Schloss Schönborn Riesling: THE Cool Down for a Scorching Day (or Meal!)

I know I've been talking a lot of white wine lately, but when it's 95 degrees with 100% humidity, red can be a hard sell for me. I genuinely have no preference for red vs. white wine -- I love them equally -- but in the summer when even my sweet, rascally, and energetic puppy, Ellie (11 months and soooo cute, see right), can only go out for 7 minutes before she's wilting, chilled white is the way to go.

So when it hit 104 with the heat index the other day, M.C. Ice (my fabulous husband) and I busted open the bottle of German Riesling that the folks at Destination Riesling sent me (there's my disclosure, but as always I'll be honest, as you know) with total joy and excited anticipation. What is Destination Riesling? Well, to quote them:

Destination Riesling is a holistic communications campaign designed to increase interest and awareness for European Riesling among consumers in the U.S. The campaign is underwritten by the German Wine Institute and the European Union.

I love the idea of this campaign, since I think perceptions of Riesling that it's sweet and for rookies are just plain wrong. Creating more awareness about styles and the range of Riesling is so important, because people are just missing out by sticking with their bad impression of this awesome wine.

So let me just step off the soapbox (ah, nice to be back on solid ground) and tell you that the wine we tried was a German Riesling from the region of Rheingau.

Rheingau is an area near Frankfurt, whose name literally translates to "Rhine District" (really original, huh?). Geographically it's interesting because the Rhine River, which flows in a fairly straight, northerly shot from the Swiss Alps to the North Sea, bumps up against the Taunus Mountains and is forced to turn west at Rheingau. This is great for winegrowers because at the bend is a big ledge of south-facing slopes. The vineyards are planted on these gentle hills right on the water, so they benefit from the sun and warmth reflecting off the Rhine -- totally key in an area that's so far north that it's nearly impossible to ripen fruit. Given all that, Rheingau is a fabulous place to grow grapes.

And grow they do.

Even though it represents only 3% of the total wineland area in Germany, Rheingau's history as a wine growing region (winemaking began in the 1100s here) and its commitment to quality make it a standout. For example, I think it's very classy that instead of growing mainly lesser grapes such as Müller-Thurgau and Silvaner, 80% of the land in this region is planted to Riesling, a rarity in the German wine world and especially ironic because the Geisenheim Wine Institute, which developed Müller-Thurgau, is located here. Adding further to its cred, Rheingau is the home of the famed Johannisberg Riesling, which you've probably had so you know it's super fruity, creamy, aromatic, and delicious. Even if you don't like sweeter or fuller styles from Germany, you can appreciate that Rheingau winemakers also invented late harvest wines, or Spätlese, which are made by letting the grapes hang on the vines for a few weeks after the regular harvest to build some ripeness and make a sweeter, fuller-bodied wine. All these accomplishments and delicious wine make Rheingau a great region.

That said, people make a big deal of Riesling from the Mosel and often forget those from Rheingau. I love them. They are so cut and dried: a good Rheingau Riesling will be fragrant and super clear in flavor -- you won't be grasping for descriptions. These wines are upfront with what they are. Dry or sweet, they are fruity (like peaches and limes), rich and creamy, have a spicy mineral twang, and wicked acidity.

The Schloss Schönborn that M.C. Ice and I tried is from the largest estate from a designated high-quality vineyard within Rheingau, called Marcobrunn (I keep wanting to call it Macro Bun, as in large yummy, bready, roll, but I'm wrong. It's Marco, as in Polo, and brunn, which apparently means stream). There are several vineyards in the area known to be outstanding sites for grape growing and this is one.

Schloss Schönborn started growing grapes here in 1349. It's one of the oldest wine estates in Germany. Today, it is known for outstanding Rieslings. Schloss Schönborn is a member of the VDP, an organization of high quality German wine producers that signify their compliance to these standards by placing an eagle emblem on their capsule (yeah, that's what that is). This organization is hard-ass -- they review members closely, guard membership by ensuring that the temperature, altitude, rain, wind, sun, soil conditions, etc. are up to par. They don't mess around, so believe that Schloss Schönborn's wine is no joke...it's a solid wine.

The wine is a Kabinett. That doesn't mean you stick it in the cabinet and never drink it. It's the way that Germans classify their wines. They have a scale of different ripeness levels (which they refer to as Pradikat, which they equate with quality, although we dry wine drinkers are better off thinking about it in terms of ripeness or sugar levels). Here are the most common levels and what they mean:

Kabinett: Ripe grapes from a regular harvest. They can be dry or they can be slightly sweet.

Spätlese: Late harvest with very ripe grapes. They can be dry but usually they are pretty sweet and they can be fruitier than a Kabinett but not always.

Auslese: It means "select harvest," and this wine is made from very ripe, selected bunches and is either sweet, semi-sweet, or rich and dry. Auslese is tricky because it covers a lot of different styles, so you have to ask or research before you buy one.

Other sweeter styles are Beerenauslese, Eiswein, and Trockenbeerenauslese and these are uber sugary and just really for dessert. Oh, and lastly, if the wine says "trocken" on the label, that means it's dry. I've found that hard to find, just as an FYI, but that may just be me.

Ok, with that out of the way, here's the wine...

