Pairing Food and Wine: Winter Feasts

by Jonah Waldman

Pairing wine with food need not be overthought. When all else fails, fall back on the familiar and simple traditional rules because they still work well today:

• Red wines with red meats
• White wines with white meats
• Local wines with regional foods

Of course, with the globalization of the culinary world and the widening availability of the worlds’ oenological offerings, one can get crazily creative and have fun breaking the old school rules.

I feel wine is a food group all its own worthy of celebration.  However, when paired with food, a wine can be more wholly appreciated for the fullness of its merits. It belongs on the table, especially during holiday feasts, because it can make food more enjoyable. Likewise, food can enhance a wine’s organoleptics, thereby making, when paired correctly, what might on its own seem an angular, dry, austere wine into a supple and smooth beauty.

Jump to: Recipes and Pairings for Winter Feasts
Roast turkey with bacon herb butter
Greek lamb with potatoes
Lobster tamales
Brisket pot roast with sides

Ingredients and Cooking Methods Matter
A few principles should not be overlooked when pairing food and wine. Obviously, ingredients account for an important factor but so does one’s particular method of cooking. One can’t simply look at the ingredients of a meal and make a decision on what wine could be poured without first looking at how the chef plans to prepare that meal. Boiling or poaching results in much lighter tastes than the deeper flavors and different textures achieved with grilling or roasting. Consider the weight and intensity of the foods to be served and work to match them with an equally weighted wine so that neither overwhelms the other. A dish may be considered light but also intense, or heavy without much intensity. Think Thai foods: intensely flavored and complex, yet light in weight. Also consider what roles spices and seasonings can do to influence flavor.

Balance, Contrast, and Attention to Details
Your goal: find wines that can either provide balance to the food or present a nice contrast. Acidity and sweetness in relation to both wine and food can influence and impact these taste components. Pair a wine with an equal complexity of aromatics, flavor profile, and body. For example, traditional Thanksgiving turkey is distinctly new world, which stems from the British Christmas day version. Find wines that can engage with this: perhaps a new world red with plenty of fruit, or play on tradition with an oaken, bold, creamy California Chardonnay with good acidity and fruit complexity that can function as an equal to the distinctive dense yet delicate poultry.

Seek out a 2009 Beaujolais nouveau from Damien Dupeuble, a rare bird on many a Thanksgiving table and fruity enough for our bird and its trimmings because it’s released after only six weeks from the point of harvest and is always available for sale on November 20th at the Los Olivos Grocery just in time for the celebration of a bountiful harvest. It pairs perfectly with the turkey, especially considering the fact that Thanksgiving celebrates harvest: these wines provide the earliest indication of quality possibilities for the vintage.

Consider starting this meal with a vintage Champagne, an excellent stimulant for the appetite due to its effervescent bubbles which carry the aromatics to the surface of the wine, suspending them there just above the liquid at the top of the flute to tickle our nose and senses with its yeasty, fresh baked bread, citrus loveliness.

When Food and Wine Play Nicely Together
Tannins in wine make up another important consideration when pairing food and wine. A big, dry tannic Bordeaux or Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon on its own can be quite difficult to enjoy. However, for a life-altering experience, pair one of these wines with a cut of meat containing some fat to balance the dry, gripping sensation of the wine. Rare red meat possesses this fantastic attribute whereby it makes big, tannic wines seem less so.

Succulent roast lamb and its complex gamey meat work well with matured complex nuanced spiced wines of the new world, such as Syrah and Rhône-inspired blends, or the old world Cabernet Francs of Chinon from France. For value, look to Spanish Rioja Crianza, or Jumilla. Delicate lobster with its creamy, sweet-flavored rich meat works well with California Chardonnay or a zingy, zesty, tangy Sauvignon Blanc from Graves or the new world. These varietals work wonderfully in cooling down spicy meals and intense flavors when served chilled.

Homework for Feast Participants
Choosing the right wine to drink that pairs with a holiday meal presents quite the challenge because the holiday table will likely feature many dishes.  There’s no one wine that will be perfect for every dish at any feast, so make arrangements for guests to bring specific wines that will pair with major stages of the meal.  Throughout dinner, complement your feast with a succession of wines that pair well with the various dishes.

In addition to these several acts of wine enjoyed across the performance of the meal, try to find one wine to savor and enjoy throughout the feast with every dish: a “one-size fits all” wine, or at least “fits most.” To serve as a guide, try to take into account what the majority of the ingredients in the array of dishes on the feast table bring individually to the meal.

Bring Out the Good Stuff
Holiday feasts present an excellent opportunity to open and share a rare, coveted wine. If you have such wine available to you, use it as inspiration to create a great dish that will, in turn, celebrate the wine. Alternatively, if you have a recipe you want to try, let the food guide you to find a wine with which you may have little to no experience. Wine is a subjective beverage, which helps explain why many find the prospect of developing a deeper relationship with it daunting and mysterious. It does not need to elicit such anxiety. Food is nourishment, yes, but it also can function as art.  Wine is the nourishment for the mind and soul and helps conjure the art of conversation. Let’s celebrate it daily, whether with our daily bread or when we break bread with others during holiday celebrations.

Recipes and Pairings for Winter Feasts

Download a food-wine pairing crib sheet for easy shopping, whatever your feast.

[I am just a humble student of the grape and a lover of wine. I’ve grown up around food, wine, and cooking since my Grandpa Gene, and Mom and Dad involved us in the kitchen preparing meals. Many steps in my life have led me into wine.  From growing up in Los Olivos and becoming familiar as a kid with the science of wine to landing a part time harvest job with Montana/Brancott Winery in New Zealand during a surf trip, my life seems magnetically drawn to the grape. Wine steward, wine merchant, cellar master, winemaker, vineyard guy, wine marketer: I live wine.

Now immersed in the retail world as the wine buyer for the Los Olivos Grocery in Central Coastal California, I’m able to taste around 3000 bottles a year and sell what I like.  I enjoy establishing relationships with tourists and locals alike, trying to find that perfect wine for any occasion, for any palate, and for any price point.

My brother followed his passion for food and now is executive chef for Noah's Canteen of Kellog Idaho: he helped me with the lobster dish. In my own kitchen, I often cook by feel, free-flowing with the ingredients. Recipes for me are ideas to follow, and often they come out completely different due to my choosing to not follow the directions and working to improve on ideas and flavors.]

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