Anyhow, the whole proposition makes no sense. Wine is food…of course the interaction of flavors of what one eats together on a plate or at table matters. I like a nice steak, but prefer a savory, or at most mildly sweet sauce, bernaise, chimmichurri, maybe balsamic…but not peach ice cream. Everyone in our house enjoys brussels sprouts, and also chocolate cake…but not together.
This is about right. It’s also why the article isn’t such bullshit. My wife hates chimmichurri and I would never put a rare balsamic vinegar into a steak sauce. People have preferences.
But you don’t have to put everything in your mouth together. Eat some asparagus, sit for a minute, maybe have a bit of the squash, and then after you swallow, sip the wine. The flavors don’t interfere at all.
As far as pairing goes - Germany is pretty cold. They don’t do a lot of red wine. But they do like their game with some spaetzle. Maybe venison, maybe goose. I have a hard time believing that the nobles in years past refused the food because they didn’t have a big red on hand and only had barrels of Riesling.
You are an ignorant if you pair red wine with lots of food
White wine: not so much
If you think af CdP in Magnum with sushi
Think again.
A 35 year old Sercial or Prüm is better.
Of course its subjective and I agreed in the past with much of what has been said but I had on multiple occasions the wine pairings for the multiple course meal at the late Charlie Tortter’s resturant. It was celestial, unbelievable unlike anything else. Blew me away. I believe chefs who know a lot about wine, such as Wolfgang Puck, are the best at pairing.
Pairing is a made up pseudoscience?
I’m OK with that. I’ve heard experts put forth diametrically opposed explanations for why a certain match should, or shouldn’t, work.
No such thing as a perfect pairing?
Maybe, maybe not. I’m not sure how to define perfect, but I’ve had some doozies where the whole was so much greater than the sum of the parts. The thing is, they were almost all serendipitous rather than planned. Not predictable or repeatable.
Pairing is bullshit?
Nope, that’s bullshit. Attention-seeking hyperbole, or click bait as someone said above. Some things do go better together. Repeatably. Predictably. Though my preferred pairings may differ from yours.
I had to learn about wine and pairing at a fine dining job because I had to recommend wines to go with the dishes. I learned about acidity and richness and flavors in the wine and how they match or are a contrast to certain types of foods. A multi-course dinner with really good food and really good wine pairings, prepared by a real chef and the “right” somm will probably be better than anything you’ll ever make at home. But yeah, I drink undecanted young red cab monsters with the halibut caught last summer, crush the sauv blanc (often with ice cubes in a coffee stained coffee mug) when I grill ribeye in the heat, who phucking cares?
To be fair, I don’t think I’ve ever had an epiphany wine and food pairing.Have had some good ones, but nothing that elevated the food and wine together to ethereal heights.Hope I do someday, but in general, I drink and eat what i like and hope they go well together.If not, I just enjoy them separately.
I’ve been somewhat outspoken on this issue in any number of threads on this forum on just this subject. Wine and food pairing often wastes effort trying to create some perfect union when, most of the time, we either just want to have a nice glass of wine and a nice meal or mostly enjoy each of those pieces of the meal separately. Are there some things that go well together, like simple roast chicken and burgundy or lamb and syrah? Sure. But what I often see at restaurants is a group of folks who either end up drinking something they wouldn’t usually prefer because it’s a “great match” or changing their meal choice to better match what’s being ordered for the table or for the wine they’re enjoying (and don’t want to switch).
The result is that folks are often willing to deny themselves something they want, hoping that the sum of the parts is better than the potential enjoyment they can get from their otherwise preferred individual parts.
THAT is why I think focusing on wine pairings is bullshit. It’s not that there aren’t good pairings–though everyone’s mileage may vary (I mean, if you don’t like burgs maybe roast chicken and burgs isn’t a good match for you)–it’s that pairings are often so overblown in importance that I think pursuing pairings can actually result in a decline in the overall enjoyment of a meal.
I am a pretty slutty wine drinker. I can enjoy most wines and am not picky with food (though cucumbers are disgusting). I get to enjoy fantastic restaurants when I travel for work and seek them out when I travel for pleasure. I’ve had dozens of wine pairings with tasting menus at restaurants and finally wrote them off entirely last year.
Even despite my openness, I’ve simply had far too many “perfect pairings” that included wines I don’t really want to drink, never would have ordered, and didn’t find to improve the meal even if there was some harmony. In almost all of those circumstances I would have been much, much happier with a wonderful bottle of champagne, or a great red that I could enjoy over the meal and experience any highs and lows in showing associated with changes in food.