The Wine: Schloss Schönborn Kabinett
Where It's From: Marcobrunn Vineyard, Rheingau, Germany
The Grapes: 100% Riesling
Vintage: 2008
Price: $17.99

Color: This wine was the color of a ripe yellow apple and kind of reflective (I probably could have applied lipstick in the reflection it was so sparkly!). There were a ton of little bubbles -- probably from the addition of CO2 at the end for freshness, or an early bottling with little filtering left some yeast that processed some sugar and made CO2 while working away. Either way, they are harmless, common in German wines, and I don't mind a little spritz in young white wine so I was happy to see them.

Smell: I loved the smell of this wine because it was a study in contrast -- both typical and atypical of Riesling. I know that when you smell a wine and you read these descriptions that I put down or other wine people write you think we're full of BS and question our sanity or sobriety when coming up with this crap, but I swear this wine had distinctive scents that you would call out easily (goes back to what I said before about Rheingau -- focused, easily pinpoint-able flavors). The typical -- nice ripe peach, white flower, and honey smells. The atypical -- it smelled exactly like figs, clovers in a field, and English peas (seriously). There was one thing in which it was very much lacking -- no noticeable spiciness or strong mineral tones to smell. I worried. Was this going to be a powder puff wine, all fruit and nothing else?

Taste: Nope. No powder puff here. Whew! This wine had the honey, sweet pea (I know it sounds weird but I swear it's there), and dried apricot flavor, but to my relief it also tasted like licking a slate slab. It was a little spicy and rocky (think mineral water), and it was spritzy and fresh from the mini bubbles. It had low alcohol and was lightly sweet and creamy in texture. I loved that the wine was so acidic that I felt like I needed a dentist hose to drain the moisture from under my tongue. Another thing I adored about this wine was that the flavor and texture were consistent from start to finish -- it kept its (tasty) character throughout. I like this in a white wine and find that it is a rare occurrence, so I was happy with this attribute (it's the kind of thing that you don't notice until you have a wine that has it and then you realize that it's amazing!). This was a typical German Riesling and it delivered.

Food: Asian and Indian cuisines are this wine's best friends. The acid mitigates the burning effect of the spice and the fruitiness and sugar make Asian spices rounder/less stinging. Your mouth goes from being on fire to being coated with slightly sweet creaminess and clean acid. The effect is that the food tastes more balanced/less hot and the wine tastes creamier and less sweet. What a killer combo (I love this with Indian because it complements those warm spices -- curry, tamarind, cumin, etc).

Drink or Down the Sink?: Although definitely not an everyday sipper for me because it's a little sweet (I love my Rieslings bone dry), this one goes into the rotation for anytime we do Indian, Thai, or Chinese. It's a wonderful wine with food and I'd give it a whirl next time you're trying anything with Eastern spice! If you don't believe me, M.C. Ice, who hates semi-sweet wines (although strangely doesn't mind dessert wines, but that's a story for another time) really liked this wine for its balance, its clear flavors, and its great ability to become tastier with food!

How to Shop For a Wine Similar To This One: Well, first either go to the German section or to the Riesling section of your shop. The wine will be in a long, skinny green bottle (called a Hoch bottle). First look for Riesling then Rheingau on the label. Then look for a vineyard name like Johannisberg, Mannberg, Rüdesheimer Berg, or Marcobrunn, as was the case here. Look for that VDP symbol (right) mentioned above. Lastly, look for the ripeness/sweetness level. This wine was a Kabinett, which tends to be a little drier. If the wine says Spätlese or Auslese it will most likely be much sweeter than this wine, so caveat emptor. All these tips should increase the likelihood of you getting a high quality product that's typical of the area and similar to the wine I'm describing here! Readmore »»

A Non-Normal Wine Experience: A Rare Tasting of Some of the Best Champagnes in the World

On Tuesday I had a once in a lifetime experience. My lovely friend, Holly B, who works for Moët Hennessy here in Atlanta, invited me to come to a tasting of Bubbles and BBQ, an unorthodox pairing of luxury with more everyday cuisine. When I arrived, I had no idea that I would be tasting some of Moët Hennessy's best Champagnes and that I would have an experience that I could never have even imagined.

To be a little philosophical, life is made of experiences and memories not of material things for me, so Holly B gave me one of the best gifts I could receive -- a perfect memory of the day that I tried Krug, Dom Ruinart, and Dom Perignon for the first time. I'm so grateful to her!

Although the wine was the centerpiece, I’ve got to say it wasn't the bubbles alone that made the day outstanding. It was also the people with whom I shared it, as I find is always the case with food and wine! Being a normal person in the wine biz means that when you go these trade events, you've got to be careful about where you sit. There can be a lot of lame, snotty, and unsocial people at these events and when they go on for 3 hours, as this did, you can find yourself in a world of hurt. I lucked out by having the best table in the room.

Holly B did me the honor of sitting next to me, Michael O, the fine wine guru from Empire Distributors was there for me to rib (I love him to death but he's fun to tease), Dorine, a lovely native French woman who works at the esteemed BLT Steak here in Atlanta was a great person with whom to discuss the wines and pairing, and David and Sara from the awesome restaurant group, Here to Serve, were a load of fun and a source of great insight on the wines too. (As a total aside, Here to Serve's Restaurants include Shout, the famed place where I watched a Carolina basketball game with Isaiah Thomas, the former coach of the Knicks, and schooled him on what I thought about UNC basketball, having no idea who he was! Typical me.)

