2015 Thomas-Labaille Sancerre Chavignol Les Monts Damnes When I make pesto, I like to divide it into one cup portions for use mainly over pasta. The excess I will put into smaller packets that we have added to our weekly Sunday cheese plate and wine “dinner”. This gives us another chance to check out some wines with the pesto. The recent Albarino and Vermentino pairings were very good. These wines have taste characteristics of refreshing acid, mineral/stone, and fruit. Although these two wines sing their own song, they remind me of Sauvignon Blanc (and more than a little bit). So why not try a Sauvignon Blanc? In this case a Sancerre as suggested by Elliot above in this thread.
Wine:
We are fans of this wine. The producer is a little under the radar, but does get some occasional love here on WB. This vintage is not intense in any dimension, but is a nice wine. Leaning towards mineral/stone , with some citrus fruit and ample acidity. Nothing earth shattering, just solid, very good, maybe even a textbook example of Sancerre.
Pairing:
As said, we snuck in this pesto pairing with our weekly cheese plate dinner. Could not be simpler – basil pesto spread on a slice of ciabatta. This was a brilliant pairing. The wine really complimented the basil pesto and both seemed better after meeting. Also discovered that a dollop of basil pesto on goat cheese (capricho de cabra in this case) is a treat and drinking it with the Sancerre was taking it up a notch.
2013 Castello La Lecchia Chianti Classico I wanted to try out some reds with the basil pesto. I am starting off with an Italian one: Sangiovese in the form of a Chianti Classico. I read a positive note or two online about this pairing with one suggesting that I would be “wowed” by the way the acid in the wine tamed the intense taste of the basil and garlic and the fruit in the wine would bring out the olive oil and cheese. Sounds good to me! I also read a positive note here on WB about Sangiovese drinking well in hot outdoor weather, so why not basil pesto and Chianti Classico on the back porch?
This particular bottle has a nice memory attached. We first had it at an unplanned lunch under a tree at the edge of the courtyard at Castello La Leccia in 2017. We made a hike there from our agriturismo just to take a look at the property. My friendly wife speaks Italian and loves to engage in conversation and we ended up being invited to stay for lunch. I thought I bought some 2014 of this wine but a 2013 was mixed in, so I opened it.
Wine:
I have had seemingly random success or failure in my Chianti drinking. Sometimes it is very pleasant and sometimes it is not, in a way that I cannot predict. Just when I think it is a wine that always needs food, I’ll have a glass that is delicious on its own. This particular wine opened a bit harsh and ended a bit acidic. In between was some sense of fruit-cherries maybe? Not a very pleasant drinker by itself.
Pairing:
We served a made-fresh-today basil pesto over Pici pasta, which is a noodle we discovered in Tuscany. It is a very thick noodle and is quite a mouthful (I hear some of your dirty minds at work – shame on you!) It requires a very long boil - more than twenty minutes to reach al dente. The basil pesto with the Pici was very delicious, but the wine did not transform itself nor did it seem to enhance the taste of the pesto. Fortunately, the basil stayed delicious. Unfortunately, the wine stayed mediocre. I am not going to generalize to all Chianti Classico, but this one did not do it. I’m calling it neutral since neither wine nor dish was changed.
2018 Cantine Lunae Bosoni Colli di Luni Vermentino Etichetta Nera The basil in the garden was begging to be picked today with a profuse bloom of fresh and beautiful leaves. As I assembled the ingredients for the pesto, I decided to make two changes to the recipe due to ingredient availability. I used walnuts instead of pine nuts and I also used 1/3 Romano instead of 100% Parmesan. These two changes promised a potentially bolder and more assertive pesto and that is what was delivered. After sampling the results, I named this version “basil pesto robusto”.
Wine:
This is the big brother to the Eticetta Griga which was tasted earlier in this thread. That earlier bottle was inexpensive, unpretentious, and delicious. A solid wine and an excellent pairing with pesto. The Nera in contrast is out to make a statement about how good Ligurian Vermentino can be. It is about twice the price of the the Griga. Lipid in color, with a faint aroma. (I wish that my smell challenged nose could do a fairer assessment because something interestingly herbal is there.) The first taste was a fairly powerful jolt of lemon followed by herbs. As the wine warmed a bit, the impression of Mediterranean herbs became dominant. I tasted (imagined?) rosemary, thyme, and unnamed others along with a subdued dry lemon coating. An excellent and maybe even complex wine. Very enjoyable and also a wine to ponder a bit. Great wine I think!
