Sparkling Franciacorta is sensational when paired with salty bresaola.
Elizabeth and I have been busy planning a new online wine retail business that we’ll be launching later this year so I was psyched to see périphériquewine mentioned by Ray Isle, wine editor at Food & Wine magazine, in the July 2010 issue. Ray contacted me about a month ago and shared his concept for the article: He mocked-up up a wine list for “Restaurant Isle” a fictitional restaurant, a small place with a market-driven, New American menu featuring entrées in the $25 range. He then asked some of the top restaurant wine pros for a critique. Click here to read what my colleagues and I had to say about Ray’s list!
A perfect pairing if there ever was one: a picnic of Alsatian Gewurztraminer paired with a wheel of Munster cheese.
While clicking through some of Ray’s older stuff I discovered this excellent 2006 article on food and wine pairing and since that’s what WineToMatch is all about, I thought I’d share it with you here. Ray sums up nicely some of the most important things to remember when pairing food with wine:
Don’t match strong to delicate. Pairing a big, powerful, high-alcohol or high-tannin wine with a light, delicate dish (and vice versa) is rarely a good idea.
Acidity is your friend. People tend to be wary of wines described as “high acid,” like Sauvignon Blanc or Muscadet. Who wants to drink acid, after all? But there’s no better quality in a wine for matching rich, creamy or cheesy sauces, deep-fried foods or fish dishes; in addition, tart wines go better with tart foods, such as a vinaigrette on a salad.
Tannins pair well with fat. That’s because the astringency of the tannins cuts through the viscosity of the fat.
Follow the don’t-upstage-the-star rule. If you have an amazing bottle of wine you want to show off, especially an older vintage (they tend to be more subtle, their flavors less flamboyant), don’t serve a wildly complex dish with it. A simple dish will allow the wine to be the center of attention.
Hearty California red wines like Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon are ideal with grilled Lamb.
The rolling hills of Chianti Classico from San Casciano Val di Pesa near Florence.
Italian cooking was arguably born in Tuscany at the Medici court. Today, Tuscany represents Italian cooking at its most simple and rustic. Tuscans have been nicknamed “mangiafagioli” (bean eaters), but I eschew the assertion by some that Tuscan cuisine is only about “beans, bread, and more beans.” I’ve highlighted some of the regional specialties of Tuscany below. We also wanted to take this opportunity to introduce you to nine new Tuscan wines to our WineToMatch arsenal. Look for this trend to continue in coming weeks and look for some surprises along the way!
Hearty soups are a signature of Tuscan cookery.
Bread is the foundation of Tuscan cooking. Many Tuscan classics begin with a rustic loaf of unsalted pane toscano. Bread, sliced thick, grilled, and rubbed with garlic is known as panunto. It is the basis of several classic Tuscan dishes. Fettunta is panunto but served with the year’s first olive oil, and is a specialty of Tuscany. Panunto and fettunta are the most basic type of bruschetta “grilled bread” as it is known in other Italian regions. Bruschetta can also be topped with an array of ingredients. When I’ve eaten bruschetta in Tuscany, it’s usually been referred to as crostoni (a larger version of crostini meaning “little toasts”), to which lentils, stewed tomatoes, liver, salumi, etc. is added as a topping. Bread can also be torn apart and added to a salad with tomatoes, onion, and basil, creating a dish known as panzanella. Bread thickens Tuscan soups such as ribollita, pappa al pomodoro, and zuppa di pane. Seafood prevails along the coast, where Livorno’s cacciucco is a delicious fish stew and is the inspiration behind the San Francisco classic cioppino. Tuscans are not particularly white wine drinkers, but these dishes would be well accompanied by two excellent Tuscan white wines: Vernaccia di San Gimignano and Vermentino.
Freshly made wide-ribbon noodles like pappardelle and tagliatelle are the pastas of choice in Tuscany.