When we sat down, the table was excited and curious about the menu and the odd coupling of Champagne and BBQ. Then the Director of Wine Education for Moët Hennessy, Seth Box (left), told us that the idea was to push the envelope and show how Champagne could pair with cuisines outside the norm and not just be a holiday or celebratory sipper.

I get it. It was a cool idea. And although I think we all miss the boat when we don’t have Champagne with food, I have to admit that after this tasting, I’m not sure the food that we should be having it with is barbeque. I guess this builds off my last post and the pledge I made to be more explanatory about food and wine pairing and why certain dishes work with certain wines, in my opinion.

For this tasting, the food was spicy and rich and bold. Since the event was at the Atlanta institution, Rathbun’s, with Kevin Rathbun at the helm, I guarantee that the food was phenomenal. It was stunning on its own. But it was so flavorful that it muted the Champagne.

Champagne is delicate, it has subtle flavors and aromas, it's a bowl of minerals and citrus and, as it ages, very fine (almost non-existent) bubbles. Champagne is absolutely delightful with light grilled fish or chicken prepared simply because its gentle flavors and effervescence give the fish or poultry more flavor and more texture. The food tastes more citrusy and fresh. The wine feels fruitier and the smooth texture of the food allows the bubbles to take center stage as they roll across your tongue and mesh with proteins and starches. With pasta and creamy sauces or salads or quiche or egg custards, the Champagne's acid and bubbles make the food softer, lighter, and more refined in flavor. The wine breaks up the heft of the preparation and you're left with fresh flavors, a soft texture, and a clean palate. Rosé Champagne is a great match for salmon or turkey, because its richer fruit can handle these more flavorful dishes and temper their strength with bright berry flavor and delicacy.

So with that opinion in mind, you can imagine that barbeque vinaigrette, barbeque boiled peanuts, and smoke compressed melon (all on the menu) don't suit my palate for a Champagne pairing. I found myself wanting a Zinfandel or Shiraz to highlight the amazing food. To my taste, the food and wine fought and the food won. I don't take anything away from the team at Rathbun's or the folks at Moët Hennessy who did these bold pairings, but I'm going to use this post to concentrate on the wines. You may think me a traditionalist or a stick in the mud for not playing along, but most of us at the table agreed that wine of this level needs something to make it shine a bit more. ‘Nuff said.

Now to the wine...the tasting included eight wines and seven courses. It was a “Who's Who” of top Champagne houses -- Moët & Chandon, Dom Ruinart, Krug, Veuve Clicquot, and Dom Perignon.

I’ve detailed Champagne making and information on the region in my post on the Veuve Clicquot tasting (also courtesy of Holly B.), so I won’t reiterate that, but I do want to highlight how special these wines are with some quick information on vintage-dated Champagne.

The Champagne that I drink (and I think this goes for most of us) is generally not vintage dated. It's the entry tier bubbly (but still $45!) and that means it's the House Style (literally since in Champagne producers are called “Houses”), blended from wines across different vintages to achieve a consistent flavor in every bottle. Producers do this because the Champagne region is at a really marginal climate for grape growing and some years are better than others. To ensure consistency over time, the wines are blended...except in the case of very fine vintages where a small percentage is made into vintage dated Champagne. These years aren't common -- maybe 2 or 3 in 10 -- but they are extraordinary.

This tasting had five vintage dated Champagnes. It also had rare and phenomenal Rosés (three vintage dated, one non-vintage). This was no joke -- these are the big guns of this glorious French region.

Below is the round up. I am not going to write about the Veuve Clicquot wines -- the Vintage Rosé 2002 and La Grande Dame Rosé 1998 -- because I just reviewed them and the profiles haven't changed in the last few months (although if the tasting was in December, I would probably have to take another look since these wines change with time). Rather, I'm going to concentrate on wines from Moët & Chandon, Dom Ruinart, Krug, and Dom Perignon. [As an aside: You will notice that when I talk about bubbles, I’m not talking about really bubbly wines. Why? With time, the bottle loses fizz (they measure this in atmospheres of pressure, which reminds me of SCUBA diving always, but I digress. It’s about 1-2 atmospheres lost a decade, but you trade big bubble for more complexity, which definitely builds over time). Thought you should know...this is something I’ve learned kind of recently]


Moët & Chandon Vintage Blanc 2003
This is the 68th vintage declared by Moët & Chandon. As I mentioned above, vintages are only declared in exceptional years and have to be made with 100% fruit from that year. 2003 was a scorcher, so I was surprised that this wine didn't seem to show the ripe, juicy fruit that I would expect from a hotter year.
Color: It was a light platinum color with no visible bubbles (it was in a wine glass and that doesn’t maintain the bubble/bead as well as flutes). Again, really surprising that it wasn’t bolder in color, since the grapes were probably bursting with ripeness. I guess it’s all relative -- it was hot for Champagne, but that doesn’t mean the grapes were California style!
Smell: It smelled very clean -- not with a lot of fruit but yeasty, with a squirt of lemon, and the smell of a waterfall on rocks.
Taste: The bubbles, although not visible in the glass, certainly hit the palate and the wine tasted like tart pear, apricots, grapes, and minerals. As expected in a hot year where the grapes got very mature, the acidity wasn't super high. It stuck around in my mouth for a while and under my tongue wasn't watering much. This was a nice wine, albeit light and not that complex for me.
Price: $70

