness, bitterness, saltiness, umami or hot spiciness. A balance of those sensations is even more important.

Which is precisely the types of wines to which Asian/fusion style dishes respond most readily: wines that emphasize a sense of balance of all sensations, as opposed to sheer intensity of any one sensation – be it body or tannin, sweetness or acidity, oakiness or no oakiness. This is why the classic "power" wines of the world – made from grapes like cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay – are not so easily matched with Asian/Fusion foods. Not when their appeal is built upon strength of, say, alcohol (contributing to body or weight), tannin and/or oak at the expense of other qualities, like crisp acidity and restrained proportions of alcohol, tannin and/or oak.

Although strong oak qualities are associated with powerful wines, oak in itself is not the issue because there are many barrel fermented or oak aged wines that are perfectly smooth, moderately scaled, crisply balanced, and therefore Asian/fusion food compatible. But when it comes to food flexibility, the most important qualities in a wine are always harmony and balance; which naturally are more likely to be found in moderately (as opposed to aggressively) oaked wines.

The same thing for sweetness: although in many camps, rieslings with a balance of crisp acidity and sweet fruitiness are thought to be ideal for foods with sweet, sour, hot and salty sensations, we have found that rieslings that are bone dry yet still crisply balanced with fresh fruitiness can work just as well, or better, with sweet, sour, hot, and salty foods.

With or without oakiness, and with or without sweetness, the best wines for Asian/dusion foods are those that are proportionate, and generally (but not always) on the lighter side in terms of weight or body.

Shichimi togarashi

Asian/Fusion Spices

New Asian/fusion cooking is often tilted towards chile spices and other hot sensations resulting from use of peppers, curries, shichimi (Japanese "seven-spice"), wasabi, rayu (spicy sesame oil), sriracha (Vietnamese and Thai chili pastes), kung pao (Chinese chili sauce), and peppercorns. These are often combined with salty, sweet and sour ingredients such as soy, miso, hoisin, lemon grass, pickled ginger, green papaya, coconut milk, oyster sauce, mirin (sweet Japanese rice wine) and ponzu (citrus vinegars), seaweeds, shrimp pastes (such as bagoong), fish sauces (patis and nuoc mam), as well as fresh fruits and/or palm sugar (a more aggressive palm sap derived sweetener) infused marinades and pronounced shellfish stock reductions.

Red Bordeaux (dominated by cabernet sauvignon and merlot) and white Burgundy (chardonnay) types may present difficulties for dishes that balance spicy hot sensations with salty, sweet and sour ones. But the choices of wines that can assimilate these multiple sensations are plentiful: beginning with whites carrying a balance of sugar and acidity (rieslings from around the world the chenin blanc-based whites from France’s Loire River, or the feathery, tropical torrontés from Argentina), or whites that are dry yet fairly light, crisp and fruity (dry style rieslings, grüner veltliner, albariño, and pinot gris). There are probably even more reds that fulfill the need for light, fruit driven, soft tannin qualities (pinot noir, lemberger, cabernet franc, many sangiovese based reds of Italy, and easier styles of syrah) for spice driven foods; and the small number of pink wines with lightly acidic edges (both rosés and vin gris of pinot noir, sangiovese, or blends of black skinned grapes) should not be overlooked either.

The operative terms are lightness (moderated alcohol), tartness (favoring combinations of higher acid varieties grown in cool climate regions), and fruitiness (for both dry whites and lower tannin reds). But it is also possible to overemphasize the factors such as body, acidity, and even fruitiness. For instance, in hot spiced food settings, gewürztraminer and muscat (a.k.a. moscato) – grapes commonly lauded for their fruity “spice” components – can be poor performers because of their propensity towards bitter phenolic and hot tasting alcohol levels, especially when fermented dry. Yet the sweet scented, spicy fruitiness of even the biggest, thickest reds such as Australian shiraz often works quite nicely with chili or wasabi laced dishes. In the latter case, when spice components in a high fat/protein meat dish are smartly balanced by sweet, salty and/or sour ingredients, a good sized, peppery shiraz (or even cabernet sauvignons laced with shiraz) often make a pleasing, and surprising, match.

By the same token, while you would expect higher acid, fruit scented dry whites made from sauvignon blanc and pinot gris to work easily with spicy dishes, they are often too severe in their acidity, or too neutral in their dryness, to make more than an “okay” match; lacking, say, the pizzaz of floral, tropical fruit qualities that an off-dry or dry riesling, an Argentine torrontés or even a simple moscato might bring to a plate of spicy food.

The same thing with merlot and even gamay noir: although fruity and low enough in tannin to make a theoretical match, the varietal characteristics of these grapes lack the inherent spiciness that make other grapes – pinot noir, cabernet franc, and even fairly high tannin zinfandels, syrahs and petite sirahs – an easier fit with aggressively spiced foods. Fusion food friendly reds are not defined by just ample fruitiness and soft tannin; some degree of spiciness in both wine and dish goes a long way towards establishing common ground and hence a good match.

Austria’s grüner veltliner

Asian/Fusion White Fish & Shellfish

Softer textured white fish and sweet/briny/meaty shellfish of all types set in Asian/Fusion contexts such as milder (sans heat) spices, lush tropical fruit, coconut milk, soy sauce, aggressively Asian seasonings (including kaffir lime, cilantro, Chinese five-spice, mirin, fish sauces, star anise, and licorice basils), slightly bitter vegetables (mesclun, eggplant, Chinese mustards and cabbages, etc.), and even traditional Mediterranean elements (balsamics, oils, tomato, basil, etc.) tend to be diametrically opposed to all but the most crisp and subtle chardonnay based whites. We have usually found far easier matches in, say, crisp-edged, moderately weighted dry whites such as pinot gris (or pinot grigio), Spain’s albariño and verdejo, Austria’s grüner veltliner, Italy’s arneis, cortese (the gavi of Piemonte) and grechetto, Southern France’s picpoul and the Loire River’s muscadet, Argentina's torrontés, and of course, sauvignon blancs and rieslings from around the world.

