Wine ratings

I read about a study in Scientific American that disproved the this-wine-goes-with-this-food theory. It tested wine experts and how they rated foods and wines together. I wish I could find the article online because I don't remember exactly how they tested it, but it was quite interesting. If I can find a link, I'll post it.

Hi Jim,

I love your tasting notes and especially your descriptions of how the wine matches the dish. I will look forward to your new rating system, but you already have achieved a level of wine tasting description that few others have. Keep up the good notes. I will keep reading them.

I'm still trying to persuade people that acid with acid (tomato with Tuscan red, and not the New World ones) may work, but acid with lushness works even more interestingly (tomato with southern Italian red wine)...."

Fact is, Sangiovese makes the perfect wines for just about everything, but I don't want to quibble. Seriously, without knowing which particular southern Italian reds you have in mind, I think our palates may be in agreement. Negroamaro blends from Apulia and Nero d'Avola from Sicily--ripe but certainly not devoid of acidity--work great for me with tomato sauce dishes. If we're talking about baked pasta-and-sauce-and-cheese goodies, even Aglianico. Tuscan reds, with their brighter acidity, can work okay in this context, but I tend to prefer them paired with roasted or grilled meats.

Dear Jim,

Good for you! Wine (or anything, for that matter) should always be evaluated based on how well it serves the purpose you want. It doesn't matter how it tastes by itself if what you want is a wine for dinner.

One of the things that Cellartracker has taught me is that I need to be more discerning when buying big reds. They taste great, but don't really match our style of food. Whereas I find even modest rieslings (ranging from halbtrocken to outright sweet) frequently pair beautifully, and so that's what I end up drinking. I'm working on finding those wines that I both enjoy and complement the food that ends up in front of me.

Walt

I'm still trying to persuade people that acid with acid (tomato with Tuscan red, and not the New World ones) may work, but acid with lushness works even more interestingly (tomato with southern Italian red wine)...."

Fact is, Sangiovese makes the perfect wines for just about everything, but I don't want to quibble. Seriously, without knowing which particular southern Italian reds you have in mind, I think our palates may be in agreement. Negroamaro blends from Apulia and Nero d'Avola from Sicily--ripe but certainly not devoid of acidity--work great for me with tomato sauce dishes. If we're talking about baked pasta-and-sauce-and-cheese goodies, even Aglianico. Tuscan reds, with their brighter acidity, can work okay in this context, but I tend to prefer them paired with roasted or grilled meats.

Clinton,

Yep--Salice Salentino, Brindisi, Lacrima Christi, and of course some Nero D'Avola; many of the latter are being produced in a New World style, which, to me, often defies traditional food pairing, if any.

And if I am correct, it was Southern Italy where rich tomato sauce dishes were devised.

The Noodle forbid that I give instructions or any such, but the discussion I was having with Jim was in the general direction that an attempt to rate a Muscadet in the abstract was less interesting than trying to figure out if it were better company for some Belons or a tenderloin. The utility of a wine as a fetish object is different than how it works with a meal. It's the difference between the acontextural evaluation of wine in a vacuum, and the attempt to match a wine's qualities to a use.

But nothing prevents Jim or anyone from having general comments about a wine's characteristics and qualities and how they predict or fail to predict a utility with food. Is it tannic, is it oxidized, over the hill? Was it a poor value for money? I don't think those qualities need to be foregone.

Jim is kind to credit me, but I think this is an idea that will take a lot of important development by many parties. It isn't fully formed or evolved.

Jim, and many of the rest of us, feel that the competitive rank-ordering of all the wines in the world into a linear scale of 50-100 totally fails to capture much of what is interesting and useful about wine as a daily beverage that is a complement to food instead of its other use as a competitive item of conspicuous consumption.

Jim, and many of the rest of us, feel that the competitive rank-ordering of all the wines in the world into a linear scale of 50-100 totally fails to capture much of what is interesting and useful about wine as a daily beverage that is a complement to food instead of its other use as a competitive item of conspicuous consumption.

Joe,

I have been saying, writing, and living that sentiment for twenty of my twenty-five years in the wine biz (the first five saw me bamboozled).

Navigating the many wine oriented Web sites sadly seems to validate that competitive conspicuous consumption rules, or maybe the people who genuflect at its altar are the most computer savvy, or maybe they are plainly the noisiest of the lot of us!

As I posted earlier in this thread, Jim's notes have always been fine with me. He usually has a meal going on and whether or not he relates the wines with the meal, some of us have the experience and imagination to do it while reading.

To me, wine is one part of the conviviality equation.

I like the sound of all of this. Sometimes I am not too concerned which wine with what food...patio parties, too much going on etc. But putting a tad more emphasis on the food is a good idea.
To be honest, I have had white wine with steak and have been embarassed to mention it in my posting! We are good cooks at Doris Ranch but also very lazy too, must make a better effort to relate my (foody) thoughts when posting. I am very much into Wine Focus here so complications abound when deciding "OK, its rose again, what shall we eat?". Last night steak with the Mulderbosch but then I thought crab-cakes! Can`t win eh!!

The utility of a wine as a fetish object is different than how it works with a meal. It's the difference between the acontextural evaluation of wine in a vacuum, and the attempt to match a wine's qualities to a use.

[snark]Thomas Matthews gives this post a 55[/snark]

Mark "Pointy Guy" Lipton