Wine Whine #5

WINTER WHINE

This month’s whine is mostly about the matching of food and wine. As is my custom, you will also find a few recommendations for the current Opimian Cellar Offering. Finally, there is a plea for advice directed to those of you who live in Ontario.

Try this experiment at home.

Before I continue just let me say that a good matching may be more important than you think. In order to convince you of this let me invite you to participate in a small experiment. After you have followed my instructions, please let me know your results.

Now, as you are planning your meals for the next couple of weeks, please include one meal with lots of tomato sauce. This could be a spaghetti with a strong sauce, maybe a bruschetta with lots of fresh tomatoes, or even pizza, provided there is more tomato sauce than cheese. Prior to preparing the meal pick up a bottle of cheap Italian wine from somewhere near Verona. This could be a Valpolicella (mostly from the corvina grape), a Chianti (made from Sangiovese) or any other wine made Sangiovese or Corvina. Buy the basic rotgut, not the Valpolicella Classico or the Chianti Classico which are better wines but less useful for this demonstration.

As you are preparing the meal, open the bottle and pour yourself a glass. Don’t snack, just sip the wine. When your meal is ready, eat several bites before drinking any more wine. Now, finish both the food and the drink. I’m betting your first sip of the wine will taste sour and you will wonder why you agreed to all of this. However, as you eat and drink the wine will get less sour and gradually taste better. I know, I know, I’ve told you what to expect and that biases the study. So, for those scientists on Grove Ave. you will need to buy a control bottle of cheap Merlot, and invite guests to share in the wine and drink.

Why match? When food and wine are well matched, both will taste better. It’s like the right match of humans, the resulting passion will perfect both partners.

The basic principle of matching food to wine is to pair light wines with subtle foods and heavier wines with more robust foods. However, you can go far beyond that general rule.

Most of you will remember learning in junior high that there were only four kinds of taste receptors on your tongue: salt, sugar, sour and bitter. Since no wines taste salty (even those dreadful ones grown along Canada’s Atlantic coast) you don’t need to worry. On the other hand, Nova Scotia does produce some good “late harvest” wines (the affordable version of “ice” wines) so you can match your pure maple syrup float with a sweet wine. On the other hand, I prefer to contrast my crème brule with the bitterness of a double espresso.

Wines that are high in acid (such as those mentioned above) will taste sour and those that are high in unaged tannins (a complex protein found in the skins of varietals such as Cabernet Sauvignon or Malbec) will taste bitter. A light wine will not be too acidic, have few tannins and a low alcohol content (10 or 11 per cent), while a heavy wine will have both acids and tannins and more alcohol (14 per cent). So in trying to match your wine to your favorite food pay attention to both acidity and to tannins. Remember that the very best wines have lots of tannins which allow the wine to gently age until the tannins have mellowed and the fruit flavors carried in the acids come bursting forth.

Specific suggestions:

1. Garden salad with fresh tomatoes and a vinaigrette is very hard to match. Choose a chilled Sauvignon Blanc or better still a very chilled sparkling wine such as a Spanish Cava. If you must have red wine, choose a Chilean Pinot Noir which will be high in acid and low in tannin or a Grenache which will also be low in tannin but will have more alcohol and less acid.

2. Most fish is subtly flavoured and matches with light reds such as Beaujolais, moderate reds such a Tempranillo, or better still matches with a good Chablis (what Americans call Chardonnay). Be careful to choose an unoaked white unless you are having lobster with melted butter, in which case an oaky Chardonnay will be perfect. Of course, if you are eating the lobster Maritime style (that is with newspapers for table cloths and enamel pails for the shells), Keith’s may be the best choice.

3. In general chicken is middle-of-the-road in terms of flavour so it will go with almost any wine except a really bold one. So you can have almost any white wine or any light or medium red (such as Merlot), but don’t go any bigger than a Zinfandel.

4. You may not eat duck all that often but if you do there is nothing better than a good French Bordeaux (a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot and perhaps other wines). I’ve added duck to my list because I recently ate at Chateau St. Joseph’s and the beautifully and lightly cooked breast was carefully matched to a couple of Bordeaux.

5. Now, we are finally getting to the food that will do justice to your carefully cellared big wines from the New World. If you are fortunate enough to maintain the tradition of the Sunday roast, a medium rare prime rib deserves nothing less than a 5- or 6-year old Cabernet Sauvignon. Cabernet is loaded with tannins and the tannins cut beautifully the fat that permeates the lean. One caution! If you make a mistake and overcook the meat, put the Cabernet back in your cellar (the tannins will be wasted on the fatless powder) and bring out something dry but not tannic (a Tempranillo from Rioja will do in this unfortunate circumstance). If your pleasure in red meat is that thick, juicy steak, there is nothing better than an Argentinian Malbec. Finally, if you add a lot of spice to your steak, then choose an Australian Shiraz, which is the spiciest of the big reds.

