So last night we had a carrot-feta salad for dinner. Paired nicely with the end of a 2011 Piron Morgon beaujolais. We hadn’t quite finished eating and wanted a tad more wine, so pulled the remains of a bottle of 2003 LDH Rioja Blanco Crianza Gravonia out of the fridge. Wow. While the sweetness of the carrot played nicely off the acid of the white rioja, the feta-rioja pairing was just foul. I don’t know if it was the american oak, or the slight oxidative character of the wine, but together the wine made the feta cheese taste completely rancid.
Worst wine pairing I’ve experienced ever, I think.
I’m always amazed how often cheese shows up with wine given how rarely it works.
Cheese is very difficult to pair wine with. Seldom do you actually get a 1+1=3 but more commonly you get just OK or worse, conflicts. My guess is the Bojo was lower in alc and higher in tannin than the LDH Blanco helping it stand up to the mouth coating cheese. The LDH Blanco had too much alc (hot vintage) and not enough tannins – being white – to stand up. Counter intuitively, the acid competes with the cheese here instead of balances as it might with vegetable or animal fat. Try a lower alc, off dry wine with more obvious fruit (perhaps).
Generally, this is an example of where I’d go for congruence instead of counterpoint. Try again and let us know!
Thanks for the input. I think I’ll try maybe an off dry Chenin next time then. I just consulted my “What to Drink with What you Eat” book, and the feta cheese pairing suggestion there was a Greek white (as well as bojo!). So that I think would be an interesting experiment – to try with an off-dry white as well as a high acid assyrtiko or something.
I’m beginning to think that, while older red rioja is highly food flexible, white rioja is not. I rarely have had it work with anything except the obvious fish-based paella.
I found years ago that Beaujolais paired wonderfully with Cheshire cheese, which I otherwise would never serve with a red. Cheshire has a texture similar to feta and if the feta is mild their flavors are in the same general neighborhood, so I can see the fruit of the wine playing off that cheese.
It was French sheep feta. Very mild and sweet before I added the rioja (which actually gave it an “off”, goat-y flavor.)
Interesting about the Cheshire – its crumbly saltiness is somewhat feta-like so I could see how Beaujolais would work with it too. No wonder we drink so much bojo in our household. It can take most anything we throw at it, food-wise…
I never understood the chocolate/cabernet pairing that people rave about. On the other hand the best pairing ever for me is mature sauternes with Foie gras = perfection.
Really? I discovered by accident early on in my wine life that I liked a mature Bordeaux with chocolate. I returned to the remains of a glass of claret after a chocolate dessert and, darned, if it wasn’t a good combo. I only read later in a column of Gerald Asher’s that this had good precedent. For me it would have to be dark but not too bitter chocolate, and a cab with resolved or fairly soft tannins.
Sauternes or Auslese with fois gras is had to beat!
Feta is just hard to pair with wine period. It’s basically brined curds and always tastes rancid to me. I’ve never bought it for that reason, can’t stand it for the most part and couldn’t imagine pairing it with a wine.
Thinking about it, the oxidized character of the LdH wine wouldn’t really work with what is a fresh and salty cheese. I think if you had an aged Gouda you’d have been happier. I don’t know what I’d pair with feta - it’s still so milky I don’t think any wine would be really great. That’s a problem with a lot of young cheeses for me. I think most wines pair better with cheese that has some age. Right now I’m having an aged goat cheddar and some Zin - it’s perfect.
Agree on both points! I eat a lot of chocolate, especially gourmet dark cocoa, but always after and never with my red wine. Hard for me to go back and forth with that combo. Now Sauternes and foie gras, just a major yum.
If the preparation of the foie isn’t with a cloying jelly and is instead salted or with fresh fruit, you might try something a bit more savory and less sweet such as vin juane, macvin, amontillado or aged Kabinett. Give it a shot, let me know.
I’m also in the camp that does not like chocolate with Cabernet (or pretty much any wine). I love dark chocolate, but, for me, the chocolate gets in the way of enjoying the wine and the wine does nothing to enhance the chocolate.
I would expect a man of your erudition to distinguish among fetas. The sheeps milk ones are much milder than the goats milk ones, and the Bulgarian fetas (from sheep) are unsurpassed in my experience because, I’m told, they have the highest fat levels. Yum!
Yes. Dry red wine and chocolate is one of the worst possible pairings for me. The wine tastes absolutely terrible with the chocolate. This is true for a significant portion of the population. People who don’t get the same effect often seem to have a tough time understanding it.
One of the other worst pairings for me is any kind of shellfish with any red wine. I’ve tried it with a variety of normally red wine loving sauces and preparations, and with exactly the types of reds people suggest for such things, and every time the seafood makes the wine taste metallic, bitter, and downright terrible. Again, I am not alone in this. Many types of fish can work for me with reds with the right preparations, but no shellfish.
I also agree that cheese is generally not easy to pair with wine. Funny that it’s such a common pairing. It can work, but it’s not always easy to find the right wine for the cheese.
