By Dan Berger
Many years ago, when the Soviet Union was still an entity and food was scarce,
a California winery set up a sales operation in Moscow, prompting me to dryly
quip, "What wine goes with no food?"
Then, a few years later, at a very chi-chi Southern California restaurant, I was offered one of the worst meals I have ever tasted because we had about six different wines on the table, all very different, and the food made each of the wines taste terrible-and vice-versa.
And they are pointless, too, when you think of things like mesquite-grilled salmon. A delicate Sauvignon Blanc would be a terrible match; the wine would be obliterated by the assertive flavors of the salmon, to say nothing of the rich, oily texture of the fish compared with the lean tartness of the wine.
Better would be a Pinot Noir or even a Cru Beaujolais with the salmon. It was for this reason that 17 years ago, David Rosengarten and Josh Wesson wrote the book "Red Wine with Fish," long out of print yet a classic treatise on the subject.
These days, true wine lovers, those who seek diversity in their wines, are in danger of losing the very thing that creates excitement in wine: the ability to pair it with food. That's because wine is being made in a low-acid, rich-body manner that doesn't work with food. Take, as an example, the classic American food pizza. Because it usually has tomatoes on it, the acid in the tomatoes calls for an acid-based red wine, like Barbera or, classically, Chianti.
Once, numerous California wineries made a more elegant style of Zinfandel, one that had some of the acid that would work brilliantly with pizza. These days, all we see is overblown, 15 percent alcohol "fruit bombs" (they smell more like raisins and prunes to me) that are so soft that they're better with dessert.
About 18 years ago, I wrote a column on wine and food pairings, and among the suggestions was roast leg of lamb with rosemary and garlic and a young, vibrant Zinfandel. I wrote, "The fat of the lamb needs the tartness of the wine, and the assertive flavors of the dish need the fruity intensity of the wine." Today, such a wine is hard to find.
In that article, the only pairing I suggested that still works today is gravlax with a dry sparkling wine or Champagne. I wrote, "The naturally high acidity in bubbly works to amplify the flavors in the cured salmon, and there is a subtle but intriguing counterpoint between the oily texture of the fish and the crispness of the wine. If you were to serve the gravlax with a California Chardonnay, the balance would be off."
That still applies. Sparking wine has changed little over the years. Meanwhile, most of the world's red wines have gotten fatter and softer and ought now to be referred to as the couch potatoes of the wine world.
All of which compels me to seek a lot more diversity in my choice of wines. In the last year, I have enjoyed Chenin Blancs from California and France's Loire Valley, a Chasselas from Sonoma Valley, a number of dry Australian Rieslings, a handful of softer German Rieslings (with Japanese food), and a number of red wines from Carignane, Grenache and Malbec (many from Argentina).
But note that much of this diversity is coming from overseas. It's not that California can't make such wines-with balance and the acid to work with food.
It just won't. Big, fat, soft and flabby seems to be the "in" format
these days, and it's a style with which I'm fast becoming bored.
Reprinted by permission from Dan Berger. For more of Berger's articles, visit http://www.vintageexperiences.com