wine and food pairings

Andrew Sutton, chef at Disney’s Napa Rose,notes that as American cookery employs lessbutter and cream, wine pairings are turningaway from the usual fruit-forward matches.

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A s the American palate for wine and food,separately and together, continues to evolve,smart chefs and sommeliers are making sure that

pairings are broad, deep and coherent.They’re searching out more Old World wines to match

today’s lighter, fresher fare, hosting wine dinnersdeveloped through kitchen-cellar collaboration,participating in special events and promotions showcasingvintages beyond award-winning powerhouse wines andstaying attuned to what customers really want.

DEFLECTING FRUIT BOMBS

Chefs and sommeliers are putting less emphasis on old-fashioned wine dinners, especially those where acelebrated vintner might appear before a handful of gueststo unleash massive, potent Cabernets and Chardonnays;the rich vanilla oakiness of these wines often forces chefsto reach for the butter to help dishes stand up to a wine’sfruit-bomb intensity.“The biggest change in the past 10 years has been the

palate of the average guest,” says Andrew Sutton,executive chef of Napa Rose at Disney’s GrandCalifornian Hotel & Spa at the Disneyland Resort inAnaheim, Calif.American cookery is now far less reliant on cream and

butter; Sutton estimates that his sauces use 70 percentstock and only 30 percent butter these days, much less

than when he trained, more than two decades ago. As aresult, intense, concentrated and fruit-forward NewWorldvintages, while still attracting lots of praise, are taking aback seat to wines that make more harmonious matches.Michael Jordan, master sommelier and general manager

of Napa Rose, recalls the not-too-distant past, when “youcouldn’t give away the great European wines in SouthernCalifornia. All [customers] wanted was oaked Chard andCab; that was the limit of their taste and experience.”But now that Americans are better traveled and more

aware of the world of international flavors, they expecttheir restaurants to reflect a worldview, in terms of bothcuisine and wines, Jordan says. Meanwhile, sommeliers areturning away from classic, rote matches that actually maynot have worked.

EXPLORING NEW REGIONS

For some restaurants, building a pairing program withspecial dinners works to keep the kitchen and servers freshand to build guest loyalty and traffic. Every Thursday,Castagna, a Mediterranean restaurant in Portland, Ore.,explores lesser-known wine areas of the globe and winesfrom smaller organic and biodynamic producers, bothdomestic and international, who work with traditionalgrape varieties. Each wine is accompanied by a dish fromthe same region, offered as a four-course menu or a lacarte. Flights are priced at $15 for three 2-ounce pours.

BEVERAGE STRATEGIES

Chefs, sommeliers and winemakers look beyondcolor-coding to create worldly, taste-drivenmatches for food and wine

BY JACK ROBERTIELLO

NEW Parametersfor PAIRING

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The menu for a recent dinnerthat focused on Austria includedbouillon with nettle dumplings,paired with a pale, crisp GrünerVeltliner; a chanterelle and mâchesalad with Zweigelt, a red with abit of bite; and a Rouladen withred cabbage and spaetzle,partnered by a spicy Blaufränkisch.Castagna’s Monique Siu, in

charge of the front of the house,says the pairings evolve naturally due to therestaurant’s culinary concept.“We feature traditional European dishes on

our menu, and often they seem to go with thewines that they grew up with,” she says. “It’s aregional focus more than, say, trying to tastethe wine and figure out the perfect dish andsauce to go with it. It’s more about matchingregional dishes and wines and serving themtogether.”Siu also uses the dinners to showcase wines

on the list and to try different items fromvintners the restaurant already features.Looking for a more creative promotion

than the winemaker dinner, Jeff Groh of TheHeathman Restaurant & Bar, also inPortland, Ore., came up with the DuelingSommelier Dinner Series.

“This gives us the opportunity to present awide array of wines that people have never triedand may never have wanted to try,” he says.Since the wines are served “blind,”

customers judge strictly on how well they gowith each course, without knowing the makeror even the varietals. Broadening their winehorizon serves a selfish purpose, says Groh:“The last thing a sommelier wants to do is sellthe same wine over and over again; that willjust make us obsolete.”

