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DINING & ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE - JANUARY 2008
Wine rules
One or two little tricks
Matching wine with food is not difficult, if you know one or two little tricks.
There used to be a simple mantra about choosing wine: red with meat, white with fish and poultry. But that was in the days before the "fihting varietals"-which is the name of the brilliant marketing tactic that opened up the world of good wine to everybody.
Suddenly, instead of esoteric titles like Crozes Hermitage, which might describe a secret blend of more than a dozen grapes, wines lie Duckhorn Merlot or Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon began to appear, named for the single variety of grape that made them.
At a stroke, ordinary wine drinkers were liberated. There was no need to memorize long lists of Chateaux, or rely on the house red. If ou liked chardonnay you could drink it anywhere in the world, and from anywhere in the world.
There were no more rules. But that brought its own insecurities. A buttery Australian chardonnay has little in common with a flinty, acidic chardonnay from norhern France except for the name. And with the spread of international cuisines and experimental chefs fusing them into ever more exotic combinations-all well-represented in Nassau-the old problem of what to drink with dinner only became more confusing.
Fr Corina Lee, who runs the East Villa Chinese restaurant on East Bay Street, and Ichiban, the Asian fusion restaurant on West Bay Street, the solution is simple. "Match the wine to the people, not to the food," she says.
Someone who enjoys a zesty appleand citrus flavour should order the Washington State Saint Michelle Riesling from her wine list, whether they're having spicy Szechuan shrimp (for which it is a classic match), or something richer like the beef and broccoli, which traditionally might callfor a light and fruity red, such as the Oregon Duckpond Pinot Noir. "Wine can complement food, or contrast with it," she says. "And either way can work."
Michael Pataran, chef of the Japanese/Asian restaurant, Shogun Revolver, takes a more scientific vie. "Where even experienced chefs go wrong," he says, "is that they match the wine to the protein, when they should match it to the sauce. If I make you a plain piece of beef you can have it with anything from a bone dry Italian pinot grigio to a rich, red,alcoholic barolo. It all works. But if I start adding Thai ingredients like fish sauce and lemon grass, suddenly the barolo becomes almost undrinkable."
Meat, fish or fowl, to Pataran it makes no difference-what counts when choosing a wine is how the fod was cooked.
One trick that has been used in the French gastronomic hotbed of Burgundy for centuries is to find out if any particular wine has been used in the preparation of a dish, and order a bottle of something similar.
Alternatively, flavours and ngredients are often listed in great detail on modern menus and it may be possible to match foods and wines simply by looking for common words in the descriptions of each.
The simplest approach of all, however, is the one recommended by Jose Montalvo who before he became Director of Wine for Atlantis, was a sommelier, or wine waiter, at some of New York's finest restaurants. "Just call the sommelier over," he says, "tell him what you normally drink, what food you want to order, and how much you want to send. Then trust him. Believe me, we love doing that kind of stuff."
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