While soup plays a primary role, pasta is no stranger to Tuscany, especially when topped with a rich ragù of duck or wild hare. Meat ragùs of game are also served over polenta or faro, the ancient grain, especially those made from cinghale (wild boar). The southern half of the Tuscan coast known as Maremma is densely populated with wild boar. Here in the trees and hills of the Tuscan coast, the cinghale hunt is a celebrated event. Hunters and their dogs eagerly sniff out the boar in orchestrated hunts and transform their bounty into grilled ribs (rostinciana), roast loin (arista), spit-roasted livers wrapped in bay leaves (fegatelli), or as porchetta. It is also used for sausages, prosciutto, and salame known as finocchiona (flavored with wild fennel seeds). Stewed or rich ragù di cinghiale is served over pappardelle or polenta or faro. Sangiovese goes by many names in Tuscany. In Chianti, it is simply called Sangiovese, but in Maremma, a special clone of Sangiovese is grown known as Morellino di Scansano. Both are considered classic with this hearty fare.
Massive Chianina cattle are the source of prized Tuscan steaks including bistecca alla fiorentina.
Tuscans are Italy’s great meat-eaters. The indigenous white Chianina cattle that graze in Tuscany’s Val di Chiana are butchered into two-inch-thick steaks called bistecca alla fiorentina. These steaks are grilled over coals and are served blood rare and are often accompanied by stewed cannellini beans or roasted porcini mushrooms. Another popular dish, Tagliata di Manzo con Rucola is rare steak sliced into thin strips and served with Arugula and shavings of Pecorino Toscano and lemon. Fresh ricotta, by the way, is excellent when served with fava beans in springtime with a simple drizzling of oil. These steak and vegetable combinations are ideal partners for several traditional Tuscan red wines known as vini da arrosto (wines for roasts), including Chianti Classico Riserva, Brunello di Montalcino, and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. Of course, modern Tuscan reds such as Sant’Antimo and Super Tuscans are worthy steak wines as well.
Sipping wine at Bacchus Wine Bar in Montalcino.
It’s important to note some sweet specialties of Tuscany. Siena is famous for its chewy fruit and nut cake called panforte. And finally, the crunchy biscottini or cantucci cookies are ideally served with Tuscany’s notable sweet wine, Vin Santo.
What is WineToMatch anyway?!!! WineToMatch is a sophisticated iPhone app designed by a Master Sommelier to give you wine suggestions for your next meal! Download it now on iTunes! Many thanks to Elizabeth for her excellent “hand acting”. Also, a big thanks to YoungCarson3000 and The Sandwich Technique for their musical contribution: Heat 4 Illuminate!
Wine writer, Rich Ciccotelli, over at winotripping.com gave a us some love on a recent post. There’s lots of exciting changes happening here at WineToMatch, some of which you may have already noticed: 1. As Rich noted, “[WineToMatch] is a quick and easy way to get in the right ballpark”. With our unique “cloud” of wine recommendations, getting in the “right ballpark” has always been our intent and it’s true that several wines might pair just fine with the same dish. We’ve received a lot of great response from our users about this and we’ve been really pleased with how our pairing engine has been performing, but behind the scenes we’ve been quietly tweaking the cloud to give you evermore precise pairings, emphasizing the one or two wines we believe will give you the very best pairing experience! 2. We’ve been adding even more wines to our data base! You may have already noticed several new Italian wines (I’ll be posting about our new Tuscan selections soon) and we have many, many more in store! 3. Our partners at wine.com have recently improved their query engine which we’ve now fully implemented into the WineToMatch iPhone app and WineToMatch.com. Our wine recommendations our now sorted daily from wine.com’s vast inventory, using the highest standards that we set ourselves, providing you with a selection of wines that we know you’ll enjoy! And last but not least, 4. look for the brand new “name this dish” and social networking features in the coming days! You’ll be helping us improve WineToMatch by naming the the dish you’re preparing! You’ll then be able to announce the dish and our wine recommendations to your friends and followers via Facebook and Twitter! Now that’s some exciting stuff!
