Archive for the ‘Food and wine pairing’ Category

I didn’t expect to like this wine.

Even though I didn’t have a lot to go on, since I’d only tasted enough Roussannes to count on the fingers of one hand, I had decided I probably wouldn’t like it.

But I had a bottle of Lineshack Roussanne with me while doing a segment on WFMJ-TV. I hadn’t even uncorked it yet when someone pulled a tray of freshly baked crab cakes out of the studio oven. Did I mention I love crab cakes?

So in a second I decided to trade my Roussanne for a taste of the crab cakes. I ran to the test kitchen for the “Let’s all taste today’s recipe on the air” segment, uncorked the Lineshack and poured it around. And guess what happened? They started raving more about the Roussanne than about the crab cakes! Even me!

So enough preamble. Let’s talk about this white grape that’s not exactly a household name to U.S. wine drinkers.

Roussanne and its BFF Marsanne come from the Rhone River Valley region in southern France. They’ve been adopted relatively recent by California’s Rhone Rangers, who are winemakers with a passion for growing Rhone varietals. The character of a Roussanne-based wine varies with the climate in which it’s grown; cooler climate Roussanne is more delicate and crisp, while warm-climate areas (such as California’s Central Coast) produce a richer, more full-bodied wine.

I guess that explains it: I’d only tasted the floral, lean, acidic style of Roussanne, instead of Lineshack Roussanne San Antonio Valley 2008. The fruit for this wine is grown in a high mountain valley at the southern end of the Santa Lucia Mountain Range, adjacent to the West Side of Paso Robles. I’ve spent some time in Paso (this is gonna be another Napa someday, so go see it now) and I remember those hot summer days. It could be pushing 95 degrees, until someone flipped a switch around 4:00 in the afternoon and cool breezes started rushing up the Templeton Gap from the Pacific. By nightfall, you had your jacket on.

I was surprised by Lineshack Roussanne’s rich, lush fruit. See, I hadn’t even stopped to do all the swirling and sniffing stuff — I just tossed it back. So my first sip shocked me with its bright burst of sweet tropical fruit, just like Juicy Fruit gum, right in the mid-palate. The finish was crisp but not tart, and very clean. “Wow!” was all I could say. Read the rest of this entry »

Tradition is important. It means commitment, stability and pride.

And longevity is as important in the wine business as in any other: if a winery is still in business after a century or more, it says that they must be doing something right.

The folks at Rocche Costamagna are doing many things right. This venerable winery has been making wine in Italy’s Piedmont hills since 1841, continuously managed by descendants of founder Luigi Costamagna.

The Piedmont region sits at the base of the mountains in Northwest Italy and is best known for its big reds, Barolo and Barbaresco. They’re made from the Nebbiolo grape, which produces big, bold, tannic wines that’ll age for years and years.

The Alba region, nestled in the center of Piedmont, also produces a grape called Dolcetto, which makes a dry red wine that’s lighter-bodied and lower in tannin than its big cousin. At first I was puzzled by the name of this grape: even with my very elementary understanding of Italian, I know that “Dolce” means sweet. “Dolcetto” literally translated means “little sweet one.” But Alfred, my Italian wine broker, set me straight. “Don’t be literal,” he said. Think of this word as meaning “little young one,” because the Dolcetto grapes are the first picked at harvest time. Oh, now I get it… Read the rest of this entry »

I just read a story on the San Francisco Chronicle’s website that’s definitely worthy of notice: “Ooh la la! Report Shows US Wine Sales Top France.” It read, in part:

“For the first time ever, overall U.S. wine sales have topped the wine-loving French.”

I think that’s amazing. I wondered, “How did this happen?” The article shed some light on that:

“Why now? Part of the story is that as U.S. per capita consumption has risen, French consumption has fallen. In fact, U.S. wine consumption continued to grow during the recession, though many consumers switched to cheaper wines.”

Very interesting. Americans seem to have adopted a wine-drinking lifestyle, and I think I know why.

We’ve become a nation of Foodies. We shop differently, cook differently, and eat very differently than our parents ever did. Our mothers made recipes clipped out of Better Homes & Gardens Magazine. Every main course included a can of soup (usually Cream of Mushroom), and every dessert had a tub of Dream Whip somewhere in the list of ingredients.

