Winemaking is such a mysterious art. I've always thought it a great pity that the Chinese never figured it out. Especially when we consider that they managed to anticipate almost every other invention of Western civilization from spaghetti to the Fourth of July. And nowhere is their ingenuity more in evidence than in food. Many today still believe that they are far ahead of the West, and they may be right. Search the Yellow Pages for restaurants in your town featuring specialties made from snake or dog. You may find some which make generous utilization of cat, but they don't often advertise.
The Chinese must have discovered every possible flavor combination, enhancing perfectly decent meat with sauces made from oysters, fermented beans, and plums. The flavor combinations are so pervasive that Chinese restaurants quickly run out of English words to describe them. That is why most of their menus are printed in Chinese. So how come even the Mexicans and Hawaiians beat them to red wine? Ah... an oriental mystery.
The dilemma of the day was to reconcile frugality with my inbred hedonism. Perfectly good Chinese leftovers in the form of Szechwan Shredded Pork and Fried Rice demanded luncheon attention. I knew the pork preparation would be generously dusted with red pepper flakes and that hot Mongolian Fire Oil would be drizzled on top of that, so the choice of wine should be snap: anything cheap.
I rummaged through my wine cabinet for a Gewürtztraminer, disturbing dozens of sleeping beauties in my quest to find something poor enough for the present pairing. I am not at all fond of domestic Gewürtztraminers, except for the exceptional one by Bryan Babcock (Babcock Gewürtztraminer, Santa Ynez Valley, $16) which I liked so well that it all got drunk. I stumbled on to an Alsatian Pinot Blanc, but wasn't about to desacrate it by pairing it with the Fire Oil. No Chardonnay could stand up to this challenge and a Sauvignon Blanc would end up tasting like household cleanser next to this fiery delight.