SEASONAL GUIDES

While some restaurants depend on a culinarycore to guide wine pairings, for others, that’snot an option.“Food-and-wine pairing is an interesting

challenge at Aquavit, because Scandinaviahas no wine culture to speak of and notraditional wine cuisine,” says Sean Kerby,beverage director at Aquavit restaurant inNew York City. “This creates the opportunityto look at sundry appellations to find winesthat complement our distinctive cuisine.”Kerby’s overall approach at the occasional

wine dinners Aquavit hosts is to work withthe restaurant’s seasonal menus.“Just as I cannot go to a winemaker and ask

for a specially made wine for a particular dish,

BEVERAGE STRATEGIES

Sommelier Derek Georgeexpanded weekly tastingdinners at The Lodge inVail, Colo., to includesake, beers and otherspirits, based on eachcourse’s distinct flavors.

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I cannot expect the chef to change his menuto accommodate a wine. My challenge is totake these two static elements — a list ofwines and a list of dishes — and find whatworks together.”

FLEXIBILITY PREVAILS

There’s greater flexibility at operations wherewine dinners are built into the basic concept.At Napa Rose, Sutton and Jordan work onpairings all year for a tasting menu; called TheVintners Table, it changes weekly. Each offour courses is matched with a different wine.For each pairing, the two sit down and

hash out preferences based on marketavailability, new ideas, current trends and lotsof tasting. With more than 1,000 wines in-house, and more than 80 available by theglass, the search is intense.

“Michael and I have a healthy debate andthen sit down together and try to make itwork to share that experience with the guest,”explains Sutton.This process always produces surprises:

Recently, Jordan was convinced a Sancerrewould go best with a goat cheese sourcedespecially for the restaurant; instead, aSauvignon Blanc from Austria hit the mark.“Food-friendly” is a general term to

describe wines with high acidity, mildtannins, bright fruit and low alcohol content,important qualities when looking for an all-round pairing wine. But beyond the basicrules — dry wines taste thin and acidic whenserved with sweets, red-meat dishes welcomeassertive reds — the concept of food-friendliness can create problems if applied toorigorously.

GUIDED BY DINERS

When sommeliers create wine dinners, pre-conceived notions often run up againstreality. Erica Landon, sommelier at Ten 01 inPortland, Ore., and a Dueling Sommelierparticipant, says she learned as much as hercustomers did during the competition.“I didn’t really understand how subjective

it was,” she reflects. “People have an idea ofthe wines they love, but there were so manytimes that we [the sommeliers] liked thepairings, yet the customer vote was split.”Wines that sommeliers liked repeatedly

scored poorly with guests, which changed theway Landon approaches customers; now sheseeks to satisfy their personal tastes ratherthan achieve a “perfect match.”But, says Sutton, customers are responding

well to less-familiar varietals popular withsommeliers, like Albariño (a rich, fruitywhite), Fiano di Avellino (a dry white) andNegroamaro (an earthy, deep red), allowinghim to stretch as a chef. It also lets him buildmenus more around fresh vegetables, say,instead of relying on “fins, feathers and fur.”One of Jordan’s favorite pairings is a salad ofheirloom tomatoes (both chef and sommeliergrow their own for the restaurant) with aSangiovese rosé.Wines with residual sugar have becomemore

acceptable, as salty and spicy Asian flavorsinfluence American cooking, says Kerby.

BEVERAGE STRATEGIES

Jeff Groh of TheHeathman in Portland,Ore., created DuelingSommelier Dinners topresent a wider array ofwine pairings than atraditional winemaker’sdinner allows.

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BEVERAGE STRATEGIES

“Wines from [unknown] areas and grapesthat are unfamiliar to adventuresome palatesare really welcomed as people consider winepairings an educational as well as a gustatoryexperience,” Kerby adds. “When people aresurprised, then skeptical, then wowed, itheightens the experience more than if you say,‘Here is a Chablis with your oysters.’”