Us Baby Boomers and our kids (X Gen, Y Gen or whatever), are fluent in Food-Speak. Every kitchen now includes:

- Four different kinds of oil (Extra Virgin Olive, Peanut, Grape Seed and good old Vegetable Oil for when we’re slummin’ it);

- Four different kinds of vinegar (Balsamic, Rice Wine, Sherry or Champagne, and White Vinegar for cleaning the windows);

- About $10,000 worth of amazing kitchen accessories including four sizes of Saute pans, a Crepe pan, an Asparagus Steamer, and a Panini Maker;

- No less than 42 cookbooks written by Celebrity Chefs (who’ve become America’s new royalty); and

- A bunch of recipes downloaded and printed from Foodnetwork.com.

This phenomenon was recorded and explained brilliantly by David Kamp in a book called “The United States of Arugula.” I highly recommend it. But apart from the sociological significance of our new eating habits, what does this have to do with U.S. wine consumption?

I’m sure it’s obvious: good food needs good wine to elevate it to a great meal. Everyone who’s obsessed with making great food is obsessed with drinking good wine along with it. So we’ve started:

- Reading wine reviews and wine blogs (I hope);

- Learning the difference between Burgundy from France and burgundy in the gallon jug at the grocery store;

- Starting a small (or large) collection of better wines; and

- Discovering which food pairs best with which wine.

It’s amazing — we’re becoming almost European! Next thing you know we’ll all be “living to eat,” not “eating to live.” And that’s a wonderful situation for everyone — except the guys who make that Cream of Mushroom soup… Cheers!

In Italy, wine is life. Period.

Wine is part of every meal, and every meal in Italy is a special occasion. Italians live to eat, not eat to live, and wine is as much a “food” as pasta.

So in every region of the country, from cool Friuli in the shadow of the Alps to balmy Sicily basking on the Mediterranean, the locals make their own wine from the grapes that grow in their neighborhood. If Italians aren’t drinking what they’ve made themselves, they’re buying it by the jug, poured from a barrel in the wine shop in the local market.

Sounds like wine heaven, doesn’t it?

Back here in the United States, most of us eat to live, and consume a ridiculous percentage of our meals behind the wheel of our car, rushing from one Must Do to another Have To Go To. When we drink Italian wines, we usually stick to two varieties:

- Chianti for a red (served up in the straw basket that later passes as a candle holder for every generation of poor college students);

- and Pinot Grigio for a white, which too often tastes like lemon water. Read the rest of this entry »

Chicken.

It’s the meat that gets no respect.

It’s considered the “cheap” choice on restaurant menus, and the boring, cook-it-when-you-can’t-think-of-anything-better dinner choice.

But add some sauce and spice, pair it with the right bottle of wine, and you’ve got a great meal.

So invariably people ask me, “Which wine should I serve with chicken?” And I have to say… “It depends.”

“Oh, right,” you say. “I knew it couldn’t be simple.”

But is. Because there’s really only one Tried and True Rule of Food and Wine Pairing.

Before I unveil this Guiding Principle, let me walk you through a little case study. Let’s say you’re cooking Chicken Parmesan, with a rich Marinara Sauce and some melted cheese. What’s the dominant flavor? What stands out in your mouth? Is it the taste of the chicken breast, or the taste of the tomato sauce?

And if you cook an elegant Chicken Piccata, drizzled with Lemon Butter Caper Sauce, what do you taste? You taste the lemons and capers, if you cook it the way I do.

So the dominant flavor of any dish is the sauce or the spicing, not the base meat or vegetable.

Aha! Now you see where I’m going. If someone asks, “Which wine should I pair with chicken,” I ask, “How are you preparing it?” If they say, “With Parmesan Sauce,” I go for a red: maybe a lighter Italian red such as Barbera or a Toscano blend; maybe a Spanish Tempranillo or Garnacha; maybe a Malbec from Argentina. The point is that I want to drink a red to complement the tomato sauce, and especially a red with some acid to match the acid in the tomatoes.

That’s not too complicated, right?

So let’s do the Picatta Chicken. I want a wine that can stand up to tart lemon and tangy capers, so I’ll go with a crisp, dry white. I don’t want an oak-aged wine like Chardonnay, because it won’t set off the lemon. I think I’d like a Sauvignon Blanc, or a European white. How about a Pinot Grigio? Or how about a dry Greek white? Greek cooking uses a lot of lemons, so we know it’ll work.

It’s that simple.

Almost.

There are other considerations, and rules of thumb that folks have discovered by trial and error. But it’s not rocket science. Say, what wine do you think they should drink on rocket ships? We’ll talk about that next time. Cheers!