Boston Apothecary

August 18, 2008

two summery dishes and some wine…

Filed under: Wine Pairings — Tags: — sjs @ 2:24 pm

i sat down sunday night to try some wines with a couple new dishes chef put on the menu for restaurant week. the food is amalfi inspired and i had thought one of their wines would easily come out on top. unfortunately its never that simple…

the first dish was a simple chicken milanese accompanied by a chilled arborio rice salad with pees, corn, prosciutto cotto, and caper aioli stuffed into an organic native tomato. the dish has a fun hot, cold contrast and at first glimpse a dry coastal wine would seem appropriate.

for the wines i had open most of the usual suspects plus a couple of new ones…

max ford richter’s “zepplin” reisling was up first. the wine has a really elegant level of residual sugar probably under what would be a called a spatlese. the pairing was a simple richness on richness comparison. the reaction is hard to describe but worked well with no ill effects.

bridlewood’s viognier, which is rather full bodied and low acid, produced a pretty neutral reaction but for some reason i think i noticed the wines high alcohol a little more.

martin codax’s albarino tasted thin when all its fruit was stripped away for some reason by the dish. the reaction which was definitely negative did seem to reveal the wines minerality.

matrot’s bourgogne chardonnay reacted strangely, and the wine’s oak influence was brought out in a kind of inelegant creepy way. oak in white wine isn’t summery to me.

white haven’s new zealand sauvignon blanc was kind of nice and complementary. the dish brought out the grapefruit in the wine, but i don’t understand why this wine may have worked but not the dry albarino…

terra di paolo’s falanghina was dominated by the aioli and like the albarino may have been too delicate.

so for the dish the slightly sweet reisling was a complete pleasure and the dry new zealand sauvignon blanc may have faired better than the other dry wines because of its over the top expressive intensity.

the next dish up was salmon wrapped in grape leaves and grilled then served over what is essentially a chilled nicoise salad (heirloom tomatoes, hericot verts, olives, onions) with a separated perfectly cooked hard boiled egg. i shared this with some of the other guys so i didn’t get to taste it with all of the wines i had open. what was cool to see is how alot of the guys don’t enjoy the zepplin reisling but found it sensational and counter intuitively the best of the dish. i should also note that the dish never read well to me on paper but was really sensational, summery and completely perfect for the hot august evening.

the “zepplin” reisling when combined with the sweetness and particular acid level of the heirloom tomatoes brought out all the apricot flavors of the wine, but then you noticed the steeliness of the tomatoes on the finish. the results were quite cool. the salmon and especially the smokiness of the grilled grape leaves provided even more sensational contrast to the wine. the fruit just grew in intensity and luckily the sweetness was always manageable.

matrot’s bourgogne chardonnay was too heavy and definitely not bright enough in character for the electric flavors of the dish. i was worried about the subtle oak of the wine encountering the egg but it didn’t seem to be a problem.

white haven’s sauvignon blanc definitely brought some electric intensity, but just provided a strange contrast that didn’t really maximize the potential of the dish.

i didn’t get around to trying the falanghina but others thought it may have been too dry and delicate. whats seems strange to me though, is how falanghina usually ends up as the only wine that can stand up to big flavors like parsley and pepper flake in a red sauce…

so all in all, we found some stunning matches for the food, but strangely in the same wine… is there any coincidence involved in the reisling coming out on top or does it reflect a chef’s distinct summer time ethic of how lighter dishes should be balanced?

July 3, 2008

fava beans and bruleed pecorino toscano with aged balsamic

Filed under: Wine Pairings — Tags: — sjs @ 4:43 pm

so this rather simple yet interesting dish entered rotation into our tasting menu. the dish is rather basic and i don’t really get why it is special enough to get a slot on our menu. the dish however, is interesting enough to think about with wine.