To the extent that many fusion style preparations of fish are finished with oils and vinegars rather than butter or cream, even mildly acidic, more densely structured or fuller alcohol white varieties may work: particularly authentic pinot blanc and pinot gris from Alsace; Northern Italy’s tocai friulano (now called just “friulano”); Switzerland’s fendant; and from France, the U.S. and Australia, marsanne, roussanne, viognier, sémillon, and the great variety of blends thereof (marsanne/roussanne, marsanne/viognier, chardonnay/grechetto, sémillon/sauvignon blanc, chardonnay/sémillon, et al.). One of the keys to these matches is moderate use (or else non-use) of oak, which can be frivolous in the context of Asian influenced fish dishes; in which case, pronounced fruitiness and complexity of aroma/flavor (terroir, mineral, floral and spice nuances) can easily accomplish the task of assimilating variant food sensations.

Meaty Red Fish In Asian/Fusion Contexts

The meaty, fleshy qualities of fish such as tuna (especially Hawaiian ‘ahi), salmon, and swordfish in Asian/fusion contexts usually make such foods more suitable to lighter, lower tannin reds than to almost any white. This has led to a significant presence of more types of varietally bottled wines such as pinot noir, cabernet franc, sangiovese, and softer styles of syrah and zinfandel on our wine lists; extending out to less familiar yet unique, interesting red wines such as Loire River cabernet francs (like Chinon and Bourgueil), tempranillo (as in lighter Riojas) and mencia from Spain, dolcetto and teroldego from Northern Italy, zweigelt and blaufränkisch from Austria, lusher styles of grenache from Australia, France (such as Gigondas and Vacqueyras) and Spain (when bottled as garnacha), and the occasional old-vine, own-rooted carignane from South-West France, Spain or California.

While not entirely present in every wine, the key components in most of these red-wine-with-fish matches are rounded tannins, moderate acidity, and moderate degrees of fruit/spice qualities. Imbued with one combination or another, red wines that enter the palate a little more softly tend to carry a much bigger stick in fleshier fusion fish contexts.

Asian/Fusion Use of Meats

The growing and more judicious use of less fatty cuts of beef, lamb, pork, poultry and game in Asian/fusion settings – often involving marinades, braising (toward caramelized sensations), and/or natural stock reductions infused with ingredients like soy, ginger, garlic, star anise, tamarind, scallion, palm sugar, lemon grass, cilantro, curry, coconut milk, tropical fruits, syrups, vinegars, and plum pastes – are particularly apropos with lower tannin or sweetly fruited reds of virtually all types. This would include softer versions of single variety red wines such as gamay noir (re France’s Beaujolais), pinot noir, merlot, cabernet franc, syrah and shiraz, zinfandel, Italy’s sangiovese based reds (not just in Chianti, but also Vino Nobile di Montepulicano, Carmignano and Rosso di Montalcino), and tempranillo (Rioja and Ribera del Duero) as well as garnacha (especially Montsant - pictured above-left - and softer styles of Priorat) from Spain or cannonau (i.e. grenache) from Sardinia.

This also creates lots of possibilities for a great variety of blends that portray a balance of rounded, juicy fruit qualities ("suggesting" sweetness without actual residual sugar) as well as exotic spice/pepper/herbal/smoky qualities over qualities of sheer power and structure. We are talking about more than just the classic blends of grenache/syrah/mourvèdre (common in Southern France and American “Rhône Rangers”), Australia’s cabernet/shiraz, sangiovese/cabernet sauvignon/merlot (alla Toscana, or Supertuscans), or tempranillo/garnacha bottlings of Ribera del Duero; but also in many of the more imaginative, even if bewildering, combinations of grapes found in many contemporary wines.

Some of the more fun, and finer, examples of these blends to be found:

Pinot noir with syrah and zinfandel: Sokol Blosser’s Meditrina (Oregon/California)
Cabernet franc and merlot: Justin's Paso Robles Justification and Sleight of Hand’s Walla Walla Valley Archimage
Sangiovese, merlot, and cabernet sauvignon: Falesco Vitiano (Umbria, Italy)
Zinfandel with merlot and cabernet sauvignon: Duckhorn's Napa Valley Paraduxx
Cabernet sauvignon with sangiovese and syrah: Long Shadows’ Columbia Valley Saggi
Zinfandel, petite sirah, charbono, tempranillo,sangiovese, lagrein, valdiquié and touriga nacional: Beaulieu’s Napa Valley Beauzeaux
Cabernet sauvignon, merlot and syrah: Treana (Paso Robles) and Bennett Lane’s Napa Valley Maximus
Merlot with pinot noir: Sportoletti's Villa Fidelia (Assisi, Italy)
Nero d’avola with frappato: Planeta’s Cerasuolo (Sicily, Italy)
Malbec with merlot: Domaine Pineraie (Cahors, France)
Malbec with tannat and merlot: Clos la Coutale (Cahors, France)
Mourvèdre with merlot and tempranillo: Carchelo (Jumilla, Spain)
Tempranillo with cabernet sauvignon: Abadia Retuerto (Ribera del Duero, Spain)
Cabernet sauvignon with gaglioppo: Librandi’s Gravello (Calabria, Italy)
Carmenère with merlot and cabernet sauvignon: Veramonte's Primus (Valle Centrale, Chile)
Syrah with cabernet sauvignon and petit verdot: L’Adventure’s Optimus (Paso Robles)
Syrah, cabernet sauvignon and merlot: Va Piano’s Bruno’s Blend (Walla Walla Valley)
Syrah, cabernet franc and cabernet sauvignon: Fox Creek's JSM (McLaren Vale)
Blaufränkisch, cabernet sauvignon, zweigelt, and merlot: Pichler's Arachon Evolution (Austria)
Tinta roriz and touriga nacional: Quinta do Crasto (Portugal)
Touriga nacional, touriga franca and tinta roriz: Quinta de Roriz’s Reserva and Jose Maria de Fonseca’s Domini (Portugal)
Garnacha with cariñena, cabernet sauvignon and syrah: Clos Abella’s Porrera (Priorat, Spain)
Garnacha, cariñena, tempranillo, lledoner pelut noir, cabernet sauvignon and syrah: Heron’s Sexto (Catalonia, Spain)
Callet with montenegro-fongoneu and syrah: An/2’s Anima Negra (Mallorca, Spain)
Grenache, cabernet sauvignon, syrah and cinsault: Boekenhoutskloof’s The Chocolate Block (South Africa)

… and many more from all around the world, existing for two good reasons: their great commercial appeal, and because of our rapidly expanding culinary needs.

