Wining with Mel

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Tag: Wine and food pairing (Page 4 of 4)

A Red Wine Steal from Vintages

July 30, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Friends!

Do I have a great bottle for you today! It’s from a recent Vintages release.  What is this “Vintages release” you may ask?

Vintages explained

At the LCBO, there are two sections: there is the general listing, which is the stock that is always available and takes up the biggest section of the store. Then there is the Vintages section, which offers more specialty wines. With the exception of Vintages Essentials, which tend to be the popular favourites of the Vintages section and are always available, the selection in Vintages is constantly changing.

Every two weeks, it introduces 125 new fine wines from around the world. This is known as the “Vintages release,” and it is a pretty exciting time for wine geeks in Ontario. The LCBO even prints out a magazine to announce the upcoming release. It always has great pictures and interesting articles, followed by a list of the newly released wines.  You can pick up a copy about a week before the release at the LCBO, or read the digital copy online.

Now that we have that definition out of the way, let’s get on with the good stuff!

BBQ wine debates

Yesterday we had a barbecue to go to, so we needed wine (obviously). A lot of people tell me that they drink only white in the summer and red in the winter, which I think is crazy talk. Why limit yourself to only half of the available wines based on the weather? Ok, I understand that with this insane heat lately, you maybe don’t want to be drinking a super heavy red. It just doesn’t have that refreshing quality one might crave when it is so hot and humid you start sweating as soon as you step out the door. What I have here is a wine I promise you will want to drink all year round.

May I present Langa Tradicion Centaria Garnacha.

langa

Back to the BBQ. We were having steak, and I just can’t drink white wine with grilled steak. That is one food that really demands a red in my books, no matter what it’s doing outside. So I went to the Vintages section and looked for something under $20. There are actually lots of bottles available in that price range, particularly in the new releases (check out this page from the Vintages magazine or peruse the whole list).

Langa Garnacha

I ended up picking this Langa Garnacha, from the Catalayud region in northeastern Spain. Garnacha is the main grape grown in this region, but it is also grown in France (code name: grenache), where it is a main component of Côtes-du-Rhône wines. This grape may be thin-skinned, but packs a whole lot of flavour. It is typically heavy on the fruit flavours (strawberry, raspberry, cherry, but also black pepper and licorice) and tends to yield a high alcohol content. The Langa is pretty true to this benchmark. I jotted down the following tasting note at the BBQ:

– sweet spice, tobacco, blueberry, blackberry, black cherry, chocolate, pepper, licorice, smoke

– medium-full bodied, low tannin, high alcohol

Garnacha food pairings

The typical pairing for garnacha wines is grilled lamb, but it was fantastic with our deliciously fatty grilled steak. The smokiness of the wine went so well with the grilled meat, and the dark fruit flavours made it really difficult to put down. I am salivating just thinking about it. Plus, it was great without food as well. I am seriously considering running out and getting a case right now. If you are planning on doing the same, do it quickly! This wine was released over a month ago, so stocks are running low, and because it’s in Vintages, once it’s gone, it’s gone for good.

Let me know if you end up trying it and tell me what you think in the Comments! Also, if you want to get an email every time there is a new post on Wining with Mel, just click on the +Follow button on the right side of your screen.

Happy wining!

Tricky pairings #1 – Curry

July 28, 2015 /

Wine pairing is an incredibly complex topic. There is no way to cover it in just one post, and I will delve more into it in future posts, but let me give you a brief overview.

Mel’s take on wine pairing

The general goal is to find a wine that complements your food. You don’t want your wine to overpower the flavours of your dish, but you also want it to be able to stand up to the food. There are the well-known pairings: steak with a big, bold red like cabernet sauvignon, where the tannins in the wine help cut through the fat of the meat; or fish with a light, crisp white like sauvignon blanc. But these are just the basics. In my experience, these generic pairings don’t always cut it. What if your steak is being served with a flavourful chimichurri sauce, or what if the fish comes with a mango coulis? Then your tyical pairings would go right out the window. The trick is to identify the most powerful flavour component on the plate, and try to find a complementary wine for that, not necessarily the protein it is being served with.

A tricky pairing

This brings us to today’s topic: the tricky pairing of curry.  There are different types of curry and I must say that I am unclear on the differences. I just know that I prefer a Thai curry to an Indian curry.  Then, there are red, green, and yellow curries, all of which have a distinctive taste and tend to be served with different vegetables for some reason. If anyone can enlighten me, please feel free to do so in the comments. My focus today, however, is on the wine to go with these types of flavourful dishes.

Let’s break it down

In any curry dish, what is the most powerful flavour component? The curry itself, and its accompanying spiciness. Spiciness, along with tanginess and sweetness, is one of the most challenging flavours to pair with wine. Just imagine you’re eating a spicy chili. Is there a wine that comes to mind that you would want to drink? Probably not. Maybe a light beer, like a Corona or a Tiger beer, something refreshing. Or something with some sweetness, like an iced tea. What if we could find a wine that was similar? Perhaps one with the refreshing aspect of the beer and the sweetness of the iced tea?

 Suggestions

The other night we went to a friend’s house, where two different types of curry were being served. One was a tofu red curry, and the other was a vegetarian yellow curry with peas and potatoes. I sent my husband to the LCBO with instructions to get an off-dry or medium riesling from Alsace (FR) or Germany. He arrived at dinner with a bottle of Rethink Riesling, from the Mosel in Germany ($12.80 at the LCBO).

Re-think riesling

On the nose, it is unquestionably a riesling, with the typical citrus and vinyl aroma (not at all a bad thing in this wine). On the palate, the same citrus, plus a bit of peach and green apple quite refreshing with just a hint of sweetness. It didn’t do bad things for the food, and managed to stand up to the spiciness. That said, according to the bottle and the LCBO, it is a dry wine, with the website indicating 15 grams of sugar per litre. However, it also describes it as “off-dry & fruity”. Go figure. Next time, I would probably choose a sweeter wine. Sweeter wines tend to envelop the mouth a bit more, which would balance out and cool off the curry’s spice. With that in mind, a German or French gewürztraminer would also have been a good choice.

A Thai feast, paired with a German riesling.

A Thai feast, paired with a German riesling.

So that’s what I drank with curry the other night. What do you think? What are your preferred pairings for spicy curries? Shall we do a taste test soon?

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