Dom Ruinart
Ruinart is the oldest running Champagne house (although bubbles have been made for longer, Champagne wasn’t designated to make it until 1728). In 1729 the nephew of Dom Ruinart, a monk in Champagne, started the business of making bubbly. About 50 years later, the house bought the largest system of chalk caves in Champagne from the city of Reims. These caves were deep and long and provide, to this day, a natural temperature and humidity-controlled environment where the wines age on their lees for three to 12 years. Champagne is normally a blend of up to three different grapes -- Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier -- but Dom Ruinart Blanc is 100% Chardonnay and to me, that's a good thing. Chardonnay is the least planted grape in Champagne and Seth told us that it took 40 vineyards to get this level of quality. The wine aged for 6 years too.

Dom Ruinart Blanc 1998
Color: This wine was so damn good and my favorite of the white sparkling wines we had. Much deeper in color -- like a gold or deep straw color -- with fine, fine bubbles, it just looked like it had more going on than the previous wine.
Smell: I could smell this wine for ages. It was so complex and unbelievably fragrant. Lemon, lime, honey, white flowers, and green herbs (like fresh basil or thyme) were prominent. There was a real croissant and mineral smell interwoven with all that fruit and herb too. Unreal.
Taste: The wine completely delivered on the taste -- it was very effervescent, it tasted just like it smelled, but with a touch of smokiness that went so well with the fruit and mineral flavors. This was a big daddy wine -- very creamy, full-bodied, and stuck around in your mouth.
Food (yes, this pairing is noteworthy!): To my absolute delight, the best pairing of the day went with this exquisite wine. It was a custard-like potato tart with baked and spiced cheddar cheese and a bit of scallion mayonnaise. Just think of it like a creamy quiche. The wine made the food more creamy and buttery. The spice in the cheese and the scallion in the mayo brought out a certain mineral saltiness/chalkiness in the wine that just worked. The acid in the wine lightened up the tart shell and it all tasted more airy yet soft. This was a mouth-watering pairing and was just perfect for the wine. I was thrilled with the combination.
Price: $155

Dom Ruinart Rosé N/V
Color: A lovely orangish, salmon color with just a little touch of pink on the rim. Just what I like to see in a Rosé. Not many visible bubbles, but I knew they'd appear on the palate given that was what happened with the Blanc.
Smell: A light and delicate wine to sniff. There was a vague raspberry, strawberry, lemon-lime smell with some white jasmine flower notes in the background. A second sniff and I got the yeast and mineral, but this was not a blockbuster jumping out of the glass, which I thought was a good sign.
Taste: A very delicate, pretty wine. There were those light berry flavors, some good but not overpowering acid, a creaminess as a counterbalance. I loved the metallic, mineral note as a foil to the fruit and the very light effervescence combined with the acid left my mouth clean and ready for the next sip. All in all a great Rosé and an example of subtlety and how to layer flavor.
Price: $70

Krug Grand Cuvee MV
Krug calls their wine MV -- multi-vintage -- rather than NV or non-vintage. I guess they should have a special name for what they do since this wine is absolutely outstanding and different from anything else we had. Krug is special. This wine is made of all three grapes from six to ten different vintages. The winemakers do a thousand tastings over the course of time to make it taste like Krug. Seth told us that in 2003, they chucked 80% of their vintage because they didn't think the raw material was good enough (we'll let them fight that out with Moët, who found the year worthy of making a vintage Champagne!).

Color: Krug is masculine. It’s powerful. It is a rich brassy gold. It looks full and rich.
Smell: With nary a sign of bright citrus scents, this wine smells like ripe green and yellow apples and a juicy, ripe pear. It was like green herbs sauteing in butter and had a toasty, nutty quality that had me going in for more and more sniffs.
Taste: Oh, the taste. Compared to the other Champagnes, this wine is like a dark, wood-paneled bar with a raging fire on a cold night. It was just manly and had low tones not bright fruitiness. The taste was insanely good to me. It was like over-ripe pears, almonds, and then a metallic, iron-ore essence that sounds weird but just went so well with everything else that was going on in the wine. It was yeasty, like bread, had mellow acidity, and the bubbles were very light. This wine is definitely not for everyone, but its complexity and velvety texture made perfect it for me. Not that I wouldn't have done this before, but any opportunity to have Krug in the future will be taken without a thought. That said, it’s not your typical Champagne -- it's something entirely different so if you taste it and don't like it, don't feel bad!
Price: $150

Dom Perignon Rosé 1998
Ok, now I can say I've had it. Before I tell you it really IS that good, I want to clear up a very common myth that seems to go around about Dom P: He did not create Champagne. In today's business dork speak, we could say that he optimized the winemaking process. There are records that show that in Limoux, in southern France, some sort of sparkling wine existed about 100 years before the merry monk took over cellar master duties in Champagne.

What did the Dom do? He showed how white wines could be made out of dark skinned grapes (Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier) so the color remained light but the flavor had more umph. He encouraged blending across different vineyards to get different profiles in the wine. And importantly, the dude introduced stronger glass and cork closures so the bottles didn't shatter under pressure during the second fermentation when the CO2 starts to build atmospheres of pressure. All genius. He gets a gold star, but let's not go overboard and say he created bubbly.