The bottom line is that fusion style chefs around the world are cooking up a storm. This style of cuisine is alive and kicking, becoming marks of sophistication to which consumers are responding accordingly. We may be just beginning to understand the specifics of the ideal wine matches; but the possibilities will probably remain as endless as the evolution of wines and foods, and as varied as our ever-changing definitions of wine quality and culinary appreciation.

SOME BASIC GUIDELINES TO MATCHING ASIAN/FUSION FOODS

When either cooking in Asian/fusion styles for many of these contemporary wines, or selecting wines for the endless variations of Asian/fusion dishes, it is important to keep these useful guidelines in mind, beginning with a reiteration of the basic “Asian/fusion palate”:

Asian/fusion foods tend to utilize the entire palate of taste and tactile sensations (unlike Western foods).

Because harmony and balance of multiple sensations is essential to the quality of Asian/fusion food preparation, wines that emphasize harmony and balance rather than pure power or strength tend to have the highest percentage chance of matching these foods.

Fruit forward wines – whether completely dry or a little sweet, or whether white, red or pink – have the highest percentage chance of matching foods with elevated hot, sour, salty, sweet, bitter and umami intense sensations.

Soft or lower alcohol/tannin/oak wines tend to “feel” smoother and thus also have a higher percentage chance of working in Asian/fusion contexts.

Although not necessary, sweetness in both food preparation and wines can offer a balancing contrast to saltiness, as well as hot spiced, sour, or high fat components in foods.

Fruity wines can suggest sweetness (through “sweet” aromas and flavors) without actual residual sugar content (i.e. fruity yet dry wines).

“Fruit driven” wines of any sort tend to match dishes with sweet components.

Spicy aroma/flavor components in wines respond positively to similar “spice” components in foods (i.e. use of chiles, varieties of peppercorn, chili powders and pastes).

Higher acid (“crisp”) wines respond positively to dishes with similar sensations (i.e. with use of mildly acidic vinegars, citrus fruits, sour greens, etc.).

Lower acid (“soft”) wines respond to dishes with similar sensations (i.e. use of butter, oils, and creams).

Barrel fermented whites (i.e. typical chardonnays) tend to have creamy or buttery textures, and thus respond positively to dishes with similar sensations (i.e. use of butter and creams).

Strongly oaked (“smoky”) wines, whether white or red, have their place with foods with smoky sensations (i.e. wood or charcoal grilled, roasted, smoked, or charred).

High tannin (“big” or “hard”) reds prefer high fat/protein foods, or some use of peppers, radishes or mustards to balance the bitter sensations of tannin.

Low tannin (“soft” or “round”) reds prefer lower food fats and proteins (especially “white” meats or dishes incorporating small portions of lean red meat).

Soft, elegant, complex and/or well matured wines are ideal with high umami foods (i.e. use of mushrooms, truffle, seaweeds, aged cheeses, vine ripe tomatoes, braises, natural stock reductions, etc.)

Unbalanced wines and foods (i.e. bad cooking and lousy wines) are unlikely to go with anything!

Cabernet sauvignons past & present, and the foods we love to eat with them

2009-10-06T10:37:00.000-07:00

I’m absolutely sure that every wine professional who cut his or her teeth on California cabernet sauvignons from the seventies and eighties remembers things differently. For me, it’s still like yesterday, since these were the days when, for me, blind and double-blind tastings ruled the day. We didn’t “score” wines then (I obviously still don’t, to this day… an unnatural act then, and even more unspeakable now!), but we did rank them, and discussed them for hours and hours at a time.

During perhaps the most interesting years, when the seventies transitioned into the eighties, California cabernet sauvignon was evolving into a richly aromatic, yet round and elegantly structured style of wine. The models then were the older classics like Beaulieu’s Georges de Latour Private Reserve – invariably, everyone’s ideal – along with then-newer classics like Robert Mondavi’s Reserve, Ridge’s Monte Bello, and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars’ Stag’s Leap District (the latter, fresh off its “victory” in Paris in 1976).

At the turn of the eighties the cabernet sauvignons of Silver Oak, Joseph Phelps, Laurel Glen and Jordan were still fairly new “upstarts”; and our judgements of them, invariably mixed, but generally positive. We found that Chappellet, Freemark Abbey, Chateau Montelena, Sterling, and even the vaunted Heitz often rendered interesting, if aggravatingly inconsistent, cabernets inviting as much debate as dismay. On the other hand, Caymus’ Special Selection was already carving out its iconoclastic niche, Beringer was just beginning to get its act back together again, and Mayacamas typified a growing number of hillside growths appealing to those who didn’t mind inky black wines of gaudy girth, destined to never grow up (we knew that, even then).

The great André Tchelistcheff, Beaulieu Vineyard

These times were particularly interesting for guys like me, making repeated trips to the West Coast to witness an industry undergoing dramatic change: most significantly, the steady cabernezation of Napa Valley (out with the chenin blanc, zinfandel, riesling, et al.), the transitioning of vines from the old California sprawl to incomparably more efficient vertical or horizontal shoot positions (in my mind, the single biggest factor effecting transitioning styles in the bottle), and everywhere you looked, the appearance of chardonnay, pinot, merlot, etc. in fields where only cow pies, orchards and woodlands once existed.

But you know what I liked best about the years before and after the turn of the eighties? These were good days for working sommeliers because California cabernet sauvignons were still largely seen, and presented as, ideal “food wines” – full and rich enough to satisfy true-blue red wine lovers, yet soft and fruit-forward enough to drink with a wide range of dishes. Even when young – you could take home most newly minted ultra-premium cabernets and enjoy them guilt-free that night!

In stark contrast, it was red Bordeaux that was criticized for being more of the wines that you collect rather than drink: hard, largely green and underripe, typically severe with tannin and even excess oak – very food-unfriendly, especially in youth. Indeed, these were rough times for many of the Bordeaux grand crus, just beginning to reassert themselves after a string of lean or tough vintages going back to the sixties, and the painful transition from a generation of neglectful proprietors, many of them still coasting on the region’s reputation (with little incentive to embrace viticultural and oenological advances).

In 1984 the Democrats (what’s new?) were fighting among themselves, asking "where's the beef?" Which was exactly what I thought when I first read the polemic by Robert M. Parker Jr., who suddenly emerged with his Wine Advocate magazine to declare: "The wonderful excitement of California Cabernet Sauvignons that existed in the '70s, largely as a result of daringly bold, interesting, individualistic, rich and flavorful wines, has been replaced by blandness and dull uniformity...

