Food and Wine Matching. Let me save you a million!
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This topic reminds me of a story once told to me by a wine sales manager from Atlanta. He said that successful restaurateurs from the American North East were coming into the Atlanta market and setting up beautiful, UNsuccessful restaurants. He told me of his desire to set up his very own consulting service to help these misguided, over confident aspiring marketers of the latest culinary fads. It was a very simple service that he would provide. The first and only question was how much money they were prepared to spend to build their temple of gastronomy. They would answer in the millions of dollars and he would then respond to each and every one with “I would like to save you 90% of your investment. Yes, all you need to do is hire me as your advisor for 10% of budget and I will save you the rest by advising you not to build the restaurant in the first place.” He wanted to save them millions of dollars!
I feel the same way about food and wine matching and I will tell you why.
First thing we learn in food and wine matching is that there are rules. They seem simple enough. White food requires white wine and if it is small, like fish, it needs a small white wine. Red, well that is easy too as it goes with red meat. If it is game you're having, you bring out the big Shiraz, while rabbit would be be best with Beaujolais. So I took these rules and ran a ten year experiment at my winebar, Delisle, from 1985 to 1995. And I admit that after ten years I was confused. If there were rules, why did they not work consistently? And if they were not consistent, what kind of rules were they?
Delisle was a crazy wine place and we did countless wine events and dinners with people such as Marcel Guigal, Jean-Pierre Perrin, Warren Winarski, and way too many more to begin to mention. Many celebrity chefs such as Didier Leroy, Chris Macdonald and Susar Lee made guest appearances. I only had one aim and that was to set the highest standards when it came to the matching of the cuisine to these fabulous wines with these top notch chefs. I would meet with the chefs and they would take notes as we tasted every single wine. We would scheme and plan and come up with what we thought were the combinations that would blow our customers away.
Trouble is that they didn’t. Do not get me wrong, we had countless enthusiastic comments on the perfect matches but we also often had people commenting that it was not their favourite match. But there are rules; you are supposed to like this combination. I mean, there are rules? Did I misinterpret something? Where did I fail? I had no answers.
No, I am not that smart. I was like one of those North Eastern carpetbaggers. I thought I knew. It was only after I sold Delise and entered the wine importing business and had the pleasure of meeting one Tim Hanni that I began to understand. As a Master of Wine, Tim knows a lot more about wine and food matching that I did, so I quizzed him as to why these rules did not seem to work.
Tim laughed at me. How could they work? We are all human with our individualistic tastes. None of us will react in exactly the same way to anything. Think about it, you may love Rock & Roll or Metal, or Classical or Folk or Ethnic or Roots etc. You might like Monet or Degas or Picasso or Dali or Warhol etc. You might like your coffee black or double double or anything in between. Are you a carnivore, a locavour or a vegan?
We are all unique individuals and being unique we have unique tastes on all things sensual.
So let me save you a million dollars and let you in on a little secret.
Food and wine can complement each other magnificently but there are no hard and fast rules that will work for every setting and every person.
So do not stress about it too much. Eat what you like and drink what you like and you will probably really enjoy your repast.
Barolo The King of Wine; The Wine of Kings
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It is a cold winter night between Christmas and New Years and I am feeling the need for some inner warmth to stoke the internal furnace up a degree or two. I trot down to the cellar and discover a still wrapped bottle of Barolo 1997 ‘Castelletto’ from Gigi Rosso. Gigi Rosso has been in the Lifford portfolio for decades and the 1997 vintage was considered a terrific one. After the bitter harvests of the early nineties, Barolo lovers worldwide were clamouring for such a heralded year. Interest reached such a peak that several producers offered Barolo futures, an unheard of practice in Piemonte before or since.
Gigi Rosso was actually the very first vintner to offer his wines on a futures basis and I personally purchased several cases. This bottle of single vineyard Barolo ‘Castelletto’ is from one of one of those cases and I am glad I made the investment. The vineyard was replanted in 1981 on southwest facing hills. In 1997 at 16 years of age, the vineyard was in its prime.
In the world of wine, great vineyard sites are rarer than a wine professional without attitude. In all of Barolo, there are less than 1,600 acres of vineyards where Nebiolo, the grape varietal responsible, reaches it apogee. To make matters more difficult, despite best efforts, Nebiolo does not feel comfortable in foreign climes and rarely do you find a Nebiolo out of the region that rivals Barolo.
So what makes the terroir of Piemonte so unique? First a lesson in language. "Pied" is foot and "monte" well reasonably enough means mountains, thus Piemonte is foothills. Barolo is situated in the southern foothills of the Alps and cool winds from the north provide relief from intense summer heat. Grapes do best when not over heated in the summer and that is why ocean/mountain breezes are important elements in terroir from Barossa to Napa to Barolo. Then there is the soil. Barolo shares their limestone sub soil with Burgundy, Coonawarra and the Clare Valley to name a few. Limestone in all those regions adds a delicacy to the wines. They are rich in flavor but with sufficient acidity to keep them fresh and delicious from one glass to the next.