Before I do the final review, I should tell you that Dom Perignon is all vintage dated. They only make wines in good years in Champagne. In other years, they just don't. That's why it's rare, revered, and so damn good. This wine is made mostly of Chardonnay, with 20% Pinot Noir added for flavor, texture, and color. It was lights out...

Color: No bubbles at all but it was an orange salmon color that was beautiful. The dried apricot color showed its 12 years of age. All wines move to an amber color with age (whites, reds, and rosés) and this was almost there.
Smell: This was unlike any of the other wines in the tasting. There was a familiar red berry, mineral and yeast quality, but there was a distinct dried orange note and a very overwhelming aroma of a muskmelon. The wine was really spicy too -- like chai tea. like hiking in the woods after it rains. Similar to the Ruinart Rosé, it had an iron-ore or rust note to it too. Musky, forest scents were in balance with the orange and berry smells. This was completely different from anything I've ever smelled in wine -- complex, hard to pin down, and spectacular.
Taste: Holy sh*t! This wine was something else. It tasted like it smelled. A bit more strawberry and raspberry flavors but an overwhelming taste of orange rind -- bitterness and all -- was noticeable. Metal, red dirt, and musky, exotic spice were all hanging out in the background. The wine was more spritzy than effervescent -- the effects of time as I said before. Similar to the Krug, this is not a wine for everyone -- it's not big and fruity and bold -- but it's certainly something to contemplate and enjoy alone or with food. This is probably one of the best wines I’ve ever had.
Price: $400 (yup, that's right)

So what I got from the tasting is that Champagne is complex, different based on vintage and producer, and that when I'm looking for fine bottles to age or to drink, I need to consider vintage dated Champagne with the red and whites I’m looking at. These wines are NOT for New Year's when you're already hammered. This stuff is unbelievable and worthy of contemplation, a good meal, and, most importantly, sobriety.

That’s it. Would love to hear if you've had any of these gems and your thoughts or questions on them. This was a wonderful day and an extraordinary event for a normal wine person for sure!
Readmore »»

A Rant On Food & Wine Pairing

Without fail, people ask me about wine and food pairing. They should. I'm a sommelier and my job is to help pair wine and food. Wine and food go together. It's a new-fangled concept that we sip wine on its own-- something that is a bit American in nature. Europeans enjoy wine as a food and don't have the strange history of Prohibition and government intervention around alcohol consumption that we have in the US. It's part of their everyday lives and wine drinking is as natural as eating.

In Europe, the local wine and food go together naturally. Getting wine in Italy, Spain, Portugal, or France is easy to do. Most likely your neighbor is making some if you live in the country, and if you live in the city, there is a bounty of affordable domestic wines from which to choose. Pairing is less of an issue when you go to Europe because most of the wine will be compatible with your meal -- the proprietor buys wines from regions that match his cuisine. I've been to Florence a few times (including living there in college), for instance, and I've never had a bad pairing. Tuscan wines go fabulously well with Florentine cuisine. I'd be curious to hear if you've been to Europe and had a bad wine/food experience. I've never heard of one (bad food, yes, bad pairing, no).

In the US we have much more diversity and therefore much more of a challenge with pairing. It's a little more complex given the bounty of preparations, fusion cuisine, and the staggering amount of wine available. Like everything else in wine -- it's totally overcomplicated here and is a pain in the arse to unravel.

I came face to face with this issue as I was preparing to do a tasting with a group that focused on wine and food pairing. I started doing research on the internet and in wine books to get some new ideas and suggestions. Then I got really annoyed.

Wine pairings are decreed without explanation. WTF? People just throw out suggestions with nothing to back it up. To me, that's just words on a page that have no meaning. Is there a wine pairing mafia or is HAL 9000 from that 2001 movie doing all the pairings? It just is what it is.

When it comes to food pairing, wine and food critics and bloggers like to mandate the law like they were passing over the 10 Commandments to Moses. No explanation, no wiggle room, just a drumroll and BAM! here's your pairing. There are pairing generators and sites, critics that pride themselves on food and wine pairing expertise, and enthusiasts who issue wine and food pairings like they were army marching orders. The common thread: almost all of them tell us what we should drink and eat together with nary an explanation of why these things might fit. Hey guess what? I'm guilty of it too. I do it my posts every week. Shame on me.

Before I go further, I should tell you that I'm not of the school that you should drink anything with anything. I do think that there are certain food and wine combos that 90% of the population would find awesome. I've also come up with a few nasty-ass pairings before, where the wine has been replaced mid-meal because the acids clash, the wine is killing the food, or it just tastes bad to me and MC Ice. I like other people's suggestions and reasoning, but I'm not one for edicts. I don't like being told what to do without explanation (I'm sure after reading this blog you've pinned me for this type). I want to know why the pairing works and it's a hard thing to come by.

As I searched for ideas on pairing -- something new or interesting, and something that would fit with the specific preparation of the caterer with whom I was working -- I got more and more irritated. I couldn't find one resource that talked about preparations of certain foods or sauces or matches between acids/tannins in the meat or seafood or veggies with certain wines. Yeah, I get that Pinot Noir and salmon go well together. Why, though? You'll be hard pressed to find an answer.