"A major problem," according to Parker, "is that everyone wants to make a 'food wine,'" which are "nothing more than lean, boring wines with little flavor interest or character."

Parker, of course, was to become far more famous, and influential, than me. But I’m sorry to say, even at that time I thought that what he was saying was basically dumb, for a number of reasons:

1. With the obvious technological advances in the field and wineries, and increased plantings of blending grapes like merlot and cabernet franc (real work with malbec and petit verdot is still to come, to this day), there was no way that I could see California cabernet sauvignons becoming “bland” or “dull.” Where Parker saw weaker wines, I saw increasingly more complex, layered wines.

2. Of course, we could all see what Parker was about in the eighties: cabs that were “awesome,” boasting “gobs of fruit” and other exaggerated qualities. No wonder, I thought, he couldn’t see the evolving complexity: cabernets of the early eighties were getting too subtle for him!

3. Besides, who says the cabs of the seventies were so “great?” True, there were glimpses of greatness in unusually kind vintages, like 1970 and 1974; but during the rest of the decade, when Nature was not so forgiving to cabernet growers and their unruly plantings, most cabernets represented the flawed efforts of an industry still growing into itself: when not green or vegetal, cabs that were raisiny-ripe, fat or awkward; when not dull or washed-out cabs vinified by indifferent winemakers, cabs that were extracted to excess with palate numbing tannin and oak by over-reaching winemakers. To me, this was more typical of cabernets in the seventies: largely uneven quality, with only occasionally (or accidentally) something to write home about.

Despite the myopia of Parker and his growing minions, California’s cabernets continued to improve just fine into the mid-eighties, thank you. Mondavis, BVs and Jordans became more Mondavi-like, BV-ish and Jordanesque (i.e. increasingly elegant, rather than heavy handed, in scale and proportion). Caymus SSs, Beringer Private Reserves and Phelps Insignias became even more emblematic of their respectively big, muscular yet poised styles; while cabs by Heitz, Freemark Abbey, Stag’s Leap and others continued to lurch between dirty/leathery bottlings and moments of either brighter or duller fruit definitions (in other words, dependent upon the shaky skills of their winemaking teams rather than deliberate stylistic choices).

Meanwhile, by the mid-eighties, newcomers like Niebaum-Coppola’s Rubicon, Dominus, Groth, and Dunn began to heat up with wines making most cabernets from the seventies look puny by comparison; while others like Shafer, Opus One, Spottswoode, and Etude explored more elegant parameters, notwithstanding the clamor for high scoring behemoths. Point being: by the mid-eighties it was plain to see that cabernet sauvignon specialists were taking bold individualism to the next level; setting the table, as it were, for the onslaught of small production, over-the-top styles we would see throughout the following decade.

With the increasingly crowded field, of course, came 100 point scores, which helped stoke interest in the steady proliferation of cabernets. But at what price? The big negative: pushed along by retailers (we restaurateurs never sold by numbers), consumers became conditioned to buy according to scores, rather than taking the time to develop their own taste. Who’s to say, for instance, that you might prefer a Honig over a Stag’s the same way you might enjoy a Dan Brown more than a James Joyce, Dumb & Dumber more than Citizen Kane, 50 Cent more than Charles Mingus, an In-N-Out burger more than a Capitol Grill bone-in… you would never know if you governed your life by what other people tell you rates a higher “score.” If anything, numerical scales have stunted the growth of at least a generation of wine enthusiasts.

Thank goodness, almost all of us have been conditioned to appreciate fashion, films, books, food, music, cars, and virtually all other things involving as little as a pinch of aesthetic choice, without having to rely on the judgement of a few tastemakers, communicating by one set methodology. But when it comes to wines, I’m ashamed to say, most of us have been complete pansies, plain and simple; despite the simple fact that even moreso than other aesthetic interests, the appreciation of wine is highly individualistic, dependent as it is on sensory perception of sensations that are elusive at best, and often illusionist (i.e. perceived through power of suggestion).

Then again, the inability of wine lovers to function as free thinking individuals hasn’t been the only casualty of Parkerization (and, I suppose just as much, Spectator-related symptoms). Numerical ratings may have “helped” consumers the way paint-by-numbers helps someone understand art, but the more literal price we have all had to pay has been the turning of limited production cabernet based reds into “cult” wines, appealing to the base needs of spendthrifts willing to shell out $100, $200, or over $300 a bottle for Screaming Eagle, Scarecrow, Dalla Valle, Bryant Family, Harlan, Colgin, Araujo, Leonetti, Quilceda Creek, et al. All beautifully sculpted wines, mind you; but sadly, priced in gross disproportion to their actual quality out of sheer demand generated by the mindless mania for numbers.

But wait, as they say, there’s more. whatever happened to the notion of cabernet sauvignons that are just as suitable for food as for oohing and ahing? The irony, of course, is that the market today is still dominated by the same proportion of ubiquitous brands made in the lean, light style Parker was decrying twenty-five years ago. For every big winner, there are always at least twenty also-rans. But to me, lightness has never necessarily inferred food compatibility – like saying, every Democrat has a warm heart, or that all beautiful people are good in bed. If a cabernet is lean and boring by itself, it is usually lean and boring with dinner.

But when cabernet sauvignon is good, it is not just rich and full of the concentrated, cassis-like berry and smoky oaked characteristics associated with the varietal, it automatically invites fun food matches by sheer nature of its intensity and balance. Why? Because it is always easier to match food with wines that are balanced with a plethora of fruit or flavor interest, rather than a whole lot of nothing.

Case in point: in the late nineties, I once saw Madeleine Kamman (who for years presided over Beringer's School for American Chefs) whip up some breasts of chicken stuffed with green peppers, chicken sausage, and (of all things) pineapple, serving this in a cabernet shallot deglaze with a five year old Beringer Reserve. I had no idea how even tropical fruit, merged cunningly with bell peppers (a flavor element found in super powered cabs), could play up a young, boisterous cabernet's fruitiness while smoothing out its tannins, but it did... or in a recent parlance, wham!