One of the reasons I love the Rosso family is that first of all they had the good sense to purchase phenomenal vineyard sites when no one wanted them, and secondly, they had the brilliance to let the grapes and the vineyard make the wine. Basically unknown in North America, this small winery is quietly turning out remarkable wines, and relative to other producers, selling them for a song.
Today the estate is run by Gigi’s two brilliant sons, Maurizio, author of many books including a guide to Barolo, and Claudio who finds the spare time to be chairman of the local Barolo consortium.
Why I hate corks
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To me it comes down to one thing, consistently delivering a top quality product to the consumer.
And corks fail to do this.
Yesterday I joined a friend for lunch at one of my favourite lunch places, Loire. It is run with passion and élan by two long time friends Sylvain and Pierre who wanted to bring a bit of their native France to Harbord Street. Their simple food excellently prepared and presented is deeply satisfying to a jaded critic such as me.
I ordered a bottle of Sancerre Red from Alain Gueneau, a Pinot Noir, a rarity from the land of crisp, minerally white wines. Sylvain popped the cork and one whiff told me that this wine was deeply flawed with my old nemesis cork taint. When wines are this corked it is easy for any consumer to notice the foul damp basement/wet cardboard smell. This is a Lifford wine so I told Sylvain to scold his importer and bring another bottle. The second was perfect, a light, bright fragrant red that was the perfect match for a delicious lunch and a good conversation.
Later the same afternoon, the Lifford office is winding down from a hectic week of pre Xmas activity. Two weeks into the most important selling month of the year and Lifford sales in 2009 are ahead of 2008! Perhaps in anticipation of the Lifford Xmas party I decided to open not one, but two bottles of Pinot Noir 2006 Seven Springs Vineyard from St Innocent in Oregon. Great producer, great vineyard great year and the first bottle showed all of that. Rich and complex it was everything a great bottle of Pinot should be.
Then I tried a glass of the second bottle. I immediately commented to Nick, the Voice of Lifford, that there was bottle variation between the two. The second bottle was less fragrant but still showed good fruit and spicy notes. It was not noticeably corked. We did a head to head taste between the two bottles and what became apparent was that on the finish, the fruit on the second bottle disappeared. The cause once again, cork taint. But this time, at such a low level, it was not immediately apparent on the nose. In situations like this it is always the finish that gives it away. Cork is a fruit vampire and if you notice your favourite tipple tasting dried out for some reason, invariably it is the cork that is the culprit.
And this is my big problem with cork. An over the top stinky, corky wine is easy to spot; wines with a touch of cork taint are almost impossible to notice, even to experienced wine tasters.
Here is another cork story. I am in Marlborough after Pinot Noir 2007 at Staete Landt with owner Ruud Maasdam for a gathering of his international distributors. I had brought with me three bottles of Clos Vougeot 2002 from Maison Louis Jadot. I had sampled one at the final Grand dinner and the wine was magnificent. I opened the second bottle in front of Ruud and cursed as I found it to be corked. Ruud grabs my glass and immediately tells me that I am daft, that there is nothing wrong with the wine. To prove his point he seeks out his UK distributor who has been buying Burgundy for some 50 years and he too tells me that the wine is perfect. At this stage I go find the third bottle and open it for them. Like the first bottle it is magnificent and clearly heads and shoulder above the corked wine. Ruud et al eat their words.
My point is, if seasoned veterans cannot pick out cork taint, how in hell can consumers?
Be gone you foul relic of a bygone age.
My thoughts on a wintery night
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And winter cometh with snow and wind and rain and ice and many a Xmas get together was canceled and many a restaurant seat remains vacant in the GTA this evening.
Having spent 17 years owning my own restaurant, I feel the financial pain caused by mother nature and the frustration of seeing your loved one, your precious, your dining room sit empty on stormy nights.
Owning a restaurant is more like having a disease than a vocation. It consumes you as it demands your complete and utter attention. Unless of course if you plan to fail. Having fallen in love with good food at my paternal grandmother knees, I had no plan of failing.
I eagerly entered the maelstrom of restaurant ownership on July 31th 1978 twenty days after marrying the love of my life. Combining the vast resources of three university friends we pooled our meager savings totaling $1,000 and purchased a restaurant. None of us had any real training and we learned to cook from books and experimented on our customers. Being ex students, we were used to living on starvation wages and that was a good thing. But slowly I learned the craft and after seven years of modest success, sold La Maison and purchased Delisle Restaurant in 1985.
By 1985 I had caught the wine bug and Delisle was one of the few wine bars in the city. The interplay of food and wine and the ability of successful combinations to increase the pleasure of the two fascinated me. I spent ten years at Delisle constantly refining the elements of successful restaurant management. First, service: So many restaurants ignore service when they’re hot and trendy and wonder why everyone moves on when the next place opens up. Every customer is your best customer. Second, value: There is value at every price bracket and restaurants do not have to be inexpensive, but if they want to charge, they have to deliver. Included in value is the quality of the food you serve. Third, ambience sets the tone. People want comfort at all levels of dining but décor separates the weak from the strong. Fourth, and perhaps the hardest, all three elements have to be in balance service/food/ambience; if any one of these is out of balance the harmony is destroyed and the restaurant is doomed.
