California Takes on Ethnic Cuisines
Writing about food and wine pairings is easy. That's because there are so many directives already in place: red wine with red meat, white with fish, Port with Stilton, Sauternes with Foie Gras; and so the list goes on and on. The problem is, unfortunately, that most of these directives don't seem to work very well in our own personal applications.
Guidelines are valuable only in textbook situations. You won't go far astray matching any Cabernet Sauvignon with a grilled steak. A Zinfandel might do just as well, as would any other rich, dry red wine. If you are looking for a "marriage" between the food and the wine, you will surely have to consider every detail of seasoning and saucing. A prime rib cooked beyond medium rare will probably do better with a full-bodied white than any red wine. If you dip it in horseradish, you may want to try a Gewürztraminer! On the other hand, a rich brown sauce or wine reduction sauce will call out for a deeply flavored red wine.
Desserts are especially troublesome. The key is to achieve a correct balance between the apparent sweetness of the food and that of the wine, which should be very slightly sweeter than the food, if it is to work at all. Moderately sweet wines, such as California Rieslings and Gewürztraminers, taste acidic when paired with very sweet desserts. With apple pie? You'll have to go very sweet, such as a late harvest white wine; or move to something entirely different, like coffee.
Ethnic cuisines come to us with their own special directives. Savory ethnic foods are often paired with beer. Chinese foods with tea; Japanese, with sake. Such pairings are traditional, and they obviously work. But there is always the possibility of a "magic marriage" if you experiment a bit.
I discovered years ago that Viognier makes a splendid accompaniment to many Japanese dishes, from tempura to sushi. Sake works well, too; but much of the integrity of the pairing seems to come from its association with Japanese traditions, rather than with the nuts and bolts of how it really enhances the food flavors. To my palate, it's more like the "white wine with fish" directive (which isn't always the best choice).
I indulged my curiosity with a small personal experiment: I lined up glasses of Viognier, California Riesling, beer, sake, and "Wine X." These would be paired with a simple course of Maguro (Ahi tuna) dipped in soy-wasabi. My expectation was that the beer and sake would provide only a background against which the aggressive flavors of the raw fish and soy-wasabi would take center stage: True. I expected that the Viognier would work best if just a touch of the strong sauce were used, but would be completely smothered by the sauce, if more than a drop were allowed: Again, true. I had hoped that the Riesling (an excellent example from Gainey) would step in and fill in the spectrum from salty, rich & mild, and pungent ... to include a bit of sweetness, which often works well with salty and pungent; No, it was a misfit.
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