How many folks are happy to enjoy a nice chardonnay with some pre-meal cheeses even though it’s a bad match? Cabernet and chocolate? Another terrible match. Oh, one should have port or sauternes or … but most folks just don’t want to drink those wines even if a perfect and harmonious match. If wine and food are both about enjoyment, focus on the enjoyment and not on the quest for a perfect pairing.
And that’s all aside from the fact that I tend to focus on the wine separately from the food when I have a meal anyway.
Absolutes and overly broad generalities are BULLST** (Including this one.)
Most of the best wine experiences of my life have been when the food and wine were ideal complements.
Yes, the traditional strict pairings of white wine with fish, red with meat- are antiquated and narrow, but I am certainly not drinking cabernet with oysters, etc.
There are only a few strict rules I adhere to with food pairing…
Chocolate and dry wine is a bullspit hallmark holiday made up bunch of crap pairing.
When in doubt, drink champagne. Champagne goes with everything.
I will only chime in to say that food-and-wine combining has become a part of this that is of extreme interest to me now. I have had enough experiences where magic happens when a good wine and a good food match become an amazing combination and I’m getting more daring, bit by bit, with experimenting with those. Really turned the corner a couple years ago in Burgundy at Aupres du Clocher when, with a beef dish in rich broth, had a Coche 12 Meursault that kicked its ass and went so stunningly well with it.
BTW, now that I have context for your avatar, I love it!!
I think his statement is being misunderstood and misinterpreted. To me, he is not saying there is no such thing as good/great food and wine pairing, I am sure he knows that and will state that in a longer take on the subject. But what he tried to say, in a brief note, is that somms too often than not try to dictate what should food and wine pairing be. Which is BS, truth be told. Its whatever works for the paying customer, not what a somms think their palates should dictate. Lately I look at a wine list, in probably 90% of restaurants we visit, and I see absolutely nothing I want to order. Be it off vintage wines, or some deals a distributor/broker push in order to buy Wine X, or natty wines some somms push in customers’ faces, or whatever else. I stopped ordering any and all somms’ “wine pairings flights” a long while back, just didn’t find one that really hit it well. BYOB is the way to go these days, sadly, and which I do after I check their wine list first, of course. Sometimes we do order something off the list to get started, but then pull what we brought to MATCH OUR PALATE PREFERENCE. In Vegas, for example, unless you’re on the Strip, all you get is really what Southern rep wants you to have, the point of the article.
Read his statement one more time, its very clear. Customer, paying customer, comes first, and foremost. Not somms and their palate preference, nor some distributor’s “deal” or whatever they are told to push that month or quarter. Those ITB understand it better, sadly.
ITB folks have an amazing agenda, whether on CT or elsewhere, no matter how “objective” they want to portray themselves, it’s all just BS…let the buyer beware, yet with so much good wine out there, it’s mostly no harm no foul, and all is good
best plan is to help customers find a wine they will enjoy whatever it may be and have them buy it again
I’m willing to try something new if someone says it’s a great match. I won’t order something I know I don’t care for just because it’s supposed to be a great match.
Absolutely agree with focusing on the enjoyment. If I’m in the mood for X and nothing on the list looks like it goes great with X, I do as you do and focus separately on the food and wine.
Like insulin shots. This is why I think pairings and the quest for the “perfect” pairing is not a worthwhile effort. You say (and so do many somms) that Sauternes goes well with X Y and Z. I would order Sauternes zero times out of ten. I get why people like it but I have never been enchanted by even that stuff that starts with a Y enough to even consider ordering it or buying it. I would rather sip on champagne with quite literally any food than drink a glass of Sauternes, port, tokay, Auslese or sweeter, etc.
Oh but it goes better! Bret is not a flaw! This TCA will blow off! It’s just travel shock! You’d have liked it more if you slow-oxed it! You should have decanted it for 2 hours before drinking it!
We generally choose the wine and the food with relative independence. In other words, we tend to subscribe to the eat and drink what we want philosophy, if you can call it that. I don’t think wine pairing is total BS though. Quick story: I was a young professional and a relative wine novice on a business trip to NYC. We went to an Italian restaurant and the food was paired with a relatively generic Italian table wine (I had no choice in either). I remember thinking how the wine made the food even tastier and vice-versa. It was a semi-epiphany in that some food and wine elevate each other (but I sure wish I remembered the restaurant or the wine!).
Petite Syrah and flounder in a lemon caper sauce is awesome…said no one ever.
There are foods that in a general sense elevate a wines flavor and vice versa. When I bring a bottle of wine to dinner, I sometimes don’t order what I normally would if no wine were present because having flounder in a lemon caper sauce makes the Gran Reserva Rioja I brought taste funky compared to having it with say braised beef short ribs. There is a reason coq au vin uses pinot vs. auslese.
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