After ten years Delisle was one of the most successful wine bars in Canada and excelled as much in its cuisine as it did in its wine selection. Those are memorable years of which I am proud and nostalgia makes me feel for my restaurant comrades. On nights like this, no matter how well you nail all of the elements for success, mother nature delivers a low blow and denies you your daily bread.
Just my thoughts on a wintery night.
Old Friends & Old Habits
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Had a holiday lunch today at Nota Bene with Franco Prevedello, Michael Carlevale with Yannick Bigourdan joining in, if and when he could. Nothing like putting four food and wine nuts together and having a three and half hour lunch. Amongst us we have more than a century of experience in the Toronto fine dining scene and none of us suffer fools or lack a large ego. We talk of the past, Biffs, Windsor Arms, Centro, Boston Club and we talk of the future and what might spark the imagination of dinners in 2010. Local is hot but can we eat Kale six months of the year? Charcuterie, yes; we like Charcuterie and devour two servings. And we like wine as well and Franco has brought two bottles for us to try.
First from Sicily a Syrah with a very pretty label and a polished new world appeal on the palate. I was not surprised to find that the winery had hoped to sell this wine for some $60 a bottle. But that is so last year and now maybe $30 looks more approximate. Trouble is, even at that price you can find better examples of Shiraz/Syrah from Australia or the Rhone Valley for $20 a bottle.
Second was a Vino Nobile di Montepulciano that represented far better value. The primary grape used in the production of Vino Nobile is Sangiovese and Vino Nobile is just to the south east of Tuscany where Sangiovese makes such magnificent wines as Chianti Classico and Brunello di Montalcino. With the price of Chianti Classico and Brunello di Montalcino today, many a wise person has discovered the excellent quality price ratio of Vino Nobile.
Sangiovese is a great food wine with palate cleansing natural high acidity balanced with generous fruit flavours and aromas. This wine is an excellent complement to our pasta appetizer of penne with braised beef rib. While Michael pilloried Yannick for the ultra molasses type consistency of the beef jus, Franco and I were using bread to sop up every last drop of this intense flavour explosion from the bottom of our bowls. The saltiness of the jus must have made us all extra thirsty as the Vino Nobile evaporated.
But what about a main course? Franco defers to Michael, Michael defers to me and I go simple. I have traveled all over the world with Michael and I knew that he wanted to order everything on the menu. He once explained to me in the midst of a two week “dine in the best restaurants in France” trip, that while we did have to order everything, we did not have to eat it. I go simple, one steak, some veg and some salad and we will split everything. Franco orders another bottle of Sangiovese, this time a Chianti Classico.
Goodness there goes the afternoon and I cannot imagine a better way to pass the time than with great food and wine and old friends.
Sangiovese and Sheppard’s Pie
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The first snow of the season has fallen and Toronto is abuzz with the sounds of the season. I came home and made Sheppard’s Pie for a modest dinner with my wife Paula. I went down to the cellar looking for a Monday night friend and came up with a bottle of Il Poggione Brunello di Montalcino 2000. It is fiercely 100% Sangiovese from one of the original three historic producers of this famous region. I say fiercely because of the passion and the dedication of one man, Fabrizio Bindocci . Fabrizio trained at the feet of Piero Luigi Talenti, the most famous Brunello wine maker of the latter part of the twentieth century. I had the blessing of witnessing the two of them together prior to Piero’s death and saw Fabrizio’s devotion with my own eyes. Lifford has represented Il Poggione for more than two decades and it has been wonderful to watch their devotion to carrying on the pursuit of excellence, making huge investments and now reaping the rewards.
Il Poggione is owned by the Franceschi family, a family of noble origins whose history in the region goes back centuries. Of course when you are the local rich family you own the best vineyards and Il Poggione is no exception. To let these great vineyards show their finest expression of the noble Sangiovese grape, the family has invested large sums of money to modernize the winery. It has been truly delightful to see the results of this dedication. I am not going to go so low as to refer to points by some critic or another, but I will tell you that Il Poggione 2004 Brunello was the reference point wine from this vintage in The Wine Advocate, so you can well imagine the points.
But I am trying the 2000 vintage and it was less than grand; a perhaps oaky vintage. Moreover, I am not a big believer in letting Brunello age too long. Sangiovese, to me, needs 5 to 10 years in the cellar at the maximum with few exceptions. So a nine year old wine from a less than stellar vintage? How is it holding up? Well, surprisingly well. Yes the rim is going rather orangey so it is mature but I am thinking that this was a less ripe, higher acid year and the extra acidity has preserved some of the fruit.
And in Toscana, they love their acidity, both in food and wine. How many North American Steak Houses would serve you lemon with your steak? Not many. In Italy it is de rigeur and is a perfect match with their local wines. Try it for yourself, with whatever food you like. When you are having the wine you love, just try the combination with food. Then take a little lemon juice and put it on the food and try the combo again. Nine times out of ten you will prefer the lemony food and wine match better. North Americans love acidity too, we just don’t know where, when, or how to get it? The Italians figured this out a long time ago.
In the end my Shepard’s pie was not my best, but the glass was better than I had hoped, so I won.
