FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Much goes into picking the right wine
By Wanda A. Adams
Food Editor
Chardonnay with white, cabernet with red and sauvignon blanc with everything.
After an hour in the company of Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates education director Christophe Davis, even the novice wine taster has to let go of those old reliable guidelines and adopt some new ones. Davis was here for Sunday's Hawai'i Public Radio "Hawai'i Uncorked" fund-raiser.
Among his messages: Match the wine to the sauce and the preparation technique, not just the key ingredient. Southern-style white barbecue chicken (chicken marinated in mayonnaise, then grilled over a wood fire) calls for a very different wine than poached chicken breasts in a veloute (a stock-based white sauce). Both sauces are "white," but the right wine for the former is probably a medium-assertive red and for the latter a silky white.
Another important idea: acid with acid, sweet with sweet. When we entered the hour-long introduction to wine and food matching, we found six wines — sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, riesling, pinot noir, syrah and cabernet sauvignon — and a plate of simply prepared foods to taste them with, including slice of poached chicken breast, lemon wedges, a slice of fresh mango, a sun-dried tomato, some shaved Parmesan cheese, an oil-cured olive, some white raisins and a piece of chicken that had been roasted with cayenne pepper.
To drive home the acid-with-acid lesson, Davis had us taste plain chicken with the three white wines. Chardonnay was the best match. Then he had us squeeze a goodly bit of lemon onto the chicken. Chardonnay — nasty! But the crisp, tart sauvignon blanc stood up to the acid in the chicken and even made something more of it. "The right wine with the right food can make both better," David said.
Later, we munched golden raisins, coating our mouths with the sweet, brown-sugar flavors, and found the sweetish riesling to be best match (although an even sweeter wine would have been a bit better). "A dessert wine," Davis instructed, "must be as sweet or sweeter than the food."
And we found that, while sauvignon blanc (supposedly the universal wine) poured fire on the coals of the cayenne chicken, the sweeter riesling nicely balanced the heat. With the cheese and sun-dried tomato, we found the salt tames the tannins in wine and brings out berry qualities. Here, the syrah was a big yum, to my taste.
Everything said in the course of this fast-moving hour convinced me that more restaurant menus ought to routinely suggest specific by-the-glass pairings with every wine-appropriate dish. The pairings have to be made by someone who knows how to think through the ingredients and cooking techniques used in the dish while keeping in mind the varietal and winemaking style of the available wines. Then all you and I would have to do was enjoy!
