Chardonnay and Pumpkin

Did a winery dinner this week and wanted to report on a particularly delicious food and wine pairing by the Chef.

Dinner was at Tess, a humble and remarkably excellent restaurant just off North Ave on the East Side. Mitch, the owner, is a real oenophile.

Anyhoo, the Chef put together a great meal, with some excellent pairings.

One of the highlights was a Chardonnay with restrained light oak, restrained malo, and a slighlty spicy character (okay, okay, I'll confess, it was Bonterra) and Pumpkin Soup. Remarkably good.

Here's the lovely twist: she served the pumpkin soup cold, with a swirl of creme fraiche on top, and garnished with a crispy pan-fried round of pancetta. The soup was firmly spiced, and had, I suspect, a bit of pimenton added, because it had a bit of a smoky/hot touch to it.

Turned out to be one of those epiphanetic pairings, where the Chard was good, and the soup was good, but when you went back to the Chard after the soup, it focused and intensified some of the flavors in the Chard, firmed up the texture, and brought out the spice notes.

This is something I'll try in the future. Suspect it will be finicky getting the spice mixture in the right balance, but it's worth playing around with.

For another seemingly odd pairing, the Chef decided to serve Zinfandel with a panna cotta dessert. I was wondering how that would come off. It worked, but I can't say I raved about it. She didn't make the panna cotta sweet, and the bridge ingredients that were designed to pull things together was a mulled Zinfandel sauce drizzled on some really ripe mixed berries. As I said, it wasn't bad, but for me wasn't all that compelling either. And even with a non-sweet-styled panna cotta, that part was distracting. Woulda been better, I think, without the milk portion, and just sticking with the berries and sauce.

Dinner was at Tess, a humble and remarkably excellent restaurant just off North Ave on the East Side. .

Is this Guess The City?

Just before reading this, I was pondering a pumpkin gratin recipe in new Jacques Papin cookbook. This gives me ideas, thanks

Oops!

Sorry, Dale, guess I forgot to mention that.

Milwaukee.

Anyhoo, the Chef put together a great meal, with some excellent pairings.

One of the highlights was a Chardonnay with restrained light oak, restrained malo, and a slighlty spicy character (okay, okay, I'll confess, it was Bonterra) and Pumpkin Soup. Remarkably good.

Makes good sense to me. I've found CA Chard to be a good pairing with roast squash, sweet potatoes and winter root veggies in general, all of which have a mellow sweetness to them.

Chardonnay with pumpkin pie, too. It works, especially if the malty character of the wine is uninhibited by ML.

Chardonnay with pumpkin pie, too. It works, especially if the malty character of the wine is uninhibited by ML.

I'd go along with that....if the chard was unoaked, but lees-stirred to get some autolytic creaminess in the texture and to soften up what is sometimes/too often tart lemon/apple juice passing for chard. Some of the totally out of the tank and quickly fermented and no-malo chards can be rather thin and acrid to me.

You know, this thread reminds me that while in Wisconsin for my cousin's wedding in early Sept 2006, we stopped at a gass station that had a cheese / gift shop attached (got a very nice four year old cheddar) and there saw a pumpkin wine, which was described as tasting a fair bit like Chardonnay. To this day, I regret not getting a bottle. Somehow the pumpkin / Chard pairing makes sense.

Not trying to hijack the thread, but has anybody ever treid pumpkin wine?

Not trying to hijack the thread, but has anybody ever treid pumpkin wine?

I've had pumpkin beer (excellent) but never a pumpkin wine.

So thanks to this thread I suggested a pumpkin course last night to go with a couple of white Burgs. New J. Pepin book had a recipe for "pumpkin gratin" (I'd say it was closer to a souffle). Canned pumpkin, emmenthaler, eggs, and cream, topped with a sprinkle of parmesan. She did in ramekins rather than one dish. Not exactly the same combo as Hoke's, but worked very well. Thanks for idea.

It is probably worth repeating something that comes up around this time of year.

If you want to cook pumpkin, buy it tinned, or try to find cooking pumpkin. The ubiquitous Hallowe'en pumpkins are bred to serve as Jack 'o lanterns and are lousy for cooking. That has always seemed a great shame to me, growing and then throwing out millions of pumpkins every year. Maybe we'd be better off if the tradition had been Hallowe'en turkey - stick a candle in it and make soup the next day. No, on second thought the Salmonella would probably have squashed that one after the first year.....

It is probably worth repeating something that comes up around this time of year.

If you want to cook pumpkin, buy it tinned, or try to find cooking pumpkin. The ubiquitous Hallowe'en pumpkins are bred to serve as Jack 'o lanterns and are lousy for cooking. That has always seemed a great shame to me, growing and then throwing out millions of pumpkins every year. Maybe we'd be better off if the tradition had been Hallowe'en turkey - stick a candle in it and make soup the next day. No, on second thought the Salmonella would probably have squashed that one after the first year.....

Really? I've had no problem growing and cooking my pumpkins.

Incidentally, canned pumpkin is not exactly pumpkin: http://www.slashfood.com/2005/10/24/can ... y-pumpkin/

So thanks to this thread I suggested a pumpkin course last night to go with a couple of white Burgs. New J. Pepin book had a recipe for "pumpkin gratin" (I'd say it was closer to a souffle). Canned pumpkin, emmenthaler, eggs, and cream, topped with a sprinkle of parmesan. She did in ramekins rather than one dish. Not exactly the same combo as Hoke's, but worked very well. Thanks for idea.

Next time, try pumpkin/curry soup (lots of curry, a little stock, garlic, shallots, chopped walnuts, and heavy cream whipped into it) with a dry Gewurztraminer or Riesling.

Really? I've had no problem growing and cooking my pumpkins.

Well you wouldn't have trouble, but of the dozens of cultivars of pumpkins in production, the ones that are best for Jack o' lanterns aren't the best tasting nor the easiest to cook - they tend to be a bit more watery, for instance. We used to make pie out of the Hallowe'en kind and the texture is far inferior to pies made from other varieties.

The cooking kind are often labelled as sugar pumpkins and tend to be much smaller than the ones you stick candles in, although of course there are dozens of types used for cooking.

In fact this 1200 lb. champion would be lousy for making pies!

Really? I've had no problem growing and cooking my pumpkins.

Well you wouldn't have trouble, but of the dozens of cultivars of pumpkins in production, the ones that are best for Jack o' lanterns aren't the best tasting nor the easiest to cook - they tend to be a bit more watery, for instance. We used to make pie out of the Hallowe'en kind and the texture is far inferior to pies made from other varieties.

The cooking kind are often labelled as sugar pumpkins and tend to be much smaller than the ones you stick candles in, although of course there are dozens of types used for cooking.

In fact this 1200 lb. champion would be lousy for making pies!

Yep, and my pumpkins are not grown to show or to light up. They are larger than a softball and smaller than a basketball, and they produce good, solid meat.

I'm no fan of any squash that is allowed to overgrow.