Great Wine Made Simple - Andrea Immer [106]
Maybe you weren’t consciously thinking about it, but I am sure you have used this principle, too. Whether it was a squeeze of lemon on your fish and chips, pickles on your hamburger, or Worcestershire sauce on your steak, you’ve undoubtedly enjoyed the flavor wake-up call that acidity can bring to anything you are eating. As if that weren’t enough, acidity has another great virtue: It brings balance into the picture, playing against and harmonizing with other tastes, textures, and flavors so they don’t dominate or overpower. For example, the lemon squeeze keeps fish from seeming “fishy,” and the steak sauce balances the meatiness and fattiness of a steak.
Thanks to its acidity, wine is the beverage for food. Is it any wonder that Europe’s best eating cultures, France and Italy and Spain, enjoy a glass of wine with virtually every meal, not just special occasions? Acidity is the reason that, regardless of which dish is cast in the starring role at dinner, wine definitely takes “Best Supporting Actor” honors.
AND THE WINNERS ARE …
For best supporting actor in a:
Potluck supper: Beaujolais
Saturday night stir-fry: Pinot Grigio
Weekend clambake: Chardonnay
Backyard barbecue: red Zinfandel
Leftovers “Fridge Fest”: Chianti
WINE TASTING
Taste Dynamics
How Wine and Food Change Each Other
As far as I’m concerned, if the food is on the table, and the wine’s cork is out, it’s a match. But on a day-to-day basis, your wine and food need not be locked in a passionate embrace—a handshake will do. Still, the dynamics of wine and food are fascinating. In the pairings below, I show how wine and food tastes can be completely transformed when the two are sampled together. (Yes, there is such a thing as wine and food nirvana, and so that you can experience it for yourself, later I will tell you about some matches made in heaven.)
I do this tasting with the waiters I teach, and it is a real eye-opener:
Fresh Goat Cheese with Sancerre
Use a fresh goat cheese such as chèvre, Montrachet, or Crottin Chavignol. You have had Sancerre before, but taste the wine first to refresh your taste memory—vibrant, mouthwatering acidity. Now taste the goat cheese and notice its tangy, acidic character. At this point, my students always brace themselves for a teeth-jarring taste experience—very acidic wine, very acidic food—ouch! But it is not so. Tasting the two together shows how acidity in both the wine and the food actually tone each other down. It shows that acidic wines go well with acidic foods (you can drink wine with salad).
Parmigiano Cheese with Cabernet Sauvignon
In the love affair between red wines and steak, or red wines and cheese, tannin is the tie that binds. Tannin, which gives the wine its structure, combats the heavy taste of the fat and protein in the cheese (or steak). At the same time, the fat and protein coat your mouth, mellowing the astringency of the tannin. Choose a good-quality Italian Parmigiano Reggiano and a tannic Cabernet Sauvignon (or you could use a tannic Rhône red such as Crozes-Hermitage, or another tannic red that your store suggests). The wine tasted by itself leaves your mouth dried out, which makes it hard to taste the fruit. But now eat some cheese, and then taste the wine. You will find that the cheese softens the wine’s hard edges, and lets the fruit flavor come forward.
Dessert Wine and Blue Cheese
This is an “opposites attract” comparison. Choose a Sauternes, or a Port wine from Portugal (either late bottled vintage Port, or a true vintage Port if you want to splurge). The best blue cheeses to use are either Roquefort from France, English Stilton, or a German blue called Cambazzola. (Supermarket blue cheese is not a good idea; it’s too crumbly and salty.) People often think this combination sounds crazy, but