Some matching anecdotes: If you haven’t reached the higher levels of snobbery you may wish to simply eat the food you like and wash it down with your favorite plonc. I agree. Food and wine matching can get carried a little too far. For example, when the snobs at Opimian listed a Domaine Castan Coteaux du Languedoc (2007) in Offering 182 they suggested that it would be perfect with pork bellies. Although that does seem a bit of an overly specific match I must confess that I have a case quietly aging so that I can try a bottle with one of my favorite comfort foods.

Finally, most of you have heard this story. Nonetheless, I am going to repeat it for those who haven’t. Many years ago mon ami Gerard was paying his first extended visit to Antigonish. Those of you who have been to Aix-en-Provence know that Gerard keeps a magnificent cellar (albeit light on New World wines). Anyway, during this visit Gerard kept bugging me about whether or not I had this or that very specific wine to match whatever it was that Marie-Claude or Betty was preparing. Frequently I didn’t and was feeling quite “one-upped”. Finally we went sailing in the Bras d’or lakes and Gerard somehow managed to jig a couple of small cod. Typically, they were infested with disgusting little white worms. I thought I was about to give Gerard his comeuppance when I suppressed a grin and said: “Gerard, what wine goes with cod worms?” Without hesitation Gerard answered in his wonderful Gallic accent: “Any German wine will do.”

Cellar Offering 186: This is the basic offering of Chilean wines and therefore is one to which you should pay special attention. There are also a goodly number of Rhone wines on offer. Unfortunately, they are typical of most French wines (that is, overpriced). I am especially fond of wines from Vina La Rosa (Cornellana Estate). I have been buying these wines for 4 or 5 years.

4896 – Cornellana Cab/Merlot at $ 12.83 for any everyday plonc
4897 – Cornellana Merlot Reserve at $ 18.08 will be especially good for just sipping
4900 – Cornellana Barrel Reserve Selection at $ 23.67 gives you the opportunity to
sample 3 different (2 bottles each) very good wines.
4905 – Expresion Reserve Pinot Noir at $ 27.67 gives you a chance to sample a
relatively affordable pinot. A well-know local Sommelier once told me that if
you couldn’t afford $ 50.wine, don’t bother with pinot noir
4917 – Sergio Traverso Carmenere at $ 19.83 gives you a chance to try carmenere (a
grape grown only in Chile.
4938 – Domaine des Cigalons Chateauneuf-du-pape is expensive ($ 49.67) but this
particular one I have had. It’s something that will last a long time and fun to
taste on special occasions.
4935 – Chateau de Montmirail Gigondas ($ 40.67) Gigondas is very similar to
Chateauneuf-du-pape (next region) and both wines are blends of many
different grapes, dominated by Grenache.
4887-4888-4889 – If you have any coupons, this is the time to cash in.

Help requested: Betty and I recently went to a new French restaurant in Toronto called “Loire” with our friends Chuck and Karon. Chuck suggested that we let the sommelier choose the wines to match our food. As the Sommelier brought each wine he wrapped it to disguise the label and then asked us to identify the wine (they were all French of course). We managed to identify one of the three wines (we actually drank four bottles in total). We so liked the wine that went with the main course that we drank two bottles of it but had no idea what it was. The Sommelier then said: “Well, it’s Malbec”. I knew that Malbec was originally a French grape, but believed that the French only used small quantities for blending, whereas in Argentina Malbec is considered a national treasure. Anyway, the wine was from Cahors. Cahors is the one region in France that produces wine that is primarily made from Malbec, sometimes called Cot in France.

Going on line I discovered that several wines from Cahors are listed with the LCBO (Ontario) whereas none are available from NSLC (Nova Scotia). I’m told on good authority that the wine buyers at the NSLC believe that Cahors is so very tannic that it would not find favor with Nova Scotians, who would simply continue to down their Malbecs from Argentina.

Now, if you live in Ontario I ask you to do me a favor. Pick up a bottle of Cahors at the LCBO. Then pick up a bottle of Argentinian Malbec in the same price range and compare them (preferably blind). Try this when you are going to have a red meat dinner for 3 or 4 people. Let me know how the wines compare. Perhaps the experts are right and the French can’t compete with the Argentinians, but I’d like to see this put to the test.

Wine Flick: Speaking of France versus the rest of the world I just had a chance to see the movie “Bottleshock” on the airplane coming back from Cuba. This is based on the famous 1976 blind tasting of French and California wines that put Napa Valley on the world map of great wines. It’s a fun, little movie that you might consider renting. If you liked “Sideways” you will like this one.