Dr Vino's wine blog

We haven’t had any meat in our impossible pairings series since the bacon explosion. Generally, meat is too easy for us all to pair. So cranking up the degree of difficulty, today we present you the challenge of the pulled pork sandwich.

At the base level it’s not all that hard: a shoulder of pork is smoked (or a whole hog is roasted in eastern North Carolina) and then chopped, shredded or sliced. Then comes the question of sauce. In most places outside of the Carolinas, a sweet barbecue sauce is generally stirred into the meat, forming a gloopy, orange mass of sweet meat that is then plopped on a bun. The haute BBQ places will actually let you add your your own sauce and slaw…which is where it gets tricky.

Some regional variations favor a mustard based sauce. Others have a thin sauce based on cider vinegar while others add a dash of tomato and a dash of sugar. Still other styles have brown sugar or molasses. Finally, there’s the sweet, think mass that is KC Masterpiece.

And the slaw that can go on top presents its own challenges: shredded cabbage, grated carrot, dunked in a sauce of mayonnaise, cider vinegar and sugar.

So make your sandwich the way you like it. And suggest a wine pairing, if it’s not…impossible!

(You ever eat Époisses after a huge meal? Run out a pound of the stuff, some big, bad supersomething red wine and plenty of bread as the candles on your table sputter, and everyone deconstructs what just happened, what was served and why and how it made everyone feel? Life gets strange and fast. Époisses is like a drug. It’s the tequila of cheese.)

So writes Sam Sifton, NYT restaurant critic, in a blog post about David Chang’s new restaurant, Ma Peche.

Epoisses, of course, is a deliciously stinky, gooey cheese from Burgundy with a rind washed in marc de Bourgogne, a local brandy. A little wooden box tries its best–mostly with futility, as I have noticed when transporting it on a crowded train–to trap the aromas that emit from these little 250g wheels. On the palate, the intense, earthy, barn-yardy ripeness can be lingering and dominating, almost too much to pair with wine. Which would you choose? Or is it…impossible?!?

Personally, the last thing I’d want with Epoisses is “some big, bad supersomething red wine.” In general, I find white wine and cheese produce successful, if underrated, pairings with cheese courses. Oh, and I’ve never had one of those apparent stoner moments with Epoisses that Sifton describes. Maybe his was a little too ripe?

Tasting the legendary Chablis from Domaine Francois Raveneau is a rare event since the wines are almost impossible to find (search for Raveneau). And tasting them with some age and oysters hardly ever happens outside of Chablis and the Hamptons.

But I managed to try oysters with three Raveneau wines at a collector’s house recently, thanks to an invitation from a friend (I brought the Champagne, as we already discussed). Since I didn’t have my tasting notebook with me, I don’t have much in the way of tasting notes to offer you but I do have cameraphone photos!

The 2000 Butteaux, a premier cru site, had a golden hue and an amazing balance between precise, alluring acidity, stoniness, and the gentle breadth that old wood aging provides. With a lasting, layered finish, this wine got the evening off to an excellent start. The 2000 Mont Mains was also impressive, but it had a slight oxidative note. The 1998 Valmur, a grand cru site, was not oxidative but not showing the delicious precision of the 2000 Butteaux, which was really en feu that evening.

The wines were terrific with the oysters; sometimes those classic food-wine pairings got that way for a reason.

On this site, we love exotic food-wine pairings. And we often talk about grapes beyond the “big six.” So it should come as no surprise that I am a fan of Evan Goldstein’s new book, Daring Pairings. (In fact, I provided a blurb for the back cover.)

The highly skimmable book starts off with a worthwhile discussion of pairing food and wine. The goal, says Goldstein, a former sommelier, is to turn food-wine pairing from a lengthy, possibly agonizing process to simply picking a wine that will work and then sitting back and enjoying the pairing. The various charts and cheat sheets provide quick help toward this laudable goal. Further, he lays out five important elements of wine (acidity, sweetness, tannin, oak, and alcohol) and elaborates who they will work best with certain foods (salty foods are best with either high acid wines or slightly sweet wines but bomb with high alcohol wines). He also suggests how to tweak recipes to make them more wine friendly (e.g. varying cooking methods or replacing vinegar with verjus–juice from unripe grapes). Any given meal, he writes, will either highlight the food or the wine, which may seem somewhat controversial, but actually could be a great excuse for hosts who are wine enthusiasts to provide simple food.

Goldstein admits that most people start with food and then add a wine pairing. That said, the bulk of the book’s 364 pages discusses 36 grapes, their taste profiles, various winemaker interpretations of the grapes, and which pairings work and which will fail miserably. A recipe from a chef, often well-known, such as Charlie Trotter or Fergus Henderson, also follows each grape and if you have a lot of time and ambition, you can make the recipe that won’t overshadow the wine you’re probably trying to highlight. The mouthwatering photography certainly stokes ambition.

The grapes are probably not all that “daring” to many readers of this site. But I just led a tasting over the weekend that included Gruner Veltliner, Albarino, and Aglianico among others, and, astonishingly, there were people who had never tried these varieties! The book certainly can help casual drinkers who are reaching for a new wine by offering a range of food pairing tips. I like wine recommendations in context; in my own pairings book, I suggested adding seasonality to further round out the picture.