Pairing:
After the knock-out performance as a stand-alone wine, and the earlier success of the Griga pairing, my expectations were set for a block buster pairing with this Nera. Expectations are backstabbers, and although the wine was very good with this robust version of the pesto, it unfortunately lost some of its appealing subtle and complex taste profile. On the other hand, It did seem to tame the bold flavors of this pesto version so it became a more balanced and flavorful dish. Because the wine is so damn good by itself and the pesto was bolder than usual, I am going to be a little generous in the verdict.
Verdict: Good to Excellent Pairing
P.S. I really liked this wine, but pairing it with the robust version of the pesto did not do it any favors. Possibly it would have been more successful with our usual recipe with the more subdued flavors or the toasted pine nuts and only Parmesan. In any case, I highly recommend the wine.
BONUS VIDEO: The 2018 Cantine Lunae Bosoni Colli di Luni Vermentino Etichetta Nera was named the white wine of the year by Gambero Rosso in its 2020 Vini d’Italia guide. I found an entertaining little video about this.
With the basil pouring in, boss chef made a favorite of ours. Trofie Pasta With Pesto and Grilled Shrimp was just fabulous. The pairing was 2019 Jolie Laide Melon de Bourgogne Rodnick Farm (formerly Antle) Chalone.
I thought the Melon pairing might be a bit too acidic for the dish but the 2019 is a bit more ripe and the still ample acidity worked really well with the still briny shrimp. Good enough that I had two large servings (burp). The 2019 Jolie Laide Melon de Bourgogne, picked early to preserve natural acidity and whole cluster pressed to concrete eggs had aromas and flavors of chalky sea shells, lemon drop, lime blossom and thyme. Dinner and wine almost brought us back to Cinque Terre (We can dream, right). Love what Scott Schultz does with this grape in every vintage. Here is the finished pesto, wine and dinner.
Hi Jim, sorry for the delayed reply. Crazy weather last night and today in Sonoma County. Here is the Pesto Recipe that my wife uses. We have tried others but this one hits the mark for us. My wife doubled up on the recipe as we will then have some for future pizza nights. Let me know if you have any questions.
Inspiration cannot be summoned. For creative types facing creative endeavors, inspiration is the fuel that drives us, so when it comes, we must be receptive. That was a pretentious (though true) introduction to saying that I came up with a new preparation for basil pesto today. I made a good harvest of orange cherry tomatoes this morning and I was “inspired” to combine these with our basil pesto. We originally had planned our weekly cheese plate dinner for this evening along with a different bottle of wine, but these were obstacles that could, and should, be put aside. Creative flow must. . . well, flow.
Wine
We have enjoyed the Colli di Lapio bottling of Fiano di Avellino many times, but I recently heard some nice things about this one, and decided to give it a try. My previous experience with the Colli di Lapio is that it drinks well young, but is almost always improved (and sometimes much) with a few years of bottle age. The first sip of this wine by itself was . . . very, very, nice! A full mouthfeel, and a loaded taste package of mineral, herbs, and fruit with a near perfect acid level to complement them all. Finishes dry with an almost nutty and fruity chalkiness with a spicy undertone. Fruit to me is lemon-lime and other ripe, slightly and pleasantly tart, fruit; the fruit to my wife’s taste is more “exotic” - she mentions pear and mandarin (?). Both of us are really enjoying this wine by itself.
Pairing
The cherry tomatoes were sliced in half, coated with olive oil, dusted with salt, then left to marinate for several hours at room temperature. The liquid given off was tasty and I kept all of it. I considered combining in the pesto a couple of hours before dinner to let the combination integrate, but I decided against it to keep the contrasting, but hopefully also complementary, tastes fresh.
It was served over “elbow pasta”; a character actor who would set the scene for the star and costar and then step into the background. Turned out that the were two stars with the tomato and its tasty liquid exudate taking equal bows with the basil pesto. Extremely tasty. The wine complemented very well; its fruit stepped back a bit to let the tomatoes have their sweet say. Its herby minerality went well with the still vocal garlic and basil from the pesto. The nuttiness in the wine glad handed the pine nuttiness of the pesto. The pesto was clearly transformed into something different from its usual presentation, so it might not be appropriate to call this a basil pesto pairing, but just between us: Wow!
Verdict: Outstanding Pairing
I have already found some very enjoyable wine pairings for my basil pesto, even called a few “excellent”. Where do I go for the right word, when the standard that I have in my mind for excellent is exceeded? My wife suggested “Perfect”, but nothing is that. I borrowed a term that Kirk Grant uses in his TNs that seems just about right.
