Dr Vino's wine blog

Fresh tomato season is winding down here quickly in the northeast. But before it goes and tasty tomatoes in farmers markets are replaced by tasteless tomatoes in supermarkets, let’s give it one last hurrah. Which wine would you pair with (heirloom) tomatoes, sliced and sprinkled with salt and some fine olive oil? Or is it impossible?!? Hit the comments with your thoughts!

The tricky part about tomatoes from a wine perspective is the acidity. A few years ago, we celebrated Mrs. Vino’s late summer birthday at a fine, seasonal restaurant. She opted for the vegetarian menu and was met with nine courses (or whatever it was), all with tomatoes! I can’t even remember which wine we had that evening, given the acid bomb of all the tomatoes–talk about turning a “mortgage lifter” into something subprime.

“A delicious blend of spices,” one of my friends called Trader Joe’s Jaipur Vegetables when he recommended it to me. I threw a box in my cart last time I was at TJ’s. A few nights later, I opened the silver pouch and discovered that, sure enough, it is a delicious blend–one that kept, um, being delicious for hours afterward.

So which wine would you pair with this dish of “garden vegetables and cubes of Paneer cheese with spices and cashews?” Hit the comments with your thoughts! That is, if it is not…impossible.

What fruit encapsulates summer better than a watermelon? OK, I hear you muttering about peaches, nectarines, berries and that forgotten fruit–the tomato. But today’s challenge is watermelon! Is it an impossible food-wine pairing?

Have your say in the comments! And do let us know if you’re pairing that $6,100 black watermelon just sold in Japan or a plain old regular one instead.

Now that summer has officially and unofficially started, we need to turn our pairing thoughts to that summer staple: ice cream. Is it an impossible food-wine pairing?!?

I don’t particularly like soft serve but just thought it was a really good picture. If you have a wine suggestion, please note which flavor makes for the best pairing. And if you had a thought about whether making ice cream at home is worth the time and money, let us know that too!

Even though we encountered something similar previously in this series of impossible food wine pairings, site reader Andy from Napa clearly has given this some thought. So we should too! To his email:

Hey Dr. Vino, I have what may be a real stumper – and one I’d love some help with. I’ve got two kids – 8 and 5 – and every Wednesday night at our house is “backward night” – we have breakfast for dinner. A very, very, very popular night with the kids. The menu is usually pancakes, which we whip up from scratch, and breakfast sausages. Added to that, we often put peanut butter AND syrup on the pancakes. All of this goes fine with milk, but, of course for me it’s evening, when my thoughts turn to wine. Sadly, I’ve not yet found a good pairing.

I really would love to know if there’s an actual wine that works. It would have to be something that goes with the nutty flavors of the pancakes (I tend to throw in some sunflower seeds or some toasted flax seeds — you know, sneak in a little healthy stuff when the kids aren’t looking!). Given that milk works so well, I’m tempted to think that a wine with some lactic acid might work — like a white that’s gone through some serious malolactic?

I guess with the sunflower seeds, it’s a safe bet Andy doesn’t serve pancakes and sausage on a stick!

Last week I was chatting with a food writer who was all about the soft shell crab. Then I was cleaning up over the holiday weekend and intercepted Saveur on its way to the recycling bin: “American Crab: A celebration of our favorite spring catch” read the cover. Crabs, they’re everywhere! Perhaps even on your plate.

Since we are now unofficially in summer, when blockbuster movies turn our brains to mush, I thought I’d give you an easy one for our “impossible” foods series: which wine would you pair with softshell (blue) crabs?

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Why does so much food writing neglect wine? A lot of restaurant reviewers gladly discuss the decor but don’t discuss the wine program even though wine can easily account for a third or more of the diners’ final bill. Most food blogs don’t look to include a discussion about wine either even when they are writing for home cooks who can escape the exorbitant mark-ups of wine in restaurants. Many wine blogs, by contrast, have shifted the discussion about wine away from simply tasting notes of berries and leather and the concomitant scores to talk about pairing food and wine. Why no wine love from the foodies?