NEW WINE EXPERIENCES

It’s these new experiences that led Master ofWine Tim Hanni of Napa, Calif., to researchhow the brain processes and interpretssensory information. Hanni has advised theScottsdale, Ariz.-based P.F. Chang’s ChinaBistro chain on its wine list and worked withJeffrey Chodorow’s international China GrillManagement chefs on flavor balancing,which Hanni describes as “the art of gettingthe key taste components in a balance.”He says that while sweetness and umami

flavors make food delicious, thosecharacteristics also make most wines seemthinner, less fruity and more bitter. Increasing

the salt and acidity in the dishesautomatically renders them more winefriendly.“Look at the cuisines of Alsace, Tuscany,

Burgundy and Bordeaux, and you will see thisis what they intuitively do in all these classiccuisines,” Hanni points out.The success of regularly repeated pairings,

whether for formal dinners or a la carte, hasspurred a wider-ranging search for the rightmatch. At The Lodge at Vail in Vail, Colo.,certified sake sommelier Derek Georgeexpanded the pairings for weekly tastingdinners by introducing a sake menu. Herecently paired seared diver scallops withRihaku “Wandering Poet” Junmai Ginjo sake,onion soup with Tentaka Kuni “Hawk in theHeavens” Junmai sake and pan-roastedAlaska halibut with Rihaku “Dreamy Clouds”Tokubetsu Junmai Nigori sake.“Sake’s flavors range from really earthy and

mushroomy to floral and tropical fruit, sothere’s a wide range of pairings possible,”George says. He also offered mixed beverage-

With Asian ingredientsinfluencing Americancuisine, and dishes likeChina Grill’s Tuna Tempurawith Wasabi entering themainstream, wines withresidual sugar gain greateracceptance.

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and-food tasting menus last winter; onepaired Chimay ale with a short-rib Napoleon,followed by sake with oyster tempura, mixed-grill lamb with a vin de pays d’Oc and braisedmonkfish with an Italian white.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST

While standard food-and-wine-pairingpractices — e.g., using acidity to cut fattyfoods and higher tannins to stand up to high-protein dishes — hold true, sometimes a dish’sflavor profile calls for more than one wine,notes Aquavit’s Kerby.At a recent dinner featuring Italian wines,

Kerby found that the rich, fleshy quality of anaged, dry and crisp Ribolla Gialla and a rare,aged, sweet Malvasia, two unusual whitewines, made for an ideal “compare andcontrast” pairing with Smoked Char inApple-Horseradish Broth.In some cases, the idea of providing wine-

and-food pairings for customers so permeatesa restaurant’s approach that special pairingevents lose their appeal, and somerestaurateurs have eliminated the formal winedinner.At Bina Osteria in Boston, for instance,

new dishes and wines entering the menu areselected because they go together, and everypart of the program makes it easy for people toorder safe matches, says Babak Bina, co-owner of Bina Osteria, Bin 26 and Lala Rokh.That’s impressive, considering that the wineslisted by the glass are mostly lesser-knownvarietals like a citrusy Garganega, a crisp,acidic Trebbiano and a rich, earthy Teroldego.“We have a list that lends itself to our

food,” asserts Bina. “We’re not just throwingwines on there to satisfy quotas or the fad ofthe month as pronounced by the winemagazines. They’re chosen specifically tocomplement dishes on our menu. They are allfood wines; it makes the job of pairing a loteasier.”One of the key goals for a wine-and-food

pairing is to give customers the chance todiscover a wine they like — not because it’sgotten good reviews or because a sommelierthinks it’s the greatest, but because it tastesgreat with what they’re eating. &

JACK ROBERTIELLO writes aboutspirits, cocktails, wine, beer and food fromBrooklyn,N.Y.; he can be e-mailed atapplejak@earth link.net.

BEVERAGE STRATEGIES

HOST A DUEL: Invite two sommeliersto present blind tastings for a special winedinner and let customers be the judge

LET’S GO EURO: After years offocusing on California wines, chefsand sommeliers are returning toEuropean regions for pairinginspirations

MIX IT UP: Recommend winefor one course, beer for anotherand sake or spirits for others

SIMPLE ADDITION: Add a fewAustrian, Spanish or regionalItalians to a list heavy inCabernets and Chardonnays

LIGHT FLIGHTS: Offer mini-flights tointroduce diners to wines from lesser-known regions

T A K E - A W A Y T I P S

Master Sommelier MichaelJordan often pairs fineEuropean wines with thecontemporary Americancuisine served at NapaRose.

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wine and food pairings

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