Pinot Noir might be the sommelier's most useful tool is his or her red wine arsenal. It's medium weight and medium to low tannin structure means it can be paired with dark fish almost without hesitation and light and even shellfish in many instances. Pinot Noir's high acidity means it can handle bright marinades, sauces and sharp ingredients. Old World Pinot Noir features moderate alcohol that plays nicely with mild spices while New World Pinot Noir offers a fruity profile (and often a few grams of residual sugar) that compliments the sweetness found in modern cooking.

My colleague, Evan Goldstein MS, in his excellent book Perfect Pairings writes that Pinot Noir goes well "with just about everything. Its combination of red-wine and white-wine qualities gives it incredible flexibility...". Goldstein goes on to point out that "tuna and swordfish are prime candidates (for Pinot noir). Indeed, the quintessential local pairing in Oregon is northwest salmon and Oregon Pinot Noir."

We prepared the Salmon with Soy, Ginger, and Sake recipe found in the book and paired this with the 2009 Joseph and Philippe Roty Bourgogne rouge "Cuvée de Pressonniers", a Pinot Noir we recently offered at PWMWINE.COM.

As I mentioned above, Salmon and Pinot Noir seem to have a natural affinity for one another. What really set this pairing off was the soy used in the marinade and sauce. Soy sauce, savory and umami-packed, is a useful bridge ingredient to red wine. More of these "bridge ingredients" can be found in Goldstein's book. Here are just a few:

• slow cooked garlic and onions help form a bridge between foods and wines with more weight and texture

• olives. Green olives create a white wine affinity while black olives create a red wine affinity

• herbs. Fragrant herbs (like chervil or tarragon) offers a bridge to whites like Riesling while more pungent herbs (like thyme) provides a link to Cabernet

• mushrooms add earthiness to a dish and can be an excellent link to earthy wines.

 

Those of you who subscribe to our e-mail newsletter recently received an offer for the delicious Viognier wines of Domaine Georges Vernay. Viognier is the white grape variety responsible for the small Condrieu appellation and even smaller Château-Grillet in France's Northern Rhône. It is known for its intoxicating perfume of stone fruit and orange blossoms and is often helped along by maturation in small oak barrels. The ripe intensity of Viognier's fruit is suggestive of sweetness but the wines are classically fermented dry. 

 

Viognier's aromatic exuberance and succulent apricot and peach flavor might at first seem to be limited in its ability to pair well with food. But as my colleague Evan Goldstein MS points out in his excellent Perfect Pairings book, this is not at all true. Goldstein writes, "Viognier is underrated in its ability to pair with food" and suggests "choosing foods that suggest sweetness but are not really sweet, like a Moroccan tagine of chicken, preserved lemons, and cinnamon." 

 

We prepared the Ginger and Orange Fried Chicken recipe found in the book and put Goldstein's theory to a test. The recipe calls marinating the chicken in buttermilk, orange and fresh ginger before coating with a seasoned mixture ground ginger and curry powder. Orange and fresh ginger played nicely with the fruit and spice found in the 2010 Domaine Georges Vernay Viognier Le Pied de Samson of course, but it was the last two ingredients (curry and ground ginger) really sealed the deal. Goldstein suggests pairing Viognier "with curried anything" and the curry and ginger certainly seemed to be the binding element in this pairing. 

 

Our chicken was accompanied by a simple green salad dressed with citrus vinaigrette and garnished with avocado and orange slices.  

 

Hats off to fellow Master Sommeliers Drew Hendricks and James Tidwell for organizing and executing this weekend's AWESOME Texsom 2010 event in Dallas, Texas. Jeremy Parzen has already posted the details of Texsom 2010 on his excellent blog DO Bianchi and there were just too many great seminars, tastings, BBQ, and dry-aged steaks for me to write up individually. I am reserving a separate post for the superb dinner we had at York Street in Dallas with Bathalomew Broadbent featuring the wines of Château Musar. York Street is exactly the kind of market-driven cooking I love and Musar really sung on this night. Look for this post in the coming days. In the meantime, let me just say congratulations to Jason Huerta of Dallas' Pappas Bros and Steakhouse for winning the Best Sommelier in Texas competition (WELL DONE SIR!) and thanks again James and Drew for asking me to participate this year. Can't wait to get back to Texas!

It seems like there's two schools of thought on wine glasses and that you have to belong to one or the other. On one hand, having a glass for every single type of wine can seem fussy, pretentious, and even overkill. On the other hand, I really get a lot of pleasure drinking Barolo from Bottega del Vino's Barolo glasses, Grüner from those awesome Zalto stems that every producer seems to have in the Wachau, and Mosel from delicate Spieglau tulips. I've enjoyed wine from vessels as simple as Mason jars to Ben Anderson's extensive collection of Schott Zwiesel one-offs in L.A.

My colleague, Master Sommelier Andrea Robinson, has designed a new line of wine glasses called The One with the goal of developing a single glass shape for all wine types. Andrea also required the manufacturer that they be affordable, break resistant, dishwasher safe, beautiful, and of high-quality lead free crystal. We’ve been trying out a set of The One red wine glasses with some very positive results. Elizabeth commented early on that the stems are naturally balanced in the hand, and we both agreed that they were attractive, but how would The One perform?

We’ve tasted a variety of wines from The One over the past few weeks: white/red; Old World/New World; modern/traditional, etc. The One always showed a very different flavor profile when used side-by-side with a traditional stem, but how the wine differed depended greatly on the type of wine in the glass. The One seemed to amplify aromatics in a few of the unoaked dry Italian white wines, such as Falanghina and Greco di Tufo. That’s a bonus when you’re dealing with neutral grape varietals and moderate alcohol. However, in a wine with higher alcohol and richness, such as a Pinot Gris sampled from Oregon and an Anjou sec, the glass design delivered more sweetness and a bit more heat.

Tonight we opened a bottle of 2008 Jean-Paul Brun’s Beaujolais l’Ancien and tasted it side-by-using The One and a classic Riedel Vinum Red Burgundy glass. The Beaujolais from the Riedel was bright and minerally, showing cherry pit and crushed berries. In contrast, the same wine showed a softer, spicier, more floral character in The One, and also an undeniably sweeter mid-palate. With a powerful Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley, we immediately noticed a sharper, more aggressive attack from a Spieglau Bordeaux stem, while from The One we noticed a broader, richer, and perfumed version of the same wine.

If you're not a total glass geek like me, and you're looking for a single stem to do the best job accross the board, The One is the one.

I'm tasting Carménère this afternoon with Master Sommelier Fred Dexheimer in the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco. In 1994, French ampelographer Jean-Michel Boursiquot determined that Carménère was interspersed with Merlot in Chile's vineyards. We used to think of Carménère as having a "green and herbal" quality but that was back when it was picked along with earlier ripening Merlot. Carménère needs 3-6 weeks longer to ripen making Chilean Merlots and Carménères infamously "green". Tastes like they've got it all sorted out; it's now a specialty of the Chilean wine industry and these Carménère's are ripe and delicious, all chocolate, coffee, and tobacco.

Viña Casa Silva Gran Reserva Los Lingues Colchagua 2006

Cono Sur Visión Single Vineyard Colchagua 2008

Santa Ema Amplus One Cachapoal 2006

Apaltagua Grial Colchagua 2007

jessebeckerMS
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