Granted, not everyone can magically transform chicken into a cabernet match like Kamman. For most of us, a safer bet with, say, a Napa Valley cab is a Friday night beef stew or a restaurant prime rib; but come on, where’s the buzz? The better cabernets of today may be massively endowed, but they are also coming with increasingly more flavor and textural complexity to match multi-faceted dishes. Let’s talk about those wines; but before that, some basic thoughts on cooking for cabernet sauvignon:

IDEAL CABERNET SAUVIGNON FOOD MATCHES

• It’s no relevation that cabernet sauvignon is basically a red meat wine (particularly lamb and beef, although venison and bison also fit the bill); although simply plopping protein on a plate is not enough, because there may be no tougher match for a young, tannin loaded cabernet than a lean cut of red meat (like filet mignon) cooked to a well-done dryness (like washing down shoe leather with black, bitter coffee). If you’re cooking for a full bodied cabernet, you need to give its tannin either fat or natural juices to sink its teeth in, or else other bitter compounds such as cracked peppercorns (all colors), mustard seeds or horse radish to help balance out, and smooth over, the drying, bitter taste of tannin.

• The char of wood grilling can help balance both tannin and toasty oak qualities in aggressive cabs (smoked salts, or even subtle use of liquid smoke in mild marinades, may also work in this fashion).

• A good idea is grilling or pan frying with scented herbs that mingle pleasingly as notes of similarity with the natural green herbal qualities (in cabernets, the methoxpyrazine referred to as IBMP, or 2-methoxy-3-isobutylpyrazine) underlying even the ripest bottlings; particularly, thyme, savory, sage, marjoram and rosemary.

• The underlying IBMP of cabernets also identifies well with fresh mint, dill, olives, and bell peppers (all colors), while woody spices like nutmeg, mace, juniper and allspice mix well with cabernet spices tinged by oak aging.

• Richly fruited cabernets also respond to sweet seeded fruits like plum, blackberry or cherry despite the residual sugar (one simple method: after cooking while allowing meats to rest, finishing pans with a splash of cabernet, the juice of dark fruits, some beef or veal stock and pads of butter).

• For sautéing, the aromatic holy trinity of garlic, shallots and butter contrast effortlessly with cabernet flavors.

• Excess sweetness in sauces and dressings (for gamy birds like squab, pigeon, duck or goose) will only accentuate tannins to dry, bitter effect; yet use of just moderately sweet fruit will highlight the berry complexities of more concentrated cabernets.

• The simplest example of combinations of cabernet friendly components in a dish is a cheeseburger loaded with Cheddar (darker, firmer aged cheeses match the deep quality of cabernets better than young, sour, white or blue veined cheeses), roasted mild chiles (touches cabernet’s green notes), and ketchup augmented with Tabasco (another chile note) and rounded out (i.e. sharpness reduced) with mayonnaise and/or Thousand Island; and of course, at least 80% ground beef for suitable fat content.

• Mildly bitter vegetables (especially when grilled) like eggplant, endive, Chinese broccoli, summer squash, and zucchini might round out cabernet sauvignon on a plate and in the palate; while green beans, peas, celery root, spinach, fennel, and other herbal nuanced vegetables can play off a cabernet’s herbaceousness.

• If you’re incorporating mushrooms, use the “wild” varieties; preferably darker, stronger, earthy, meaty mushrooms (like morel, shiitake, porcini or portobello) that are friendlier to full bodied reds like cabernet sauvignon (avoid truffles, except when cooking for the most mature cabernet based reds – at least, fifteen, twenty years old – that have developed organic aromas).

• As with the biggest of white wines, chardonnay, you can only ask cabernet sauvignon to go so far with foods that incorporate sensations that are pointedly sweet (as in Port or Madeira sauces, or Asian style syrups), sour (use of sharp vinegars or goat cheese), hot (not just excess chili seasonings, but also heavy-handed garlic and ginger root), or salty (soy sauce and blue cheese) – cabernet is not your ideal Asian or tropical “fusion” wine!

• Finally, if a cabernet is especially young, heavy, and laden with oak and tannin, unrestrained use of butter or cream (like, say, blending a pint of sour cream into a sauce) might skew the match towards bitterness; the same thing for slow roasted meats (especially if sweetened by carrots and onions) that develop caramelized sugars, making a tannic cabernet taste harder and dryer.

• The older the wine (fifteen or more years for West Coast cabernet sauvignons, twenty or more years for reds like Médoc crus), the more subtle, and umami-clever, your use of cabernet food components need to be.

MATCHING FOOD WITH CONTEMPORARY CABERNET SAUVIGNONS

By no means has the evolution of California cabernet, especially in Napa Valley, been one gloriously straight, ascending line. Trellising and canopy management helped open up vines, reduce herbaceousness, and highlight sweet fruit components in the cabernets of the eighties, but it took more replanting in the nineties (initially in response to the influx of phylloxera) to lick other persistent issues, like over-ripeness (leading to soaring alcohol, flabby textures and pruny flavors) and harsh, uncontrolled tannin – problems, in retrospect, that were not atypical of even the ballyhooed cult cabs of the nineties. Further shoot positioning, shoot and leaf thinning, cover cropping, micro-managed deficit irrigation, more sustainable soil management, rethinking crop loads, and redirecting of entire rows and vine spacing have all been part of the work that has brought today’s cabernets into finer balance, with rounder mouthfeels and more focused varietal definition.

So here’s a rundown on some of these contemporary cabernet sauvignon based reds, along with some food thoughts:

Selene's Mia Klein

Selene, Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley)

For me, Mia Klein’s Selenes have emerged as paragons of power and saturated fruit sumptuousness, while by no means timid in color, tannin or oak – everything draped in dense, velvet robes. Klein, of course, has left similar marks on several vintages of Dalla Valle (even the cabernet franc dominated Maya, every bit as explosive as pure cabernet sauvignons), Araujo and Viader during her career as a consulting winemaker: a track record of wines that put seamless textural feel above all other qualities, without sacrificing one iota of intensity and generosity. Interestingly enough, on more subdued levels I’ve found that Cathy Corison’s Corison cabernets have shared similar qualities; but perhaps even moreso, you’ll find the same magnificently deep, round, fleshy characteristics in the cabernets of Neyers, crafted for many years by Ehren Jordan (Neyers’ Conn Valley âme, for instance, is an essence of liquefied velvet).

So what do I do with a cabernet like Selene (or for that matter, a Corison’s or Neyers’)? Because it’s one of the rare ultra-cabs that tucks its tannin beneath its textured fruit, it’s one of the few that does well with leaner cuts of beef (especially pillowy tenderloins) sauced in cabernet tinged demi-glace. You could settle for that, or infuse the sauce with a purée of roasted sweet red peppers to beef up the varietal character. But if you really want to take a chance, pan sear the tenderloin with thyme, deglazing with cabernet, demi-glace and, instead of butter, pads of a triple crème like Explorateur or St. André in order to juxtapose green herby notes with a creamy texture, reflecting the sumptuousness of the wine.

