It does make me shake my head from time to time and wonder how their palates can take it, but no, it doesn’t upset me. I do notice it for sure. Since I moved to Philly and BYO is quite common here, I regularly see couples arriving at a restaurant with one bottle of big red wine in hand, and then ordering shrimp or crab or delicate fish. I guess they don’t mind, and so it’s really none of my business. Intellectually, I get it and it’s all good - drink what you want. Not everyone has a cellar to draw on, or wants to schlep multiple options to a restaurant, or even notices or cares that the wine and food don’t go together into something special. But both Jonathan and I are very sensitive to pairing, it matters to us a lot, and so I do have visceral trouble seeing it and not feeling a little unsettled.
A number of years ago at the now closed Citronelle, the sommelier is showing my wife and me around the cellar when he points to the left and says “And over there we have the California Cabernets. They don’t go with anything on the menu but we sell the shit out of it.”
that was my reaction to Neal’s post as well. One of the most memorable pairings I’ve had in the last few years was some A5 Miyazaki Wagyu with a Benoit Lahaye La Violaine Champagne.
and to the original question yes it can bother me a bit but with age I’ve learned to
a) keep my mouth shut
b) try to do what I can in preparation but avoid micromanaging once things are set in motion. Once a party starts I let go of the reins.
As long as there are alternatives to drink. I don’t even like unblended Syrah so would not have been a happy camper. When you are pairing for yourself or a small group, it’s OK but not in a larger group. Should have alternatives that pair better with more delicate dishes. Next time do the wine pairing yourself then you have no one else to complain to.
I have learned to smile, and relax. This hobby takes a fair degree of work and most people won’t get that. It’s OK, I am ignorant of many things that others will be amazed I don’t know. The reward is occasionally ordering a good wine paring with food in a restaurant and having the somm or server acknowledge your choice. And you know they aren’t doing it just to get a bigger tip!
I interpreted the OP as “I was able to open and drink what I wanted, but they drank their Syrahs and it annoyed me.” If those were really the only wines open, then just say “do you mind if I open this white wine too?”
I misread that. I don’t ever care what other people are pairing even if I make the food. That is their loss not mine. 
When I care about whether the wines people are drinking go well with the food they are eating, I eat with friends who care about whether the wines they are drinking go well with the food they are eating. When I am with friends who are not winos, I don’t care. When I do to really fine restaurants, I tend to go with my wife; my wife, daughter and her husband, where I control the wines; or my wife and wine friends.
Has Rabbi Schneerson come back from the dead? I had not read about that. I know he is supposed to return any day now.
Why are you opening up $100 Burgundies for people who don’t care? I did things like that for too long, but eventually learned better. There are very nice $20 white Burgundies, or, as Maureen suggested, German riesling, that would be much better for the occasion.
Well,
there may be something like a “perfect” wine for a certain dish - and also a “completely wrong” wine …
but most of the times it´s in between …
For me there is a general rule: I have to like the wine (and the dish) - if it doesn´t match perfectly I can always drink a sip of water in between … and enjoy both …
… this is much better than a (theoretically) perfect wine which I dislike as a wine alone … (yes, it happens …) … or at least which I find uninteresting, boring …
BTW: what I hate most is a wine with considerable residual sugar that doesn´t match with the food … it can ruin the dish as well as the next (different) dry wine …
![[rofl.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/a/a7452fcd8e675af869f8da01174474a545b03944.gif "rofl"){kind=small}
Chips and salsa are great for beer and sangria. Otherwise, what a palate killer.
The worst is artichokes, as they make red wines metallic and icky sweet. Just don’t go there. If I am giving an EMH wine dinner at a
restaurant, and artichokes show up “on the house,” they are removed to the kitchen immediately. I want people to know what my
wines taste like…not to experience them
under poor conditions/matches.
I’m late to this discussion, but here’s my take. I’ll drink wine with the food so closely together in time as to affect the wine or food on very limited occasions during a dinner. I frankly think the “art” of pairing dishes is most often a fools errand. I do like to drink what I like to drink. I am happy to eat a glorious seafood dish, pause, take some water, nibble a cracker or so, and drink some–god forbid–bordeaux or 2014 syrah. Likewise, I’m happy to drink champagne with steak, or chardonnay with a pork chop or even lamb if I’m feeling like chardonnay and also lamb. Just enjoy them separately and don’t worry about missing out on some potentially glorious paring. Moreover, I’m inclined to think that in almost every instance, food hinders wine in some way. The paring is an accent and, to me, nothing more.
Sorry, but your post comes across as more than a little snobby. People should enjoy the wines they like with the food and company they prefer. That is what I call a perfect pairing.
Nope, to my knowledge, still dead.
If you can pull it off, both feet. The backflip puts punctuation on your conviction with regard to the right way to pair the wine and the dishes.
Kidding aside, do not underestimate the variability in the audience and how they perceive flavors in food. Indeed, many folks at your dinner may have been physiologically unable to get the nuance in the dishes in the way that you did. Therefore, they perceived no collision in the heavy hitting wine served alongside. In fact, the heavy-hitting wine may actually enhance their overall gustatory experience, even though it would completely ruin yours. This is hard to imagine until you experience a dramatic palate shift. I don’t know if that is common, but I have personally lost a lot of nasal acuity and it has its pros and cons.
Cheers,
fred
Jeff just loves huge 2014 syrah and sees nothing wrong with the perfect pairing you described.
(that is a joke!)
A really good point and salutory reminder.
I never drink with wine without food and for me, a large part of the ‘fun’ of this hobby is complementary wine/food pairings. While I’m not looking for some blissed out match made in heaven for a wednesday night dinner, there is nothing like breaking out a basic bourgogne with a roast chicken mid-week to bring our a potentially ordinary dining experience/evening to the next level.
That said, I’m more than happy to open whatever a guest wants to drink with their meal. It’s just plain rude to criticize their taste. If they enjoy Syrah with their fish, great. Just as long as they don’t expect me to join them, it’s all good.
Sorry to quibble, but this Syrah/ketchup analogy - we are talking small batch organic ketchup, correct??
Only a Nouveau Riche “oaf” tries to pair Heinz regular style with Cod/ Consomme.
Don’t sweat the matching others prefer…unless of course they served it in the wrong glass, then start an intervention immediately.