Dr Vino's wine blog

Who would ever think about pairing wine with tzatziki? Why, the good folks at Trader Joe’s! (Or should I say, Trader Iosif, as is their wont.) They put it right there on the packaging–a platter of tzatziki and pita, a view of a bay, and some red wine…

Is that what you would go for pairing wine with this “creamy cucumber garlic dip”? Or is it…impossible?!? Hit the comments!

I recently met Doug Crowell, owner of Buttermilk Channel, a restaurant in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, that has an all-American wine list and emphasizes local food sources. He told me about an immensely popular dish on the menu: fried chicken and waffles.

I wondered how he pulls off this unlikely combination so I asked him to describe the preparation. He said that the chicken is soaked overnight in buttermilk, then floured and fried. The waffle batter is spiked with cheddar. The cole slaw is traditional; the sauce blends balsamic vinegar and maple syrup.

Sweet, savory, fat–the grand slam of flavor! Apparently so, given the popularity of the dish. As to the wine pairing, which way would you go for this dish? Or do all those flavors make it…impossible?!? Raise the degree of difficulty, if you so desire, by going with an American wine in honor of the spirit of their list.

All the chatter in the NY dining scene is about cheese made from breast milk. At Klee Brasserie, Chef Daniel Angerer blogged about making cheese from his own lactating wife, blogged about it, and the requests to try it came pouring in. So he started giving it away as a canapé with figs and Hungarian pepper. Sadly, the story doesn’t describe the flavor profile of the cheese (looks like a chevre ball). Nonetheless, for a wine pairing, the chef recommends…Riesling.

What do you think? Impossible?!?

Not intimidated by the Herculean challenge of pairing wine and Korean food, I selected a range of wines for a Korean new year feast last week.

The “impossibility” of the pairing centers on two things: 1) kimchi and spices and 2) a culture clash that came up in our previous discussion about whether wine (and alcohol) should be seen as a complement to the food or as a “palate cleanser,” a role that the high-octane soju often performs at Korean feasts.

Playing sommelier for the evening, I selected a range of wines Read more…

Tomorrow night I will be selecting the wine pairings for a Korean feast, getting in on the lunar new year action a few days late. Here’s a list of some items on the menu, from the hostess:

Fried dumplings
Chicken yakitori [japanese inspiration]
Beef skewers (do you know bulgoki?)
Squid/spicy sauce
A variety of “jun” (pictured, right) which is something like potato pancakes but with fish, beef, vegetables, or seafood
California roll or ”kimbap” which is rolled “maki” with veggies/beef
Side vegetables – pickled, salad-like

Apparently it is impossible to pair Korean food with wine! And I’m not just saying that. Consider this comment from sommelier-to-the-max, Rajat Parr (from What to Drink with What you Eat): “I love Korean food, but it’s hard to have any kind of wine with it unless you have a Vinho Verde or something that’s really high in acid…the acidity in kimchee just kills wine and it’s all over.”

What do you think: do you buy the high acidity suggestion? Or do you prefer something aromatic and off-dry? How about bubbles? Or something slightly oxidative? Do reds work? Or is pairing Korean food with wine impossible!?!

Related: “Kimchi: impossible food-wine pairing?“

Valentine’s Day is rapidly approaching. It has reignited the annual hot debate in anticipation of the hot date: should you pair wine and chocolate?

Consider this exchange. Paul Grieco, owner of Hearth restaurant and Terroir wine bar in NYC, tweeted that he was going on the TODAY show to talk wine and chocolate. (See segment here: both regular and sparkling shiraz feature.) Eric Asimov tweets back “chocolate and wine? what are you thinking, man? Who cares about what to drink with chocolate? Food mag nonsense.”

Oooh, snap! Wine and chocolate are two fine things. But this is one of those “impossible” pairings that has yet to convince me. My rule of thumb: Have wine before dinner. Have wine with dinner. But let chocolate dessert stand alone! Then resume drinking, if necessary. (Or try a Banyuls with the chocolate dessert if it’s a question of life or date.)

Have your say about the great chocofight 2010 in the comments–or with the latest poll!

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The Australian Open is underway. Tomorrow is Australia Day. So today, instead of focusing on the current troubles of the Aussie wine biz, let’s pay homage to Australian, erm, cuisine by thinking about pairing up the iconic dish, the meat pie.

The hand sized-pie is made of a variety of meats (perhaps at once), and topped with ketchup, known locally as tomato sauce. Served hot, they can be purchased in grocery stores, convenience stores, gas stations, sporting events and pretty much anywhere in the country.

So even though Eric Asimov reaches for the closest dump bucket every time he hears us ask it, is pairing wine and meat pies… impossible?!

Friend-of-the-blog Eric Arnold did his own meat pie and wine experiments while spending a year in New Zealand, a country with its own pie predilection. As he details in a chapter in his book, First Big Crush, Eric lined up an array of “greasy, heart-attack inducing” pies including steak and kidney, steak and cheese, and “Mexican.” He poured New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Noir, Merlot and a rosé and invited the makers of those exact wines along for a tasting. Lo and behold, not only did they take it surprisingly seriously, but they had fun with it! To see the results of their pairings, check out chapter 18 of his book.

Football playoff season is upon is. The last college game wrapped up last night with the BCS championship and this weekend the NFL playoffs kicks off.

So we need to pair this viewing with some food. Since we have previously tackled wings and chips and salsa, this time we round out the viewing with something heartier: seven layer dip!

For those of you who haven’t enjoyed the dish, imagine a layer of refried beans imbued with chiles or other seasoning, then slather on a couple of ripe avocados (or guacamole), smother that in an inch of sour cream, then add an inch of salsa, some lettuce, cheese and possibly olives. Scoop it out with tortilla chips. Although it may sound gross to the uninitiated, it has an amazingly magnetic effect on those in the room.

So what would you pair with seven layer dip–or is it impossible?!?