Mark Neal (with son, Zachary)

Neal Family Vineyards, Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley)

The beauty of Beaulieu Private Reserve stretching from the sixties through the nineties (the vintages I’m familiar with) was its commitment to a sort of an elegant composure: concentrations of blackcurrant fruit kept lush and velvety instead of tough and tannic, dense and muscular rather than fat and soft, and rich and compact as opposed to big and blustery. Well, we might have to enjoy just the memories of that now, since a tastings of recent vintages of BVs seem to signal a subtle yet significant movement towards a bigger, more opulently fruited, vigorously tannic, generously oaked style more in tune with contemporaries, perhaps reflective of the inevitabilities of corporate ownership (the winery now run as part of the spirits conglomerate, Diageo).

Or, we can turn to the judiciously crafted coterie of cabernets now being culled from Mark Neal’s meticulously cultivated CCOF certified organic vineyards in Rutherford, Howell Mountain, Mount Veeder and Atlas Peak. While aromatically and structurally representative of their respective AVAs, Neal style cabernets share common traits of seamless, smoothed textures, and noses that emphasize sweet, organic notes of the varietal fruit above other qualities.

From Rutherford, for instance, Neal’s Wykoff Vineyard bottlings are strikingly graceful – moderate in weight, and seductively forward in shriveled blackcurrant, cassis-like perfumes… recalling Andre Tchelistcheff’s analogies of dark Russian princesses in long, black, soft leather gloves. From an east-facing slope going up Howell Mountain, Neal’s Fifteen-Forty flashes a workout devotee’s sinewy bicep, yet sensuously curved, sweet blackberry sensations embedded in glycerol and nuanced smokiness. From a much rockier hillside site, the Neal Second Chance Vineyard is a fully endowed, masculine package of mint, blackberry, bell pepper, herbal tea, steely acid and gripping tannin, yet still chiseled to an exacting, marbly smooth finish.

Who else is fashioning such distinctly delineated cabernets? Not too many, since today’s prevalent style is towards denser “wall of flavors” -- as if everyone wants a Phil Spectorized wine that can shout it from the mountain or from rivers deep. However, Quintessa seems to at least strive towards that velvety, moderately weighted, BV inspired style, albeit in the chocolate-covered-blueberry guise unique to its hilly Rutherford estate. By virtue of its own steep site, Viader has established a strong record of cabernet sauvignon dominated blends, typically made up of violets and chocolaty cherries wrapped in silk and tied in leather stringed tannin. I’ve recently enjoyed an ’05 Gamble Family Home cabernet sauvignon that displayed a fairly even keeled array of cassis, blackberry, green pepper, mint and dusty olive qualities, and an ’05 Honig Mitchell Vineyard that came layered with framboise and mint, proffered on a throne of tannin with taut velvet upholstering.

Otherwise, I’m scratching my head, wondering where the compositional approach has gone; especially since these are the cabernets that are perhaps the most versatile on the table. If you like an herbed (i.e. herbes de Provence) or pepper crusted tuna steak, for instance, a Neal Family cabernet is round and fleshy enough to enhance rather than obliterate it; especially if finished with, say, a deglaze of cabernet, green peppercorns, veal stock and butter. Ditto for wok charred strips of beef with peppers, onions, meaty mushrooms, beef stock, and smidgens of soy and cabernet – it has to be an elegantly rounded wine to match this unfussy yet cab-friendly meal.

Otherwise, the mint and pepper notes of these rich yet soft edged wines are naturals for the most natural cabernet sauvignon match of all: mildly gamy lamb -- like chops rolling in a hot buttery pan with green herbs like rosemary, or else finished with juicy plums or berries. Oh, and... please pass the mint jelly.

Levendi Winery, Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley)

I’m singling out this brand among the tangle of new fangled Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon producers of recent years not because it’s destined for greatness – the winery’s stated goal of producing soft, immediate drinking styles of cabernet will never earn it “monumental” scores – but because its wines represent the high toned, lusciously sweet, almost zinfandelish abundance of fruit qualities a Napa grown cabernet can attain, given the vineyard technology of today. This is as opposed to just ten, twenty or thirty years ago, when a soft, drinking style of cabernet meant something either dull or bland (i.e. the Christian Brothers, Charles Krug and Louis Martini cabs of olde) or pungently bell pepper-green (you may associate this with big production regions like Chile, but it’s been just as common a theme in ubiquitous California brands like Simi, Carmenet, Estancia, and Robert Mondavi).

The wines of Levendi, owned by an Orange County partnership, are the product of Alison Doran, whom longtime California wine lovers will remember as Alison Green, the former André Tchelistcheff protégé (in the seventies at Simi with Mary Ann Graff, and then at Firestone in Santa Barbara). Doran does craft full sized single vineyard bottlings built upon strong firmaments of tannin; but like her blends (particularly Levendi’s Symphonia), even the Levendi Sweetwater Ranch (100% cabernet sauvignon from a 1,000 foot-plus hillside on the eastern side of Oakville) is characterized primarily by an effusive nose and fruit forward mouthfeel suggesting mixtures of wild cherry, blueberry jam, blackberry or cassis, and sweet, leafy chocolate mint.

What’s the big deal? For food purposes, I’ve found that it’s cabernets like these that are big enough to handle leaner, chewy, voluminous meats like venison and bison, yet sweet toned enough to balance the aggressive preparations common to these meats – like mildly sweet marinades, fruit compotes, or hard spices like juniper and clove.

Sure, such wines are performing the same culinary roles that big zinfandels, or syrahs and petite sirahs, easily fill, but are usually destructive when involving cabernet’s usual hard edged tannin. But if you enjoy sweetly marinated red blooded game, but prefer the minty, cassis-like character of cabernet sauvignon – well, here’s your wine.