As we're all building our wine vocabulary and knowledge, I think it would help to cut the BS on random proclamations about food and wine pairing. Breaking things down to the why can help everyone understand how to extrapolate and make better choices in pairing.

So I'm turning over a new leaf. From here on out, I am going to focus more on the pairing section of my posts. Since I do know about pairing from my experiences and studies, I'm going to start sharing. I'm going to tell you about the spices and preparation and why certain wines go well with certain foods. That way you can make choices for yourself based on what you're cooking (or what McD's drive through has, if that's how you roll), instead of taking an unexplained pairing doctrine and trying to make it work for you.

No time like the present for change, so I'll start today by talking about the pairings I made for my event...

Pairing 1: Seared Scallops in Butter Sauce with Sancerre from the Loire Valley in France
Why it works: Scallops (when well-prepared) are lightly sweet and have a creamy texture. They melt in your mouth and are a tad salty when they are put with a butter sauce. Sancerre is a highly acidic Sauvignon Blanc and it's aromatic and fruity. The pear, tart apple, and citrus flavors of the wine bring out the sweetness of the scallops at first. Then the acid in the wine cuts through the creaminess of the shellfish and the butter to make your mouth feel clean and refreshed for the next bite. Also, if there is salt in the preparation, the mineral qualities of the wine temper the salt and integrate it into the creaminess the scallop.

Pairing 2: Mushroom Ravioli with Tomato Basil Sauce with Oregon Pinot Noir
Why it works: Pinot is called the "chef's wine" because it goes with a lot of different foods. I absolutely love it with mushrooms because both are so earthy. They bring out the best in each other, and the sensation is a really woodsy, dark earth flavor -- which I love (MC Ice hates mushrooms so this is his own personal hell, BTW). If you are grossed out by eating potting soil, the other components in the dish come to the rescue: the starch will help absorb the fruitiness of the wine and the tomato sauce is acidic and brings out the acid in the Pinot. The sensation is something earthy yet fruity with mouth cleansing acid that makes the dish taste fresh, not heavy or like eating dirt.

Pairing 3: Beef Tenderloin and Roasted Portabello Mushrooms with Bordeaux (Cabernet Sauvignon & Merlot blend)
Why it works: Beef tenderloin is just that -- tender in texture. It's soft protein and delicate yet still beef. Portabello mushrooms are the non-red meat eater's (I am a non red meat eater, FYI) analog to all things beef. Here, the classic pairing just works. Bordeaux is complex, with strong tannins that can work with the protein to make the texture of the meat less dense. The wine adds complex flavor (black fruit, tobacco, leather, cedar notes) to the meat's simpler preparation and the meat will soften the tannin of the wine as it's absorbed into the cut. The result is a satiny, soft texture that neither the wine nor the food will have on its own.

Pairing 4: Chocolate Fondue and Banyuls from the South of France
Why it works: Let me be honest here, everyone has a different palate, but I think the marketing ploy of pairing Cabernet and chocolate is horrible. The wine AND the chocolate taste bitter to me when I have them together and I need coffee to trump them both. That said, I have a massive sweet tooth and I love wine, so I found the perfect solution in this pairing. Banyuls is rich and full-bodied, and is made like Port. Fermentation is halted by adding brandy while there is still sugar in the wine. The finished product is sweet and alcoholic but in this case more delicate than a Port.

Usually dessert wine tastes best when it's sweeter than the dessert, so in this case we've got total perfection. The chocolate makes the Banyuls taste like black plum, raisin, and black cherry and the Banyuls makes the chocolate taste like orange and espresso. No bitterness, just enhancement from the sweetness and the fruitiness of the wine with the choco.

I'd love to hear from you about good or bad pairings you've had. We'll try to dissect them and figure out why they worked so you can get more good pairings together, or why they didn't so you can avoid bad ones! Readmore »»

Greg Norman: A Good, Cheap Australian Chardonnay

I'm ditching the limerick this week for a quickie review because it's related to the post from earlier this week...the poor poetry will return next week.

So, I talked a ton about Australian wine earlier this week in my post on Torbreck Shiraz (and even included my video debut!) and I thought I'd follow up that post with a review on a surprisingly solid Chardonnay from a big producer that I didn't expect to be good -- Greg Norman from the Eden Valley.

Eden Valley is about 1.5 hours from Adelaide in South Australia. It's adjacent to the famous Barossa Valley, which is known mainly for its Shiraz (Torbreck is here, BTW). Eden Valley, although less well known, was actually planted in 1842, the same year as the Barossa. The main difference: Eden is far from its name -- the Barossa is closer to perfection, for certain!

Located at higher altitude and with really bad and varied soil, which is great for viticulture, Eden Valley is much, much cooler than the Barossa. It's perfect for Riesling and Chardonnay (although further north in the valley it's hotter so quality Shiraz and Cabernet producers are here too, including Henschke, which makes the famous Hill of Grace). Here, the growing season is cooler and longer than Barossa, so mouth-stinging acid can develop alongside the fruit flavors in the grape, creating luscious dry Riesling and ripe yet balanced Chardonnay.

The biggest problem in this Valley, and why it hasn't enjoyed the recognition that the Barossa has had, is that with lots of different soil types, choosing the right kind of grape to grow is really hard -- this area isn't for the faint of heart. And there's less room for error here too -- although near the Barossa, this Valley is less developed, and it's lack of access to irrigation and extremely windy conditions mean lower crop yields and less finished wine. That's probably a good thing-- now and in the future we'll have fewer but better wines and those producers who do stick it out will make Eden Valley a consistent place for quality.