I put the question to Ed Levine who runs the food juggernaut SeriousEats.com. Ed is friends with such wine luminaries as Josh Wesson of Best Cellars and Daniel Johnnes of Daniel Boulud’s restaurants who have poured him many great wines, trying to convert him to wine’s pleasures. To no avail. With good humor, Ed told me “I’ve never had a wine that takes food to the next level. I’ve never had a wine that impresses me like a great hamburger.” He also cited cutting wine as a good way to cut calories.

While Ed just doesn’t like wine, which is fair enough, he suggested that other food writers might be intimidated by it. That may be true since there are a lot of details about wine, from the producer name, to the vintage, to the grapes and where they were grown. But that shouldn’t stop an thumbs up or thumbs down for a certain wine and why it did or didn’t work with a certain dish. A lot of food writers are all too happy to have an opinion about a hamburger and if they don’t like it, then it’s a bad hamburger. By contrast, if they don’t like a wine, I fear they think it reflects badly on them as if they should know more about it. That’s too bad.

At least food writers aren’t alone: wine is woefully underrepresented in food TV shows, and, as we’ve discussed before, it’s not likely to change on the Food Network. How about the Travel Channel? When Tony Bourdain advises his viewers about which wine goes with still-beating snake heart, then we’ll know a page has been turned in the way foodies think about wine.

What makes food writers neglect the cork in favor of the fork: a lack of interest? Price? Intimidation/lack of confidence? Rampant teetotalerism?

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SIPPED: Sauternes
Chicago’s foie gras ban has been repealed in a 37 – 6 vote by the City Council, overturning the 48 – 1 vote that put the ban into effect two years ago. The prices of Sauternes, the unctuous sweet wine often served as an accompaniment, just went up an additional ten percent. [Sun Times, thanks Stephen!]

SIPPED: Cork back for an encork
When a member of the Culinary Institute of American saw my cork iPhone case in February, she exclaimed that it would be the perfect product for recycling their corks! But apparently someone had other plans as the 900 corks pulled there a day will now be recycled in a new program called ReCORK America, sponsored by a cork producer to underscore the “natural” qualities of cork. But what is the carbon footprint of sending all that cork into be recycled into floor tile (and sidebars for wine blogs). Wouldn’t the CIA be better reusing them as festive holiday wreaths–or those iPhone covers?!?

SPIT: Critter labels
On the heels of our worst wine label contest comes more advice, this time from Wines & Vines. One item: a label designer Down Under has a “no critters” policy after seeing the kangaroo reinvented some “50,000 times.” [Wines & Vines] Related: ”

SPIT: Brunello di Montalcino
Not content with the FAA’s Global War On Toiletries, US federal authorities are now turning their eyes on another liquid: Brunello di Montalcino! A recent scandal has revealed blending of grapes other than sangiovese, the only one permissible under the local DOC rules in the wine. Now, as a result, the feds are threatening to block US imports of the pricey Italian wine as of June 9. “Part of our mandate is to make sure all labels are truthful, accurate and not misleading to the American consumer,’’ Mr. Resnick of the US Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau told Eric Asimov. Um, OK, how about starting with Korbel “California Champagne”? [NYT]

SPIT: asparagus in December
In a piece that, oddly, has not received much attention here in the US of A, celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay–known for his high-end restaurants in several countries as well as cursing like, well, a chef–lays into out-of season like nobody’s bidness calling for it to be outlawed in the UK. While absolutely laudable in principal, the legislative angle may be the wrong way to achieve this policy goal. And let’s hope eating local in his case doesn’t mean eating any more horse! [BBC]

SIPPED: Wine into water
Wine & Spirits magazine will be holding two public tastings in Los Angeles and Seattle that sound like fun with good people and good wines. Since I gave up bottled water for thirty days and lived to tell the tale, I like the secondary cause too: $5 of each ticket will go to local water conservation organizations. [Wine & Spirits Hotpicks]
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