For well past thirty years, of course, the cabernet sauvignons that epitomized fruit forward intensity have been those of Silver Oak; and while as popular as ever, the winery’s continued devotion to pungent, extended American oak regimes are bound to keep its appeal decidedly within its own niche. A similar “drinking” style of Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon, sweetened by generous doses of French oak, are those of Cakebread Cellars, which dial up upbeat, sweet toned flavors well above fine-grained tannins (even their Howell Mountain grown Dancing Bear Ranch tends to favor spiced plum and dried fig fruitiness over structural strength). And from further south in Paso Robles, Justin Isosceles has garnered a strong following with its tautly balanced yet lush, liquid, fruit bomb style of cabernet sauvignon driven blends.

On the even more serious side, the newly resurrected Ghost Block Estate (owned by Bonded Winery Number 9, in Oakville across Hwy. 29 from Mondavi) offers similar sensations of distinguishably sweet mint amidst whole bushels of berries. The voluminous, densely structured cabernets of Rudd Winery are usually just as precocious in Christmas pie-like varietal fruitiness. The cultish Peju Reserve is no girly-mahn, yet its profile is appealingly fruit forward, going for lavish opulence while maximizing rounded mouthfeels. Nothing wrong with any of that, especially if you have a penchant for wildly flavorful meats that are enhanced by fruit sensations in the wine as much as dish.

Robert Sinskey, Los Carneros Marcien (Napa Valley)

Rob Sinskey affectionately dubbed his top-of-the-line blend (merlot/cabernet sauvignon/cabernet franc) Marcien – French for “from Mars” (or, “you must be crazy”). Sinskey says he calls it Marcien because when the winery first planted Bordeaux grapes in Carneros (a cold region with shallow clay soils rather than the deep gravel and moderate climate associated with Bordeaux), some people said they were nuts.

Needless to say, everyone loves that crazy guy with the dirty coat who finally gets the girl. Investing Carneros real estate to Bordeaux varieties may have been certifiable, but there’s nothing weird about a Bordeaux inspired blend except for the fact that Sinskey’s effort is genuinely deep and delicious – fulfilling the promise of that dubiously named concept, Meritage™. Although I find most California Meritage™ reds as exciting as five hours of bad Italian opera, in the Marcien there is a truly dramatic melding of contrasting varietal characteristics: beginning with a merlot base that is properly plush and plump, knit to the black, wild, plummy, licorice, gnarly tobacco and smoky room qualities associated with the cabernet grapes.

The good news is that Sinskey is not the only one finally making something out of this style of assemblage. Napa Valley’s John Skupny, who has been perfecting the art of cabernet franc during the past decade with his Lang & Reed Premier Étage, has recently come out with a new animal called Right Bank (53% cabernet franc/30% merlot/9% petit verdot/8% cabernet franc) which, for all the world, is one of the few wines outside of Saint-Émilion that recalls a graceful Canon-la-Gaffelière, or a wildly tender La Mondotte – gathering black cherry, blackcurrant and crushed mint into a perfectly round yet densely woven potable.

Meanwhile, well under the radar, on the other side of the Petrified Forest in Alexander Valley, Dave Ready Jr. has been engineering Bordeaux style blends at Murphy-Goode Winery with almost ridiculous ease; including a bright, silken, Pomerol-ish Wild Card Claret (53% merlot, with cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and petit verdot), plus an even richer All In Claret (58% cabernet sauvignon asserting blackberry and framboise concentration, riding on velvet qualities of merlot and compact, steely underpinnings of petit verdot).

But of course, since the Murphy-Goodes are from Sonoma, they are but naïve domestic blends, amusing in their presumptuousness. As proprietary blends go, anyone would be remiss not to remark on the Napa Valley classics; such as laudable consistency of the fabled Joseph Phelps Insignia – a winemaker’s chef d’oeuvre, if there ever was one. But in accordance with the original conception, a Bordeaux style blend should be more of a meditation on a single estate, rather than a representation of a winery’s wealth of varied vineyard sources. In that respect, I’m compelled to mention the remarkably deep, broad, magnificently sculpted series of wines fashioned by Pamela Starr as Crocker & Starr Stone Place (in recent vintages, predominantly cabernet sauvignon) from the heart of the Crocker Estate in St. Helena. In my mind, Stone Place sits right up there with Dalla Valle Maya (with its notably large proportions of cabernet franc), the rarified Araujo Eisele, Christian Moueix’s Dominus Estate, and the increasingly more ferocious (at least in recent vintages) Rubicon Estate. In any case, the aforementioned five appear to be the most serious of the Napa Valley growths planted to Bordeaux grapes today.

Maria Helm's braised veal shanks

Intricate wines might call for intricate dishes, but we can’t all be Julie and spend six hours laboring over a Julia Child recipe. Rob Sinskey happened to marry an extremely talented chef named Maria Helm (formerly of San Francisco’s Plumpjack Café), who’s smartly tailored this cook-ahead recipe for braised veal shanks with olives and bay leaves to take full advantage of the way a round, viscously textured Bordeaux style blend coalesces with the gelatinous richness achieved in slow cooked meat. In fact, any variation of classic osso buco that dispenses with heavy use of tomato (but instead, focusing on natural reductions infused with cabernet friendly herbs like dill or thyme) would work in the same way.

Julie Johnson

Tres Sabores, Rutherford Perspective Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley)

By now you can see my theme of highlighting cabernet sauvignon based reds that are less likely to garner that cover on the Wine Spectator; but which, to me, represent the direction we are seeing the grape going towards today. Well, at least where I hope it will go, which is further back into a future…

Speaking of which: no winemaker has been more closely associated with Rutherford than the late André Tchelistcheff, whom I first interviewed in 1983. At that time there were about 4,000 planted acres in Napa Valley (there are nearly four times that today). Said Tchelistcheff, in his usual Russian inflected, convoluted terms, “California’s best red wine is cabernet sauvignon… within the 450 acres that we used for Beaulieu Vineyard, I had only 40 acres that was able to produce Private Reserve… after 43 years of experience, I can locate just specific sections, specific physical and chemical constitutions in the soil, that can create great cabernet.”

Years later, in 1992, I met Tchelistcheff again, seated next to him in a double-blind tasting. Between flights I took the chance to ask about the latest viticultural advances in Napa; particularly new trellising technology and canopy management, resulting in claims that even better and greater quantities of great cabernet sauvignon might be produced. Suddenly the bushy brows over those famous eyes began to dip like dark clouds, as he issued his rebuke: “That is rubbish – you should not believe everything you read! Technology or science alone can never replace natural elements… Mother Nature is still in charge, and it is Mother Nature who expresses her wish that great vineyards should grow only so much wine, and no more... there is more cabernet sauvignon being grown in Napa Valley than ever before, but there will never be more than a few cabernets of true Private Reserve quality.”