So onto the bottle in question...I must admit that I never thought that my $12 cheapy of a wine, the Greg Norman Eden Valley Chardonnay would be any good. I know that's mean, but as I said in the last post, my experience has been that below $20 you're S.O.L. in Australia. I have liked some of the pro-golfer's line before, but I usually find Australian Chard to be big, oaky, and overblown.

Not so on this one.

To prove an exception to my own rule that you need be buying Aussie wine above $20, here's a quick review...

The Wine: Greg Norman Chardonnay
Where It's From: Eden Valley, Australia
The Grapes: 100% Chardonnay
Vintage: 2008
Price: $11.99

Color: A nice dark hay color, but not as golden as most Australian Chardonnays. The lighter hue had the hamster turning the wheel in my head. Could this be a non-traditional Aussie Chard? Something I could deal with? A non-oak bomb? I was feeling hopeful when I bought it and saw that it was from Eden Valley. The color allowed me to maintain optimism.

Smell: The pleasant surprise continued. Rather than big oak, I got citrus notes with just a little bit of light caramel (which is from the oak). I've rarely had an Aussie Chard that's restrained, but this smelled more like an Asian pear and minerals, with a touch of melon and light oaky vanilla rather than a 2 by 4 plank, overripe apple, and pineapple, which is what I would expect.

Taste: For a $12 bottle of Chardonnay, I give Greg Norman props. The fruit, oak, and acid were in balance. You could taste a great wet stone flavor in the wine and those melon, lime, and pear flavors were prominent but not overblown. Albeit a little too much caramel and vanilla bean for me (too much oak), the strong acid and the wine's lower levels of alcohol (only 12.5% as opposed to 14%, which many Napa and Aussie Chards have) provided balance.

Food: This is challenging. It's a little big for delicate foods. I had it with pasta primavera and thought it tasted overly alcoholic. I would have liked this with halibut or some richer white fish, and think it would be a great match with a stronger chicken dish or roast turkey.

Drink or Down the Sink?: I would drink this again. It was so much better than what I thought it would be! If you have a friend/spouse/family member (not dog -- dogs can die from grape and wine consumption, FYI!) that loves oak and you hate it, this is your compromise wine! And for $12, that's pretty fab. Readmore »»

Torbreck Woodcutter's Shiraz: Australia's Proof of Greatness

At a tasting I did for some wonderful clients the other night, I poured an Australian Shiraz. It was well-received but then I got the question I get every time I pour Australian wines these days -- "Can you even get good Australian wine? I mean, isn't it all cheap, mass-produced stuff?" My heart broke a little for Aussie wine, but the question was completely appropriate and reflects the sad state of Aussie wine for a lot of wine drinkers these days.

So what happened to this giant of the wine industry that seems to have been usurped in popularity by stuff from South America, Spain, and even the rising stars of South Africa and New Zealand? Marketing happened. Too much marketing and not balanced enough marketing. Excess led to implosion.

Now, I've mentioned this before, but I have an MBA (go Tarheels -- I went to University of North Carolina!) and was a marketer/strategist for nearly 15 years. Even though wine is my passion and my career now, I am still a keen student of branding and marketing. So watching the rise and fall of Australia's marketing juggernaut has been particularly fascinating for me. My insights may be a little controversial, but I'm calling it like I see it.

As background, the Aussies started making wine in the 1820s - 1830s (although the first attempts were in the late 1700s when some dudes brought cuttings from South Africa -- another reason I think it's weird that we classify South Africa as New World. How can you be New World when you are established enough in the 1700s to be spawning whole industries on other continents? But I digress). This is when James Busby (the Scot pictured, left), who's termed the father of Australian wine, brought vine clippings from France and Spain. With this great raw material, the settlers figured out how to deal with the hotter than hell, sun-scorching (in most places) climate and got to business making some serious wines.

Unfortunately, like everywhere else in the wine world, in the 1870s that vine serial killer, phylloxera, hit. It's a bug that attacks the roots of vines, causing galls that result in mass murder of all things sacred in the vineyard and then multiplies like Charles Manson's disciples. In true American fashion, we caused the problem by spreading this louse from the Eastern US, but then we were also able to save the day by providing roots that were resistant to the bug and could have European grapes grafted on them without a change in flavor. It was a real boo/rah moment.

Whereas everyone else in the world picked up the memories of their shattered wine lives and decided to go back to making normal, awesome wine post-phylloxera, the Aussies got stuck and for about 100 years just made sweet wine, which they termed "stickies." Even their most famous and revered wine, Penfold's Grange, which is dry and unbelievably delicious was made under cover of night in the 1950s. Although Grange and a few others worked out ways to make dry wine, it wasn't until the 1980s that Australia as a whole had its coming out party.

It was then that the marketers got to work and Australia bet the farm on making high quality, inexpensive wine. Wine drinkers loved it. They bought in droves and the ride began. In the early 2000s exports increased 35 times what they were in the 1990s. Why? People around the world dug this stuff. It was fruity, mouth-filling, and most wasn't too complex...and it was cheap. What a great starter wine for people just getting into this kind of intimidating world!

