Dr Vino's wine blog

Last Friday, there was a sleepy little site called This is why you’re fat that welcomed eight visitors. Today, the site will have over one million visitors!!

But that vertiginous traffic spike is not the only thing that will leave you feeling woozy; such dishes as the Turbaconducken (a chicken and a duck cooked inside a turkey, which is, in turn, covered in bacon), the 60-pound Rice Krispie treat, the seven pound breakfast burrito, or the meat ship (made from bacon, sausages, pastry, franks and pork mince) ought to do it as well.

There are so many things on there that are impossible to pair with wine we should really have it as the sister site to our impossible food-wine pairings! But in the spirit of Valentine’s Day, let’s just tackle a chocolate one: the mega double stuff Oreo, photographed at right. So just which wine would you pair with that blend of hydrogenated soybean oil, high fructose corn syrup, soy lecithin, and chocolate? Or is it…impossible? Or feel free to weigh in (ahem) on any of the other delicacies on the site that strikes your fancy.

The number one most emailed article right now over at the Times is entitled, “Take Bacon. Add Sausage. Blog.” It describes the improbable but wildly popular dish known as the “bacon explosion,” which consists of two pounds of bacon swaddling a “torpedo” of two pounds of Italian sausage, which wraps around a bacon core. Meat-tastic!

So what say: is this an impossible food to digest pair with wine?

Unlike our impossible food-wine pairings, pizza is one of those very possible wine pairings. But not in one country: Italy.

Jeremy Parzen pointed out this shocking claim in the comments of a recent post on his blog : “…no one pairs wine with pizza in Italy! I’m sorry, they just don’t…” He added later via email, “like Italians’ aversion to dairy and fish, or coffee and savory, the pizza/beer pairing is relatively sacred… they never pair pizza with wine… wine lists in Italian pizzerie are for tourists.” (Let’s hope they’re not pairing the lackluster Peroni with that pizza.)

Forbidden as it may be in Italy, prove the Italians wrong and tell us what is your preferred pairing for a pizza margherita? Are you in the white, light red (Barbera, Chianti), or the full-bodied (Nero d’Avola, Shiraz, Zinfandel) camp? I prefer reds with higher acidity to cut through the protein and fat of the cheese and stand up to acidity in the the tomato.

I suppose if we really wanted an impossible food-wine pairing, there’s always deep dish pizza…

Yesterday we posted on a “terrifying” web site that broke the news that wine has calories! Oh wait, that wasn’t the scary part. The food equivalents of those 335 calories were scary since it translated two “large” glasses of wine into a piece of pizza (I thought one slice was more than 300 calories on its own–details!), an onion bhaji and a jaffa cake! Thanks to reader comments I now know what onion bhajis are–a sort of Indian onion rings that actually sound quite spectacular–and remain terrified of jaffa cakes, which sound like the sweet of black and and tart orange zest in marmalade form. Ack! Site reader Richard Smith threw down the gauntlet and wanted us to put our minds to the task of pairing!

Mr. Scary Web Site, we will see you calorie for calorie! Tell him in the comments which two large glasses of wine would you pour to match with this “meal.” Or is it…impossible?!?!

The excellent blog The Consumerist posted yesterday about a BBC web site that converts drinks into calories and then into their food equivalents. Meg Marco, the post author, called the results “terrifying.”

I plugged two “large glasses of wine” into the calculator, which suggested 335 calories, and this is what it generated as food equivalents: a slice of pizza, an onion bhaji, and two jaffa cakes. Well, yes, I suppose that could be terrifying if I knew what two of those things were! So I ran it again and it said that it was the equivalent of a hamburger and a jaffa cake! Wow, the jaffistas really control that widget!

Clearly, there are many variations of a slice of pizza, some more caloric than others; ditto for hamburgers (sliders?). And we’ve previously discussed how the calories in a glass of wine can change too. But the basic point remains true: wine has calories and those calories can be converted into potentially terrifying food equivalents! Or they could be translated into non-terrifying food equivalents: 335 calories of granola is not going to really scare anyone.

Now that you’ve worked out of your calorie overload torpor from yesterday, it’s on to the mall! Oh wait, we’ll leave that part for you. We’re concerned about your lunch here and with it being a quasi-holiday and all, wine with lunch sounds like a great idea. So just which wine would you pair with a leftover turkey sandwich? Or is it…impossible?!?

We often talk about those impossible food wine pairings; here are three improbable food wine pairings that I had recently that worked.

Food: sauteed green lentils
Wine: Ocone aglianico 2003 (about $15; find this wine)
Every year at about this time we make a lentil minestrone that is so good that it has even gotten approving nods and slurps from carnivores. But it takes a lot of time, ingredients and three pots. This quick version uses the same green French lentils but is a lot easier with just some onion and garlic and a quick boil all in one pan. The result is dish rich in earthiness and umami. The biodynamically grown Ocone aglianico (about $13; find this wine) really picked up on it and registered one of those desired pairings that improved both the food and the wine.

Food: Trader Joe’s Dal mahkani
Wine: Drouhin, Laforet, Bourgogne rouge (about $13; find this wine)
We’ve talked about Indian food before; in fact, we’ve even talked about Trader Joe’s Indian before! And while pinot noir under $25 is pretty rough terrain without terroir, pinot noir under $15 mostly something straight out of Fear Factor. But this, the lowliest Drouhin made, would surely outclass most pinot sold by the glass. To my surprise, the lightness of the red really worked with the dal!

Food: homemade vegetarian chili
Wine: Albert Mann, pinot blanc, Alsace 2007 (about $16; find this wine)
I uncorked a Bandol red with six years of age on it that I thought might work with vegetarian chili; it didn’t. The tannins on this mourvedre were still too huge and the fruit was miserly. But I shifted gears and tried this biodynamically grown pinot blanc that was at the bottom of the Dr. Vino cave and it was a great match! Full and rich, but with a good accompanying zip, pinot blanc balanced the spiciness of the chili. The only complaint from the guests on this one was that it was too easy to drink.

All right people, we’ve done this impossible thing before. But they were all warm ups for this one: okra!

The Brooklyn Guy, who eats local foods and drinks sparkling wine, recently admitted that okra is one of his favorite late summer vegetables at the farmer’s market. He’s not even put off by okra slime! While trying to match his pickled okra really would be impossible, there’s a chance of finding a wine match for his suggestion for cooked okra: “Imagine pureeing stewed okra with hot chilis and coconut milk, and using that to stew some chicken thighs or chunks of beef.” Can you imagine? Do you believe? The challenge is really more the okra/spicy/coconut with the dark meat.

Hit the comments with your suggestions!