Food : Wine

[emglow101]

When planning a dinner party or just a fun meal for yourself or family. Do you like to plan your meal choosing the wine first or the food ?

[zin1953]

I, too, have done it both ways -- hopefully that doesn't present a moral quandary for some . . .

Like Bill Hunt's answer above, more often than not the food comes first -- especially from a day-to-day standpoint. But on special occasions, like a birthday, anniversary, New Year's, etc. -- on those occasions, it's quite common to say, "I have a bottle of __________. Let's open this for the occasion. Good! Now . . . what are we going to cook?"

Cheers,
Jason

[Bill Hunt]

Jason,

I will never hold that against you - all double entendres aside. I just depends.

My rough guess would be that for hosted dinners at my home, the wine comes first maybe 30% of the time, and the food, the other 70%. Some of that could be because my wife is a great cook.

When dining with some great friends (she writes cookbooks, and both are winos), she'll tell me the details of her courses, and I'll show up with perhaps 3 bottles per course, to test pair. Some are perfect matches, and some do not make the cut. We are lucky that they just live over the hill from us, as we have been known to imbibe too much, plus they get the wines, and we, most of the leftovers. In the course of the evenings, we dissect her recipes, and dissect my pairings. To us, great fun, with wonderful friends. To date, many of those recipes have appeared in her books, and she's also added a list of wines to pair with them.

Hunt

[sedimental]

Here is my view.

Day to day /family meals are almost always food first. I don't worry about "pairing". My food choices and wines don't clash (I make sure of that) but really, enjoying wine with a meal is easy- it doesn't all have to be so "third taste" and agony over choosing "just the right wine". It is more like "grab a cab, will ya?" .."it's burgers"..."how about this Pinot?"..."what Pinot?" *the spouse tries to read French*..."Geez-Louise, that's too pricey"..."just grab a CAB"..."is Malbec like a Cab?"...*sigh* ...."sure Hon, it'll be fine'. ...and it usually is perfectly fine.

My friends and I have similar taste in food and wine, so if they bring something to try- and it doesn't traditionally "pair" with my menu............we drink it anyway. I have never had a really bad clash. Sometimes wine is just as well enjoyed as a "separate but equal" part of the meal. Nothing wrong with that, especially if the wine is a big name wine with increased $$ and "snob appeal". In that case, I don't worry about "pairing" but more about highlighting food and wine separately. I often serve water (with lemon) in those cases too so that people can clear the garlic away before sipping again.

For more formal parties, that is a bit different. It is really fun to pair the wine and food so that "everything" is elevated. Other than making sure I don't trip on a food allergy issue..... pairing (or a wine flight dinner) takes some time and energy. If I have a special wine to share, I start there and solidify the course to that particular wine, then move on to the next course to plan.

If no *one* particular wine is to be highlighted, then I start with the food...and go back and forth until I get my menu together. I have alot of aged wines in my cellar, so I also need to be mindful of the mix of older and younger wines. You can easily make an otherwise wonderful young wine taste like absolute shit by having it follow a spectacular aged wine. It is important to pay attention to the order of the quality or age of the wine in a coursed dinner.

Hope this helps!

[emglow101]

Thanks. I like your atitude.

[cbjones1943]

...i don't intend this at all defensively or to impose my interpretation etc but i interpreted 1st post differently...i was thinking of considering the wine and it's characteristics first and then mapping menu to wine...or food first mapping wineto food...imo this is different than pairing the wine in which case food & wine are treated more or less equally rather than one or the other being priviledged or dominant over the other for decision purposes...

[maria lorraine]

Many paths lead to magical pairings. You match the wine to the food, or match the food to a wine. There's also a nice "Venn circles" intersect where you can invent a dish to match the wine, so that both meld seamlessly or form an exquisite contrasting pairing. I've discovered in the last few months, as there have been more and more great bottles on the "to-drink" counter, that I'm cooking to the wine, inventing something or cooking something from my repertoire. When throwing a dinner party, I usually think, oh, I've got that Burgundy I'd like to pour, and I'd love to start with this bottle of French bubbles, and oh yes, that Sauternes needs to be drunk, and I'll find dishes to create a menu that matches those wines. On the other hand, the other day we threw a party with paella as the main attraction, so we chose/bought wines to go with that.

[Bill Hunt]

Even for day-to-day, I still try to pair, but much of that is experimentation for some meal later on. It has almost become part of many meals, "what do you think of that Zin?" "Do you think that the Syrah goes too hot?" That sort of thing.

If I am having lunch at a restaurant, I will likely have six wine glasses in front of me, tasting and making notes, or mental notes.