The problems then arose (BTW, I kind of feel like a "Behind the Music" writer for VH1..."and then disaster struck when Ozzie Osbourne did an 8Ball one night..."). In the early 2000s every wine coming out of Australia was a so-called "Critter Wine" -- with the success of Yellow Tail I'm convinced that all the people that marketed those lameass Beanie Babies (oh yes, I did go there) lost their jobs when that craze was over and migrated to Australia to make up stupid critter names for wine brands. Pretty Penguin, Kuddly Koala, Wombat Wine, Kangaroo Kitsch (I making this up, but I'm not too far off) were manufactured to make us buy based on label. We all fell for it.

Then we all got over it. Many of us also got tired of these big, jammy wines. We wanted something more complex and interesting. We got our start in Australia, but we set our sights on Latin Lovers -- Spain, Chile and Argentina, and back on our old flames California, Italy, and France.

Uh-oh -- now what? Australia had staked its whole positioning on affordable wines with cute labels. Maybe they reasoned that Disney had been around forever with the cutsy thing. I mean couldn't Australia have that longevity based on their version of Mickey Mouse for wine? We voted with our dollars. No. The bloom was off the rose.

That's not to say that we were done with Australia, but it is to say that the exuberance was over and their industry started to feel it. I can tell you that the hot Australian brands at the large hulking winery that I used to work for didn't get the attention they used to. Money was redirected to Spanish and Argentinean brands, and back to funding successful California brands.

So that leads me back to the question I get frequently -- "Can you even get good Australian wine? I mean, isn't it all cheap, mass-produced stuff?"

And here's the answer. Although you can still get cheap, mass-produced stuff, Australians are not dumb. They know what happened and they are working to right the ship. They are focusing on re-branding. They are trying to let us know that they are dedicated to quality and to growing grapes in the best possible areas instead of everywhere there is available space that can be irrigated.

They're actually learning from their upper tier, I think. There are a few producers that have been leading the way and who haven't been slammed as badly as the lower tier producers. The success of Penfold's with Grange, Henschke with Hill of Grace, Clarendon Hills with Astralis, D'Arenberg with Dead Arm, and Torbreck with Run Rig show that first class wines can come from Australia and can command a premium. But they prove that care and feeding must be given.

Although I didn't have the Run Rig, I did have the delightful experience of tasting Torbreck's Woodcutter's Shiraz .

Before I get to the wine, I need to tell you that this is a freaking cool winery. David Powell, the founder and winemaker, was studying to be an accountant in Adelaide, following in his father's footsteps but he really loved wine. In his time off, he would go work at the wineries in the Barossa. The guy took his walkabout and wound up travelling to the great wine regions of Europe and even spending some time as a lumberjack in the Torbreck forests of Scotland (hence, the name). When he went back to Australia, he decided to go for it. He realized that there were a ton of neglected Barossa Valley properties that had old vines on them but weren't being maintained. He approached the owners to ask if he could work the land. Powell did this at a few farms and his first vintage launched in 2003, with great results. Torbreck is now iconic for the Barossa -- all hand-harvested wines that are highly rated and classic for the region.

So what does a good wine from Barossa taste like, here's what I thought of their base tier wine, the Shiraz:
The Wine: Torbreck Woodcutter's Shiraz
Where It's From: Barossa Valley, Australia
The Grapes: 100% Shiraz
Vintage: 2008
Price: $21.99

Color: Like most Australian Shiraz this wine was not shy on showing its color. It was nearly opaque and blood red. It stained the glass, it was so rich in color. The wine was nearly vampiric in appearance (any other Twi-hards out there? Sorry for the reference). This amount of color usually indicates big flavor, so I braced myself for the smell and taste of this.

Smell: Absolutely typical for a Barossa Valley Shiraz. Rich oak and ripe boysenberry just flooded out of the glass after a good swirl. There was a prune or raisin note to the wine, and lots of alcohol burn -- a cilia singer. There were these unbelievable black pepper, licorice, and bacon aromas (all from the grape -- Syrah/Shiraz often develops these delicious smells with time). The aromas imparted from the oak were unreal. Warm cinnamon and nutmeg, rich roasted coffee beans, savory herbs cooked in butter, and an aroma of maple or tree sap just made my mouth water. Complex aromas usually = unreal wine.

Taste: Torbreck did not disappoint (nor did I expect it to, given the reputation of the producer and the fact that they care so much about their wines!). Black cherry, boysenberry, and even a little black raspberry fruit flavors were so awesomely balanced with a bitter chocolate, nutmeg, cinnamon, coffee thing. But what made this wine so complete and different from a lot of Australian Shiraz -- it actually had a great balance of mouth-watering acid and mouth-drying tannins. What a beautiful thing.

Food: Here's a perfect match for roasted and grilled meats, and heavy beef or mushroom dishes. I do also think it will be equally at home with Mexican, greasier food, and anything from the barbecue. A really versatile food wine.


Drink or Down the Sink?: Drink it! This wine is evidence that Australia is not all about cheap 'critter wine' or Yellow Tail. When you get a quality producer who takes times with the vines and knows the land, they can produce a wine that proves Australia's future is in boutique wine that is made well and has a beauty and style all its own.

PS -- You may want to decant this wine (just pour it in a glass and leave it out) for an hour or so before drinking. Although I loved it, I found it was better the day after I opened it!
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