I’ll point out again that our basil pesto recipe is heavy on the basil and the garlic so it has a strong personality. We modified this “base” pesto in the same way as last week: fresh garden tomatoes were chopped into large chunks and marinated with oil and salt for several hours and then everything combined with the pesto. The resulting “sauce” tones down the basil and garlic a bit, and also highlights the sweetness and acidity of the tomatoes. Served over gemelli pasta. As for the wine, based on my memory of previous tastings, I thought it had the right type of personality to get along with our basil pesto; Assyrtiko, as I recall, has a high acid, citrus and herbal taste profile.
Wine
This wine makes a powerful first impression. An acid punch, leading to a strong citrus and herbal taste. The herbs dominate. Also, some type of tangy spiciness. . . pepper? ginger? Some saltiness too. Maybe even olive? Not a simple wine. The aftertaste is mostly herbs and lime and long lasting. I like this wine. My wife is also enjoying it but with some hesitancy as verbalized by her using the same word that I was thinking- “punch’.
Pairing
The fruit in the wine almost disappears when paired with this pesto dish. The acid punch becomes more of a strong friendly hug and the herbal mixture dominates. The pesto tastes great and I had seconds, then thirds. Also had seconds on the wine. I liked this pairing. My wife thought that the disappearance of the fruit component made the wine less tasty. I can see her point, but I liked where the wine ended up. The food was balanced and yummy, with the basil pesto and tomatoes showing herbal, garlic, sweet and acid. The wine was a great dance partner, not getting in the way as the pesto showed off. Also nice to have a conversation with off to the side. I concede that my perceived beauty of this pairing might not be shared by everyone.
2017 Francois Villiard Viognier Les Contours de Deponcins An accidental pairing tonight. My wife had a friend visiting and we opened this wine just for a glass, but ended up finishing it at dinner with basil pesto over spaghetti.
Wine
From young grapes, more densely planted, just a couple of hundred meters outside the Condrieu designation boundary. Finished in aged oak. Very different taste profile from the citrus, herbal, acidic white wines that have seemed to click with our basil pesto. This showed ripe fruit, no citrus, abundant florals, slight undercurrent of what seemed like toast, might be the oak or could be some spices – n_ot herbal_, but spicy – nutmeg, cardamon, cloves, and mild acidity. Oily full mouthfeel rather than stone mineral. I like this wine. Its taste profile reminds me of dry, oak finished Loire Chenin Blanc which I also tend to like.
Pairing
This was an interesting pairing with our basil pesto / fresh tomato version. It took a little adjustment to appreciate that, though different, it did, in fact, work pretty well, The more I sipped the wine with the food, the more I enjoyed the pairing. There was a very slight change in the taste of the wine to a pleasantly bitter finish, but all the other components remained and worked. I was a little surprised.
Verdict: Good Pairing
P.S. I am sipping the last glass as I post this. Very good to excellent wine. Really enjoying it.
The basil harvest is over as the plants have given up their vigor. These plalnts were good to us yielding many harvest cuttings and we still have some pesto in the freezer. We grabbed a package tonight and mixed it with some slow and low cooked, but not totally “sundried” tomatoes. (Made when we harvested 14 red tomatoes from a single plant a few weeks back).
Wine
Here is a wine from the same Campania region as the very successful earlier Fiano di Avellino. It is also from the same producer and the same vintage. Worth a try I thought. The taste profile was reminiscent of the Fiano with citrus, minerals, and herbs, but also with a slightly bitter nutty component. Both wines have herbs that recall the Mediterranean. I recall the Fiano di Avellino having a fuller mouthfeel and fuller taste, more characterful to me. The finish of the Greco di Tufo was almost palpably rounder with a slight bite. This was still an enjoyable wine though.
Pairing
This wine paired well with the basil pesto dish tonight. However, I thought that it turned ever so slightly out of balance towards the acid side of citrus without the fruit coming along. The pesto itself was a very tasty combo of the basil pesto and the tomatoes. The wine was a good pairing, but not in the same class tonight as the Fiano di Avellino was a few weeks back.
I’m not surprised. It is a great Santorini Assyrtiko (perhaps my favorite, along with Sigalas, since the untimely death of Haridimos Hatzidakis three years ago) and a world class wine.
I’ve really enjoyed reading this Jim. Thanks for sharing your experience.
There’s one more harvest left on my potted basil plants so I’ll be making a final batch within the next week. Not sure what wine I’ll try yet though.
