Wine-food matching: when does it go too far?

[Jenise]

I went to school last night. That is, for .3 of a college credit, I had to eat and drink my way through five courses of hard luck scrapple like oysters, jumbo shrimp, caviar and veal, and six sparkling wines. I had to share a dining room with thirty-nine perfectly charming study partners. I didn't have to buy books, and there's no homework. Presumably, if one goes to enough of these 'classes', one could eventually graduate. Oh yes life is so hard, so hard.

Our "teachers" were a local wine columnist and one of the chef/manager's of this school's very good culinary program, and they discussed how they arrive at the menu. Chef said the all the wines possible are brought to him, sometimes up to 20 bottles, and he tastes them all. The tastes of the wines trigger food ideas, and after much so-called "work" a final list of five or six wines and a menu emerge. Chef touted this as a superior and vastly more personal method of wine-food pairing than the typical restaurant situation in which wines that will merely "do" are purchased to go with foods that have been separately pre-determined.

Sounds good on paper, right?

Well here's the rub: I know a little bit about food and wine, and I actually ate the food that resulted from this divine inspiration. And I'm here to tell you that, with all due respect for his right to choose his approach and all the effort he obviously put into planning this meal, the result on my plate(s) over the span of five courses was not superior to what he kind of castigated by inference as blind, dumb luck. Sorry.

For instance, when he tasted the Moet & Chandon White Star, he may have tasted oranges and lemon grass and sweet fruit and roadside herbs, but the fennel potatoes, the sliced zucchini baked tomato, and the grapefuit pith-bitterness of the overly sweet orange-lemongrass sauce he served on the baked jumbo shrimp topped with caviar were like five musicians all playing a different song. They did not cohese, and the sweetness in the sauce fought with rather than complemented or supported the sweetness of the shrimp. It wasn't terribly wrong, mind you, but it wasn't oh-so-right either.

Another dish that went wrong for similar reasons was called "veal medallion with glazed baby onions, sweet potato puree and a peppered strawberry sauce" which was served with Napa's Domaine Chandon Blanc de Noir. This was the least dry wine of the night and had flavors of red apple, sweet flowers and white corn, along with a slightly peppery finish. The latter worked very well with the salt and pepper coating on the veal (thin scallopines cut in half, not quite what I'd characterize as 'medallions' but oh well), but the sweet onions and sweet potato puree when viewed in combination with the wine sauce (an ugly taupe color resulted, I have to add) that was sweetened with strawberry nectar to cement the wine-food match actually just created too much of a good thing, if indeed the lingering sweet aftertaste could be called good. The only relief from the sweetness were a few haricot verts.

Anyway, all this got me to thinking this morning about how one chooses wine and foods, both in terms of what comes out of the cellar and what you put on the plate. And it's all very subjective: because he described the process after all the food was served and took many bows, I am certain this chef felt strongly that both his objective and his execution were without fault and a lot of people in the room would have agreed with him. He's looking for a seamlessness between food and wine, and the more like items he puts on a plate, the more synchopated it is, the stronger the statement. And if that works for him, I would not try to tell him that for his palate, he's wrong. He's not.

But based on what I ate last night, for my palate he IS.

So back to the title question: what works? And when, for you, does it go too far?

They did not cohese

Love it. Let's throw some ideas up against the wall and see what will cohese....(just giving you a hard time).

I agree that the food/wine matching thing is as much an art as a science. When it works I figure that all I can take credit for is hitting the right general area and tha fact that it struck close to target is serendipity.

I agree that the food/wine matching thing is as much an art as a science. When it works I figure that all I can take credit for is hitting the right general area and tha fact that it struck close to target is serendipity.

I feel the same way, Bill.

My problem when it comes to wine and food matching is that I typically start with the food in mind and then try to find wines that will work in harmony with those dishes. My cellar is fairly diverse so it makes my job a little easier, but a friend of mine that is an excellent professional chef pointed out to me that it may be easier for me if I started with the wine (something that cannot be altered) in mind and then tried to pair my food (which can be altered with an herb here or a different meat there, for example) to the wine and work in that direction. The dilemma is that I do not want to change a dish to "fit" a certain wine, but I also may not have the perfect wine to match a certain dish.

If all else fails, I just serve my guests Bordeaux with steak.

Interesting. I normally work from the wine end and find or create dishes that I think will complement them. Once in awhile I'll work in reverse, but usually for me the wine is the prime consideration.

It makes more sense to do it your way.

[Jenise]

Interesting. I normally work from the wine end and find or create dishes that I think will complement them. Once in awhile I'll work in reverse, but usually for me the wine is the prime consideration.

I go both ways. I'm perfectly capable of cooking for the wine, and once I select a wine I instinctively tweak foods to make them work well together, but as someone who cooks at home virtually every day (well, under normal circumstances) I more often than not am matching the wine to the food and not the other way around. But when it IS the other way around, the problem, and it's solution, aren't as simple as "if I taste strawberry and lemongrass in the wine, then I should taste strawberry and lemongrass in the food." It's more complex than that, and this method certainly greatly undervalues the role contrast, acidity, texture and body play in creating excitement. The veal dish, for instance, tried so hard to reproduce identical flavors that it was boring.

Although noticing that some foods went really well with certain wines is what got me into studying wine originally, I do think once you are sweating about what wine to serve with what food, or vice versa, you have gone too far. I just think of the wine as another ingredient in the recipe. Basically, any white wine with good acidity will compliment fish. It's like putting lemon (pure acid) on the fish to make it taste brighter and nice. There are some classic, wonderful combinations, but any white wine with good acidity will do. Don't get crazy about it. This is supposed to be fun.

