Three wines for three ‘difficult’ foods (#winePW)

Dinner’s ready! Fresh produce from the farmers’ market. Grilled meat seasoned to perfection or a tasty vegetarian/vegan alternative. Rainy-day chili to warm you inside out. Ready to pour the wine?

Ah, therein lies the rub. Spot-on wine and food pairing can be a beast to master. Chances are you won’t get it right every time.

This month, the Wine Pairing Weekend (#winePW) bloggers are sharing some ideas for pairing hard-to-pair foods. We’re also chatting about this topic on Twitter Saturday 6/12, starting at 8 am PT/11 am ET, and you’re invited to join us! Simply follow the #winePW hashtag.

According to Richard Bernard, head sommelier at Le Saint-James, Bouliac, there are only two types of pairings: “Those of harmony (where acidities, sugars and weight in the food and wine are equal) and those of opposition (where a wine of high acidity cuts though fatty meat or an off-dry wine goes with spicy food).”

Another good rule of thumb is to consider the weight and body of food as much as the flavors when choosing a wine. Light foods, light wines. Heavier foods, deeper and more complex wines.

That’s all well and good until you meet that one difficult food who’s got an unmistakably strong personality. Take it from someone who has made her fair share of pairing mistakes – some foods are picky, picky, picky about their wine.

That’s why I’m offering three pairings that work. But keep in mind that others are possible. As always, follow your own palate and pair according to what tastes good to you.

Roasted Asparagus and Sauvignon Blanc
Just get home from the farmers market with bundles of fresh vegetables? A wine that plays well in the veggie sandbox is Sauvignon Blanc, thanks to the sulfur-containing thiols it releases and because it has the same methoxypyrazines found in fresh peas and beans. Red Bordeaux varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, which are related genetically to Sauvignon Blanc, sometimes share this vegetative character. (Nose Dive: A Field Guide to the World’s Smells by Harold McGee, Penguin Press, 2020.)

• Wine to try: 2019 St. Supéry Sauvignon Blanc, Napa Valley. Located in Napa’s Rutherford AVA (American Viticultural Area), St. Supéry Estate Vineyards and Winery produces 100% estate grown, certified Napa Green wines. Napa Green is an environmental certification program for vineyards and wineries. Delicate, slightly grassy and lemon-lime aromas lead into a tart, crisp, lightweight palate. Ripe grapefruit upfront, lemony on the mid-palate, with a hint of herbaceous character on a medium+ finish. Alcohol: 13.5%. Just the right flavor profile and texture for goat cheese appetizers, baked rockfish and roasted asparagus.

Turkey/bean chili and spätlese-style Riesling
Last month I learned my lesson about pairing chili and wine when the World Wine Travel bloggers visited Aragón, Spain. I found a hot, spicy Garnacha from the Campo de Borja region of Aragón and made the mistake of serving it with a spicy chili. Now, in my defense, the chili wasn’t supposed to be that hot. Following a recipe for a change, instead of winging it as I usually do, I dumped an entire packet of taco seasoning mix in the pot. OMG, the fighting that took place between the food and the wine! I tried toning down the heat with a dollop of sour cream, but that barely helped.

The culprit is capsicum, also known as red pepper or chili pepper. The fruit of the capsicum plant contains a chemical, called capsaicin, that seems to reduce pain sensations when applied to the skin. Capsicum is commonly used as an ingredient in medicines to treat rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis and other conditions, though there’s no good scientific evidence for many of its uses. A particular form of capsicum – the one used in pepper sprays – causes intense eye pain. My suggestion: Choose a wine to balance capsicum heat in food. A sweet wine usually does this quite nicely.

• Wine to try: 2020 Côte Bonneville Riesling, Yakima Valley. Family-owned Côte Bonneville was founded in 2001 to showcase the estate-grown grapes from their DuBrul Vineyard. Riesling is the oldest block in the vineyard and planted at the highest elevation. Winemaker Kerry Shiels uses hand-harvested grapes, picked slightly early, to produce her spätlese-style wine. Spätlese means “late harvest” in German and generally refers to a richer and often sweeter wine than kabinett. To get the desired level of residual sugar in Washington state, Kerry stops fermentation with cold SO2 and bentonite, a fining agent that helps yeast fall to the bottom of the tank. “This is one of the few wines we do filter to prevent re-fermentation later,” she adds. Aromas of pineapple and lemon open into a palate of ripe lemon and baked lemon squares. Medium+ acidity and a bit of weight on the tongue keep the wine balanced, not cloying. Alcohol: 10%. Works to ease the heat of spicy food.

Tofu in ginger/soy sauce and Brachetto d’Acqui
Pairing fermented food and wine is an entire post of its own. For now, let’s talk only about soy sauce, a substance that derives from fermented soy beans, as well as wheat and salt. As Wine Folly points out, the salty-sour taste of soy can make a not-so-sour wine taste flabby. Saltiness is a benefit, though, because it can reduce the astringent feel and bitter taste of tannin, the naturally occurring substance in grape seeds and stems.

• Wine to try: 2019 Marenco Brachetto d’Acqui Pineto DOCG. I took Wine Folly’s advice and went with a “salty sweet” pairing. (She also recommends umami-driven, Carignan-based wines from the Languedoc-Roussillon region of southern France.) Brachetto is a red Italian grape grown in the Piedmont region of northwest Italy. Brachetto d’Acqui is made through a partial fermentation method and is almost always frizzante (fizzy) or spumante (sparkling), with a noticeable level of sweetness. This Brachetto d’Acqui, from a third-generation company led by three sisters, was a winner when I paired it last year with dessert. Aromas of raspberry, strawberry and cherry with a sweet, fizzy palate of raspberry upfront, followed by cherry. Light acidity and body. Medium finish. Alcohol: 5.5%. A sweet counter-balance to the savory/sour flavor of this favorite vegetarian dish.

Looking for more ideas on pairing “difficult” foods? Check out these #winePW blogs:

• Wendy at A day in the Life on the Farm asks “Difficult? Yes….Impossible? No”
• Camilla at Culinary Adventures with Camilla goes for “Over the Top Taco Night: Pork Carnitas + 2012 Sokol Blosser Big Tree Block Pinot Noir”
• Andrea at The Quirky Cork is “Pairing Wine and Chocolate, Challenge Accepted!”
• Terri at Our Good Life has “Wines to Drink with Ramen”
• Deanna at Asian Test Kitchen advises “Keep Calm and Curry On with Mudgee Red Wines”
• Gwendolyn at Wine Predator gives us “A+ Pairings for Asparagus, Arugula, and Artichokes with organic wines from Alsace, Australia, Austria, and Argentina”
• Linda, your host, at My Full Wine Glass offers “Three wines for three ‘difficult’ foods”