Love restaurants' tasting menus, when they also offer a "sommelier's pairing," as we will usually keep each wine, and taste each with every course - just trying to find unexpected matches. I also love to keep a bit of all of my whites (bubbles normally go a tad flat by then), plus my reds, for my cheese courses. This is why many restaurants will seat my wife and me at a large 4-top - all the danged wine glasses. To me, this enhances the meals, and makes life fun, plus I always find at least one surprise in the mix.

I will never know all that there is to know about wine, and about wine and food pairings, but like many other endeavors, it's all about... practice, practice, practice, and I really enjoy it. Maybe it's just me - and my lovely, young wife?

Hunt

[cbjones1943]

have never done "wine 1st" but don't think this sequence would be v interesting 2 me unless wine were superior or had personal significance (gift from person/company close to me) or label or bottle from a favorite winery etc...for me would be less fun i think than "food 1st"...i think europeans do "wine 1st" with some frequency...my impression is that high-end, starred, etc restaurants rarely do "wine 1st" though any restaurant would do so for a price i would guess...

[Bill Hunt]

For me, it depends on the wine(s). We do a lot of wine-themed dinners, where the wines DO come first, and then we structure the meal around them, hoping to compliment each wine.

Not that long ago, I hosted a wine dinner, and the theme was Meritage vs Bordeaux. This translated to Bdx Blend domestic wines, head-to-head with counterparts FROM Bdx. So, we had 12 red wines, mostly Cab Sauvignon, Cab Franc, Merlot, and possibly a hint of Malbec, and Petite Verdot thrown in. All were BIG wines, and three had been Wine of the Year from WS, while none had ever received a rating (many sources) below 92 pts. Yes, the wines were the feature. However, I worked with the chef for two weeks, structuring the foods, to accompany those wines. As it was a "grand tasting," and not a sit-down-dinner, per se, there were other challenges, in that people would be eating the entire time, and not in normal "courses."

A couple of years before that, we did a Port tasting, with foods to accompany those wines. The chef and my wife worked for maybe three weeks, coming up with the foods to serve. Again, the wines (~ 24, IIRC), would be served throughout the night, and the wines would be available. While I offered a general "order" for the wines, the guests were open to mix-n-match, per their decisions.

In both cases, I felt that we had glowing successes.

In all cases, my cheese courses are built around the wines, that the guests will likely have left, or that I will add to the list, just for the cheese course. Wines first - cheeses next.

For many other dinners, we come up with a recipe, and then I begin finding the ultimate wines (usually from my cellar), to go with the dishes. In some cases, we'll do the dishes, well before the meal, and I'll bring up a dozen "usual suspects," and taste test. For one particular main, I struggled, and finally narrowed it down to a particular Zinfandel. Both the recipe and the spices came from a local chef, and I called her to get more of the spices, as we had used up all that we could find. I described why we were now out, and she paused - "I hope that you paired with the 1994 vintage of that wine?" As a matter of fact, that was exactly what we'd come up with, and fortunately, I still had almost a full case of it left. Had I needed another vintage, I would then have been out of luck. She and I ended up on the same exact page, and our guests raved. They were disappointed, that the wine was long gone, but such is life.

For us, the answer on whether food, and then wine, or wine, and then food, is - it depends.

Hunt

[whiner]

It depends. Usually, the two go hand-in-hand, but it really depends.

[emglow101]

They do go hand - in - hand. Is it harder for you to plan a menu and shop for your ingredients, driving from store to store or find the wine you like. I will be in Fort Bragg,CA. next week . Maybe start with the local ingredients. Crab ,mushrooms, or what is available.I will stop at Navarro vineyards. Any recommendations from their winery ?

[JeremyEG]

I have started enjoying the reds from Navarro lately. There are doing a decent pinot. Not the most complex thing I've ever had but really nice this time of year with local mushrooms. Maybe pick up a sweeter white to have with cheese or dessert.
JeremyEG
HomeCookLocavore.com

[whiner]

I really like and respect Navarro. I think they make just about the best Alsatian white varietals in CA. (Martinelli would be the only one I think might sometimes do a better job -- but a different style, too.) The cluster select late harvest wines are exceptional.

It is definitely harder to prepare the menu than the wine. If I want to serve a braised lamb shank with polenta and roasted root veggies, that takes hours of planning and work. If I want to pair it with a Cote-Rotie, that takes a trip to the cellar or, worst case scenario, wine store.

[Brad Ballinger]

Usually food first unless the dinner is centered around a certain wine theme.

[Bill Hunt]

I have done it both ways, though the food, often comes first, and then the wines. It depends on what my personal subject is.

The ultimate goal, and from either direction, is to find the ultimate pairing, so that both, the food and the wine, are enhanced by that pairing.

Enjoy,

Hunt