History, of course, has shown that Napa Valley can very well produce much more top quality cabernet sauvignon; but perhaps because I was weaned on BV Private Reserves, I still found myself picking those BVs “first” in blind tastings, even as recently as the ’99 vintage. So, for me at least, Tchelistcheff has always been correct.

Which is why Tres Sabores, a tiny (12 acres) Rutherford estate, begs discussion. As a vigneron, Tres Sabores’ Julie Johnson doesn’t have that legendary cabernet éclat associated with Tchelistcheff, Tony Soter, or even Mia Klein. The name Johnson doesn’t have the golden glow of an Abreu or Melka, nor even the making-of-a-cult moniker of a Celia Masyczek. What she does do is generate a cabernet sauvignon that is dry farmed on her home at the western edge of Rutherford – wooded and beset with wildlife – where everything that lives and breathes is an extension of Johnson’s sustainable (and CCOF certified) outlook. The result is a cabernet sauvignon that is as powerful as any, but with a natural, organically defined length, balance and buoyancy: dusty blackberry and dried plum aromas tinged with cedar and rose petal/star anise-like spice; the body, medium-full (not gigantic), dense, chocolaty rich on the palate, with the plush velvet (or what Johnson calls, “scarlet carpet”) rolling-pinning over the muscular tannins, as the wild fruit flavors shoot into a tubular finish.

Diving further in, it’s that sense of restraint that ends up extending the wine over the palate, and the sweet plum and almost Chinese-y spice, that identifies the Perspective as a classic Rutherford style (as opposed to that of, say, Oakville, or any of valley’s hillside AVAs) of cabernet sauvignon. It’s also probably the slightly wild, bucolic edge that specifically makes it tres Tres Sabores, rather than To-Kalon, BV #2, Napanook or Eisele: if this were France, the word terroir would be the first thing out of your mouth.

That’s what I see as a present and future of California cabernet sauvignon: wines issuing forth not so much qualities of the grape, or the halo of a numerically blessed winemaker, but rather that sense of place Californians always say they’re looking for, but usually don’t bother trying to find because they figure you aren’t interested.

But if you’re up to the challenge of appreciating such a wine, an equally organic combination of earthy, fatty and creamy sensations that a wine like Perspective can wrap itself around is in the following recipe, recently shared by Chef John Broening of restaurants duo and Olivea in Denver. Like tearing off your cabernet predispositions, it would require some work, but in the end that revisionist outlook just might set you free:

Gnocchi with Pig’s Feet Ragout and Chanterelles (serves 4)

Advisory: best to do this dish in three stages, starting with the pig’s feet, as they need to soak overnight. The next day, make the gnocchi and set them aside. Then bring it on home with the chanterelle laced ragout.

Pig’s Feet
4 pig’s feet, soaked in water
1 tablespoon canola oil
salt and pepper
1 onion, sliced
1 carrot, sliced
2 cups white wine
4 cups chicken stock

Remove pig’s feet from the water and pat dry. Season with salt and pepper. Brown thoroughly in ½ the canola oil and remove to a baking dish. Preheat oven to 300 F. Sweat the onion and carrot in the remaining canola oil. Add the wine and reduce by half. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Pour the chicken stock mixture over the pig’s feet. Cover with foil and bake about 3 hours, or until the meat starts to fall away from the bone. Remove the pig’s feet from the liquid. Strain and degrease liquid. Pick the meat off the pig’s feet (you should get about ¾ cup of meat). Return the meat to the liquid and refrigerate.

Gnocchi
4 Yukon gold potatoes, cleaned, unpeeled
1 cup (about) kosher salt
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Heat oven to 350 F. Spread about 1-3/4 cups kosher salt on a small baking sheet. Place the potatoes on top of the salt. Bake about 2 hours, or until the potatoes are soft and cooked through. Meanwhile, in a mixing bowl, whisk 2 cups of the flour with 2 teaspoons salt, the pepper and the nutmeg. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Place a wire pasta basket in the water, and add about 4 tablespoons of salt to the boiling water. Cover the pot until ready to use.

Working while the potatoes are still hot, peel them with a paring knife (holding the potato in a kitchen towel makes this a little easier.). Using a food mill with a fine disc or a potato ricer, pass the potato onto a work surface that is at least 2 feet wide by 2 feet deep (wood and marble are the best for this).

Make a well in the potato and break 4 eggs into the well. Place the mixture in a circle surrounding the potato mixture. With a fork, whisk the eggs together. Using a bench scraper, cut the egg mixture into the potato and flour and gentle knead the mixture until it comes together. Using a little additional flour, knead the mixture an additional 20 seconds.

Cut off a few ounces of the gnocchi dough with the bench scraper and with lightly floured hands roll into a rope about 12" long and 1/2" around. Cut off into equal sized pieces about 1/2 square, pinching each piece at the same time. Roll each gnocchi off a floured gnocchi board (or the back of a fork), and using an offset spatula carefully transfer to a floured baking sheet.

Cook the gnocchi in several batches: using the spatula, carefully lower the gnocchi into the boiling water and cover. When the water comes back up to a boil, cook the gnocchi about 2 minutes, until they puff slightly, and immediately shock in ice water. Repeat the process for the remaining gnocchi. Drain the gnocchi well (make sure they are completely cool in the center before you remove them from the ice water). Place the olive oil in a mixing bowl, toss the gnocchi in the oil, then transfer to baking dish (they should be in a single layer), cover, and refrigerate until ready to use.

Ragout
4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 pound chanterelle mushrooms (other wild mushrooms okay), cleaned
4 tablespoons butter, divided
2 shallots, minced
1 cup dried sherry
3 ounces grated Parmigiano Reggiano
1 tablespoon chopped parsley

In a large sauté pan, heat half the olive oil to smoking and add the chanterelles. Toss well and add half the butter. Cook until lightly caramelized. Season with salt and pepper and add the shallots. Sweat 30 seconds. Add the sherry and reduce until thick. Add the pig’s broth and meat and reduce by half. Check for seasoning and set aside.

To assemble dish: In another large sauté pan, heat the remaining olive oil. Brown the gnocchi on one side, in batches when necessary. Add the pig’s feet ragout and bring to boil. Whisk in the remaining butter. Garnish with grated Parmigiano and parsley, and serve immediately.