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+--- Thread: Food-wine match (/thread-1191.html)
- Paul Vowell - 10-19-1999
Please ignore my previous message.
Whate are goods wines for baked ham (un-glazed), broiled pork chops (plain),
or creamy Roquefort dressing on green salads.
- Thomas - 10-19-1999
For the first I like Riesling. For the second a nice Pinot Noir. For the third, hmmm...
- Paul Vowell - 10-20-1999
Thanks, foodie. If you or anybody else have any more suggestions, especially regarding the Roquefort dressing, please let me know.
PV
- Jerry D Mead - 10-21-1999
Salads are always a tough match. Re your Roquefort dressing, a lot depends on its base. Is it sour cream or mayonaisse based? Or vinegar and oil?
If its sour cream or mayo...Chardonnay may be as good a bet as any.
If vinegar...probably an off-dry Riesling
- Randy Caparoso - 10-21-1999
Mind my barging in, gentlemen? I was just in the Fleming's steakhouse in Scottsdale last night, having their famous "Wedge Salad" -- iceberg wedges with tomatoes, sweet onions and, you bet, creamy Roquefort dressing. To tell you the truth, I didn't even think about the fact that I was drinking a Green & Red Zinfandel plus a Frescobaldi Chianti Classico at the time (Fleming's always offers up to 115 wines by the glass), since I was concentrating more on the crunch of the lettuce, the sweetness of the tomato, and the company of my lovely 20 year old daughter. But in retrospect, I think the softer Chianti was better with the Roquefort -- the Zinfandel seemed a tad sharp with tannin.
Problem is -- I don't drink white wine unless forced to. So my own first choice would be Pinot Noir with all the courses, since it is soft yet fruity enough not to fight with the saltiness in the ham, the lean taste of the pork chops (boy, are they lean these days), and the sharpness of the Roquefort salad.
But if you don't mind a white wine, foodie's first suggestion of Riesling -- especially an off-dry German Kabinett or Halbtrocken -- would be pretty much ideal. The edge of sweetness will do nicely with the salty ham, and cut through the mild oiliness of the pork chops as well as the sharpness in the salad (plus the sweet fruitiness of tomato).
If I were entertaining guests, I would have one bottle of each on hand for everyone to enjoy as they please -- one or the other, or both at once. Nothing to talk about. Just enjoy!
- Thomas - 10-22-1999
"Problem is -- I don't drink white wine unless forced to."
Ahum. The truth comes out!
- Randy Caparoso - 10-22-1999
Well, yes. However -- to preserve my credibility -- please remember that food/wine seminars and tasting menus (for both staff and guests) are what I do professionally. All week long, all the time. But when it comes to actually ordering wine for myself, I'm pretty predictable -- Pinot Noir with everything, and maybe Zinfandel with spicy sausages and an occasional Sangiovese or Cabernet Sauvignon based wine in assorted contexts.
- Thomas - 10-23-1999
Randy,
I am truly interested in your comments on this, if only because I am an incurable purist and cannot understand how you could know and teach the full experience of wine and food, yet prefer something less.
- Randy Caparoso - 10-23-1999
I'm sure that that most of our leading food and wine commentators these days lead this double life. I'm talking about folks like David Rosengarten, Joshua Wesson, Harvey Steiman, Eleanor & Ray Heald, and Decanter's Fiona Beckett, among others. I like to read them because I believe that they evaluate, and report on, food and wine matches more or less objectively in spite of their personal predilections. No one, of course, can be 100% objective on matters of taste.
Obviously, I speak a lot from years of personal experience. These days, however, many of my observations are based upon interactions with my restaurant guests (we run tons of multi-course/wine tasting menus) as well as with my staffs.
With my staffs (both servers and chefs), for instance, we actually go through multi-level wine and food seminars on a regular basis (I just returned from 9 days of it in Newport Beach and Scottsdale). We all try to taste, say, five different wines with each dish (as much as five dishes per seminar) and try to discover how they work together just as our guests would. Great variety of responses is pretty much par for the course. But in the end, I would say that we usually come up with a few broad as well as specific points of consensus as to how things work in context with others.
In short, what I'm usually sharing on the Wine Board is often a direct result of such findings. Hope this explains.