the plate consists of fava beans three way (pureed raw, blanched, then boiled), soppressata, a seasonal type of pecorino toscano that is bruleed with sugar and topped with aged balsomic, and then some interesting bitter greens to garnish of a type i can’t remember. very little elaborate preparation happens here. the raw beans have a very fresh and green taste that darkens as they are cooked more while the texture gets softer as well. the bruleed cheese is pretty incredible. the sweetness and complexity of the caramel is beautiful contrasted with the acidity and balsamicness of the vinegar. the cheese adds awesome texture and you tastes it before the other parts diffuse through your mouth. the stacking of the flavors makes things linger for quite a while… i see how the acidity of the soppressata could balance the richness and sweet elements of the cheese, but how do the fava beans fit in? i think that they may just be there because chef really likes favas. so many other delicious and seasonal things could be substituted and the favas just change the rules of what wine works for the whole dish… so many wines could work for certain elements but when you consider everything on the plate things will be narrowed down.

the first wine i tasted with the dish was a really focused, dry reisling from clos de rochers in luxembourg. with the pureed favas, the beans seemed to lighten the wine and stretch the fava flavor on the tongue. nothing special happened with the cheese. the interaction of the wine and soppressata was simple and harmonious. the dryness of the wine was refreshing. the best part of the pairing was the greens which showed the elegant flavor depth and sophistication of the bruleed sugar and balsamic

the next wine was bridlewood’s viognier which has a very different structure and is rather low acid. the raw pureed fava pairing was nothing bad but the greenness contrasted with the baked peach like fruit of the wine was weird. the bruleed cheese with the wine was really long lived in the mouth and created an experience where both were tasted in a continuous and pleasurable stream of sensations. the soppressatta on the other hand, made the wine taste flat perhaps because the soppressata has more acidity than the wine. comparable acidity may be a requirement for success across the entire dish. again the greens with the balsamic was beautiful and quite long lived in the mouth with the wine.

whitehaven’s intensely grapefruity new zealand sauvignon blanc enlivened the balsamic but was barely interesting anywhere else.

a lightly extracted chinon rose of cabernet franc, which is rather dry and quite aromatic, seemed to overpower the favas. the wine was nothing special with the cheese and seemed to bring out a vanilla note that may have been from the caramel. like the favas, the soppressata seemed to get lost in the intensity of the wine.

the last wine that i tried was montinore estates very feminine style of pinot noir from the willemate valley. even being considered light for a pinot noir, the wine was too full bodied for the favas and soppressata creating an inelegant vanilla flavor trap with the bruleed cheese.

knowing that to have a successful pairing across the board you would need sufficient acidity, the wine i wish i could have tried with the dish would have been a vino verde from portugal like “jao pires”. jao pires is a moscat based wine and has a unique “greeness” of flavor that could perhaps be interesting with the favas themselves or perhaps provide the flavor contrasts the favas have while refreshing the palate with every sip. this worked similar to the signal that chefs give when they pair a fruit with a meat. if the chef feels that shade of fruit is a good contrast, a vine capture that similar note will probably work wonderfully as well. fava beans are not exactly fruit, but the greenness of a vino verde is not too outlandish a comparison. some vino verde’s have a really peasanty, gritty finish, but i find jao pires to be the best of the few examples i’ve tasted. another interesting wine of potential success would be a fruity dry vermouth like martini & rossi’s…

so i never really pinned down the ideal wine but i know more about it than when i started and i think i have a better appreciation of the dish…

June 2, 2008

a cheese and vermouth pairing…

Filed under: Wine Pairings, vermouth — Tags: , — sjs @ 2:10 pm

so i stopped into wholefoods and bought a couple affordable cheeses and a baguette to make an easy lunch… i sat down with the cheeses and a couple vermouths i had open and tried to see what happened… with vermouth even successful pairings can be beyond the words i know, but i’ll try.

the first cheese was a small cut of “marcillat alsatian munster”. the cheese is very creamy, sort of nutty, and rather stinky… my cheese sensory evaluation skills are very amateur so hopefully i’m conveying a good description…

the first vermouth i tried it with the was a very ancient “cinzano reserva dry vermouth” (chilled) which is based on chardonnay, probably at least 15 years old and has some serious old wine character… food really seems to wake it up. the dry vermouth melts right into the cheese and the weights of each match well. the cheese seems to bring out some of the banana flavors in the wine.