The right combination of food and wine will definitely make both taste better, so pay attention when this happens and learn. Sometimes it happens when both have similar tastes, but sometimes it happens when tastes contrast but compliment each other. An example is a wine with some sweetness, like Riesling, paired with spicy food like Oriental. Wines with some tannin go well with fatty foods which is why most reds go well with cheese, and why Bordeaux (or Malbec, or Chianti, or half a dozen other things) go well with steak. After a while stuff like this becomes second nature.

The only real mistake you can make is letting the wine overwhelm the food, or the food overwhelm the wine. So light foods go with light wines. My advice is to try things, have fun with it, but don't obsess about it. If you have good food and a good wine there is a limit as to how bad that can be.

We go both ways, too, but there’s a pattern. If the food is the usual salmon, pasta and so on that we cook on weeknights, then the food comes first. But if the wine is something special, like a classified growth Bourdeaux or fine aged Riesling (read “weekend”), then the planning starts with the wine. Same with wines that require decanting, like young Cahors and Southern Rhones. If the Chianti Classico doesn't work with the sauce, it's easy to put the cork back in and root around for something that works better. The wine will still be drinkable for the next few days. But that '81 Spaetlese? For this, we plan ahead!

Here's an interesting match for you.

Get young okra. Snip the end off, but leave the stem on. Boil them briefly so they cook and are tender but not mushy.

Serve with a little pot of fresh Hollandaise sauce. What wine? Best answer I've found - something with a bit of acidity - Pinot Gris, riesling etc.

Any other suggestions?

I'll go both ways but as this is a specific question, the rule I follow is to go with the food first, decide what I want to make and find a wine to fit, unless--it's a very special bottle of wine, then will find the food to fit it. I agree with not obsessing, it's much more fun to have an ongoing "search" for perfection!

I drink what I want to drink and eat what I want to eat. That's pretty much all there is to it.

[David M. Bueker]

Personally I have found the intuitive matches nearly always better than the pre-planned matches with previously tasted wines. I think when a person gets to taste the wine in advance the temptation exists to mimic the wine in the dish. This is almost invariably a disaster.

my theory is that when you match fruit with savory you almost always get something that both tastes odd and can't be matched with wine successfully. i have exceptions: melon and prosciuto heads the list; but as a general rule............. strawberry with veal - i would't even go in the door of a place that would do something like that.

You could say we go both ways but rarely. Only once in a great while do we match food with wine. More often it is a matter of having an appropritate wine to go with the food we are serving. We are very flexible in this regard, and find if we have the same wine with the same food over time things get boring.

[Jenise]

Here's an interesting match for you.

Get young okra. Snip the end off, but leave the stem on. Boil them briefly so they cook and are tender but not mushy.

Serve with a little pot of fresh Hollandaise sauce. What wine? Best answer I've found - something with a bit of acidity - Pinot Gris, riesling etc.

Any other suggestions?

Bill, that dish screams for Gruner Veltliner. It has a green pea-like fruitiness that just loves vegetables.

[Jenise]

The only real mistake you can make is letting the wine overwhelm the food, or the food overwhelm the wine.

Until Saturday night's dinner I would have said the same thing. But I would now add "overthinking it"--trying to put all the flavors of the wine on the plate basically threw the veal under the bus. Great ingredients deserve better.

If you have good food and a good wine there is a limit as to how bad that can be.

Precisely. We proved that to ourselves about a year and a half ago, when we went a whole month drinking nothing but pinot noir but without changing the wide variety of food I normally prepare. Steak, seafood, Mexican food, Chinese, BBQ, roasted meats, and at least once a week an all-vegetarian menu--there wasn't a single night where we went, "Oh that doesn't work." We were instead impressed by how versatile one grape could be.

Here's an interesting match for you.

Get young okra. Snip the end off, but leave the stem on. Boil them briefly so they cook and are tender but not mushy.

Serve with a little pot of fresh Hollandaise sauce. What wine? Best answer I've found - something with a bit of acidity - Pinot Gris, riesling etc.

Any other suggestions?

Bill, that dish screams for Gruner Veltliner. It has a green pea-like fruitiness that just loves vegetables.

You've got a better memory - put that one on a bring forward for whenever the weather allows garden dining!

[Jenise]

my theory is that when you match fruit with savory you almost always get something that both tastes odd and can't be matched with wine successfully. i have exceptions: melon and prosciuto heads the list; but as a general rule............. strawberry with veal - i would't even go in the door of a place that would do something like that.

Fruit's very tricky and best, I think, when it adds piquance and tang. And strawberries do neither.

Fruit's very tricky and best, I think, when it adds piquance and tang. And strawberries do neither.

For strawberries (a tough match with wines) try Moscato d'Asti or Freisa (if you can find it).

jenise, i agree about the piquance and tang - therefore i do exclude lemons and tomatoes from the list of objectionable things. and of course fruit is fine (except strawberries) with foie gras.

[Jenise]

You've got a better memory - put that one on a bring forward for whenever the weather allows garden dining!

You've got it!

[Jenise]

and of course fruit is fine (except strawberries) with foie gras.

Yes! I've had everything from kiwi jam to kumquat compotes, but have to say my favorite is grilled fresh pineapple.

BTW, strawberries with freshly ground black pepper and Champagne = bliss

[Jenise]

BTW, strawberries with freshly ground black pepper and Champagne = bliss

Ever try dipping the berries in fresh sour cream first, then the pepper? Divine.