Daring Pairings provides a lot to chew on. Maybe Goldstein’s next book will crank up the degree of difficulty even further–”impossible pairings” anyone?

The wine world just got wackier.

A new Twitter account going by the name of Bobby Parkerchuk mashes the tweets and tones of Robert Parker and Gary Vaynerchuk. The bio reads: “Wine guy, hedonist, host of Winery Advocate TV. Loves points. Loves the hustle.” Parkerchuk has been hailed as “hilarious,” “my new god,” and ” the best micro-niche-sub-culture satire ever” by people who probably should know better. We scored the twitter-interview, via instant messenger:

Dr. Vino: Bobby, how would you describe yourself?

Bobby Parkerchuk: Blending the bombastic musings of Robert Parker with the hustle of GaryVee. With points for all.

DV: So where did you get the inspiration for this?

BP: I have to hand it to Ruth Bourdain…she’s a surly broad w great legs–and I’m not talking in the wine glass…99 pts.

DV: Eric Asimov said that the reason you’re so much worse that RuBo is that you have such “drek” to work with. True? Read more…

Tomorrow night I will be selecting the wine pairings for a Korean feast, getting in on the lunar new year action a few days late. Here’s a list of some items on the menu, from the hostess:

Fried dumplings
Chicken yakitori [japanese inspiration]
Beef skewers (do you know bulgoki?)
Squid/spicy sauce
A variety of “jun” (pictured, right) which is something like potato pancakes but with fish, beef, vegetables, or seafood
California roll or ”kimbap” which is rolled “maki” with veggies/beef
Side vegetables – pickled, salad-like

Apparently it is impossible to pair Korean food with wine! And I’m not just saying that. Consider this comment from sommelier-to-the-max, Rajat Parr (from What to Drink with What you Eat): “I love Korean food, but it’s hard to have any kind of wine with it unless you have a Vinho Verde or something that’s really high in acid…the acidity in kimchee just kills wine and it’s all over.”

What do you think: do you buy the high acidity suggestion? Or do you prefer something aromatic and off-dry? How about bubbles? Or something slightly oxidative? Do reds work? Or is pairing Korean food with wine impossible!?!

Related: “Kimchi: impossible food-wine pairing?“

Valentine’s Day is rapidly approaching. It has reignited the annual hot debate in anticipation of the hot date: should you pair wine and chocolate?

Consider this exchange. Paul Grieco, owner of Hearth restaurant and Terroir wine bar in NYC, tweeted that he was going on the TODAY show to talk wine and chocolate. (See segment here: both regular and sparkling shiraz feature.) Eric Asimov tweets back “chocolate and wine? what are you thinking, man? Who cares about what to drink with chocolate? Food mag nonsense.”

Oooh, snap! Wine and chocolate are two fine things. But this is one of those “impossible” pairings that has yet to convince me. My rule of thumb: Have wine before dinner. Have wine with dinner. But let chocolate dessert stand alone! Then resume drinking, if necessary. (Or try a Banyuls with the chocolate dessert if it’s a question of life or date.)

Have your say about the great chocofight 2010 in the comments–or with the latest poll!

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The Australian Open is underway. Tomorrow is Australia Day. So today, instead of focusing on the current troubles of the Aussie wine biz, let’s pay homage to Australian, erm, cuisine by thinking about pairing up the iconic dish, the meat pie.

The hand sized-pie is made of a variety of meats (perhaps at once), and topped with ketchup, known locally as tomato sauce. Served hot, they can be purchased in grocery stores, convenience stores, gas stations, sporting events and pretty much anywhere in the country.

So even though Eric Asimov reaches for the closest dump bucket every time he hears us ask it, is pairing wine and meat pies… impossible?!

Friend-of-the-blog Eric Arnold did his own meat pie and wine experiments while spending a year in New Zealand, a country with its own pie predilection. As he details in a chapter in his book, First Big Crush, Eric lined up an array of “greasy, heart-attack inducing” pies including steak and kidney, steak and cheese, and “Mexican.” He poured New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Noir, Merlot and a rosé and invited the makers of those exact wines along for a tasting. Lo and behold, not only did they take it surprisingly seriously, but they had fun with it! To see the results of their pairings, check out chapter 18 of his book.

SPIT: Tina Fey?
The Wine & Spirits Wholesalers Association selects Sarah Palin as their convention speaker in Las Vegas. Her talk is likely to be entitled “Going Rouge” and expound on her secret love of Nebbiolo. Oh wait, the WSWA says that she is a great supporter of free enterprise–so maybe she will talk about the market liberalizing effects of dismantling the three-tier system?

SPIT: impossible food-wine pairings!
Eric Asimov, chief wine critic at The New York Times, dismisses our impossible food-wine pairings as “sad” and irritating–eegad!! Too bad since the popular series brings many new commenters out of the woodwork. (And, no, we weren’t being serious when talking about which wine to pair with dog food.) Take a look for yourself at the previous entries in the series and decide if it is funny, interactive, thought-provoking, unpretentious, mouth-watering and sometimes useful–or whatever he said.

SIPPED: Physics!
Does this funky wine glass defy physics? Apparently not! (via @wine_markfisher)

SIPPED: imitation as flattery?
A Loire Sauvignon Blanc called “Kiwi Cuvee” gets a thumbs down from Australian regulatory authorities after objections from their Antipodean neighbor. [Telegraph]