chilled stock brand sweet vermouth pairs pleasurably with the munster and again one doesn’t really over power the other. what happens is rather difficult to evaluate but the vermouth seems to reflect back into focus some of the stinkiness of the cheese.

the second cheese was “petite reblochon de savoie”. it is much firmer than the munster but still soft. overall a similar cheese but sort of milder. the reblochon may have been a little over ripe as there was a faint ammonia character. i was told that is a hazard of buying small cuts at wholefoods…

though the cheeses seem similar, the cinzano reaction is different than with the munster. the cheese seems to make the wine more alcoholic and strip away the fruit. the reaction is very subtle but overall it probably doesn’t pair well. perhaps the vermouth is too dry.

the reaction from the stock sweet vermouth is very delicate and the cheese seems to make the fruit of the vermouth taste like dark brooding berries.

because the reblochon was a bigger cut, i had some cheese left over and decided to taste it with gallo’s dry vermouth which i’ve never had before. gallo’s dry is actually kind of horrible… the fruit character of the wine is over the top. kind of akin to how the fruit character sticks out on fresh martini rossi but much more so… the muscat character becomes as inelegant as a concord grape wine… the botanical weight also seems to be much lighter than imported dry vermouths and the whole product seems not very adult. the vermouth may be too dry for the cheese because it makes the fruit of the wine taste even thinner and draws out the ammonia character of the potentially overripe cheese… but i do give gallo points for a pretty label…

May 15, 2008

Maccheroncelli Primivera with Falanghina

Filed under: Wine Pairings — Tags: , — sjs @ 12:54 pm

So at the end of the night i sat down with a new dish from the Menu. I actually made the dish myself with the very close supervision of the sous chef because I barely cook beyond scrambled eggs… i know way too much about food but have been debilitatingly spoiled by chefs for years… the dish has a very dense rigatoni like pasta from gragnano in southern italy. the sauce is a porcini crema with a little lemon juice for acidity… spring vegetables like peas, morels, and pickled fiddle heads are added to the dish… over all it is green tasting, mushroomy in that porcini kind of way. the pickled fiddle heads lend more acidity to the lemon juice’s subliminal acidity…

so in my opinion as delicious as the dish is this is simple stuff and can’t really justify itself headlining a supposedly alto cucina restaurant’s menu without a pairing worked out to elevate it. my simple strategy was to grab every open bottle of white wine available plus the lightest red (because i feel red barely goes with food), try and call my shots like in shooting pool and see what happens. (i was not very good at calling my shots so i gave up)

with whitehaven’s new zealand sauvignon blanc the flavors of dill were obnoxiously revealed in the wine which i guess paired but was far from fun and elegant

bridlewood’s viognier was too low acid for the dish and tasted thinner

a strange rather full bodied pinot grigio brought into focus intense nut flavors so i guess it might have paired because there was an interesting reaction but it was again not really elegant or worth a second sip. i think this is the style of wine that most books would recommend with this wine in theory but that is why we need new books…

terra di paolo’s falanghina is this very dry white wine with pear like fruit, and very subtle herbaceous notes like pinenut and rosemary… it is so amalfi probably like the dish… but when you drink the wine following a bite of the dish the stunning unembellished flavor of the porcini is reflected back into focus in your mouth contrasted with the beautiful pear flavor in the wine and you have the most ideal pairing… exploring the pickled fiddlehead element of the dish also proved no negatives… though there wasn’t enough of them to explore it with every wine…

the red was barely worth mentioning. edmeades mendacino zinfandel is in my portfolio of advanced food wines but even in its lightness and rare for a zinfandel acidity it was too full bodied for the dish…

unfortunately restaurants hate investing in pairing R&D but when you can really link food and wine with a successful pairing it is very profitable… people guzzle things that work… trying to figure out how and why the magic happens or simply subliminally. when trying to make money it sucks to see a guy put down his glass of red wine while he enjoys his fish and then doesn’t return to it until he is done…

would it be weird if restaurants developed perfect wine pairings for every dish with the sole goal of the making money and the art was cast aside soley to move more wine… amusement and pleasure are only biproducts… shouldn’t the market system really drive the art and science of food and wine interaction yet it has barely gotten anywhere?

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