Dr Vino's wine blog

We often talk about those impossible food wine pairings; here are three improbable food wine pairings that I had recently that worked.

Food: sauteed green lentils
Wine: Ocone aglianico 2003 (about $15; find this wine)
Every year at about this time we make a lentil minestrone that is so good that it has even gotten approving nods and slurps from carnivores. But it takes a lot of time, ingredients and three pots. This quick version uses the same green French lentils but is a lot easier with just some onion and garlic and a quick boil all in one pan. The result is dish rich in earthiness and umami. The biodynamically grown Ocone aglianico (about $13; find this wine) really picked up on it and registered one of those desired pairings that improved both the food and the wine.

Food: Trader Joe’s Dal mahkani
Wine: Drouhin, Laforet, Bourgogne rouge (about $13; find this wine)
We’ve talked about Indian food before; in fact, we’ve even talked about Trader Joe’s Indian before! And while pinot noir under $25 is pretty rough terrain without terroir, pinot noir under $15 mostly something straight out of Fear Factor. But this, the lowliest Drouhin made, would surely outclass most pinot sold by the glass. To my surprise, the lightness of the red really worked with the dal!

Food: homemade vegetarian chili
Wine: Albert Mann, pinot blanc, Alsace 2007 (about $16; find this wine)
I uncorked a Bandol red with six years of age on it that I thought might work with vegetarian chili; it didn’t. The tannins on this mourvedre were still too huge and the fruit was miserly. But I shifted gears and tried this biodynamically grown pinot blanc that was at the bottom of the Dr. Vino cave and it was a great match! Full and rich, but with a good accompanying zip, pinot blanc balanced the spiciness of the chili. The only complaint from the guests on this one was that it was too easy to drink.

All right people, we’ve done this impossible thing before. But they were all warm ups for this one: okra!

The Brooklyn Guy, who eats local foods and drinks sparkling wine, recently admitted that okra is one of his favorite late summer vegetables at the farmer’s market. He’s not even put off by okra slime! While trying to match his pickled okra really would be impossible, there’s a chance of finding a wine match for his suggestion for cooked okra: “Imagine pureeing stewed okra with hot chilis and coconut milk, and using that to stew some chicken thighs or chunks of beef.” Can you imagine? Do you believe? The challenge is really more the okra/spicy/coconut with the dark meat.

Hit the comments with your suggestions!

Fresh tomato season is winding down here quickly in the northeast. But before it goes and tasty tomatoes in farmers markets are replaced by tasteless tomatoes in supermarkets, let’s give it one last hurrah. Which wine would you pair with (heirloom) tomatoes, sliced and sprinkled with salt and some fine olive oil? Or is it impossible?!? Hit the comments with your thoughts!

The tricky part about tomatoes from a wine perspective is the acidity. A few years ago, we celebrated Mrs. Vino’s late summer birthday at a fine, seasonal restaurant. She opted for the vegetarian menu and was met with nine courses (or whatever it was), all with tomatoes! I can’t even remember which wine we had that evening, given the acid bomb of all the tomatoes–talk about turning a “mortgage lifter” into something subprime.

“A delicious blend of spices,” one of my friends called Trader Joe’s Jaipur Vegetables when he recommended it to me. I threw a box in my cart last time I was at TJ’s. A few nights later, I opened the silver pouch and discovered that, sure enough, it is a delicious blend–one that kept, um, being delicious for hours afterward.

So which wine would you pair with this dish of “garden vegetables and cubes of Paneer cheese with spices and cashews?” Hit the comments with your thoughts! That is, if it is not…impossible.

What fruit encapsulates summer better than a watermelon? OK, I hear you muttering about peaches, nectarines, berries and that forgotten fruit–the tomato. But today’s challenge is watermelon! Is it an impossible food-wine pairing?

Have your say in the comments! And do let us know if you’re pairing that $6,100 black watermelon just sold in Japan or a plain old regular one instead.

Now that summer has officially and unofficially started, we need to turn our pairing thoughts to that summer staple: ice cream. Is it an impossible food-wine pairing?!?

I don’t particularly like soft serve but just thought it was a really good picture. If you have a wine suggestion, please note which flavor makes for the best pairing. And if you had a thought about whether making ice cream at home is worth the time and money, let us know that too!

Even though we encountered something similar previously in this series of impossible food wine pairings, site reader Andy from Napa clearly has given this some thought. So we should too! To his email:

Hey Dr. Vino, I have what may be a real stumper – and one I’d love some help with. I’ve got two kids – 8 and 5 – and every Wednesday night at our house is “backward night” – we have breakfast for dinner. A very, very, very popular night with the kids. The menu is usually pancakes, which we whip up from scratch, and breakfast sausages. Added to that, we often put peanut butter AND syrup on the pancakes. All of this goes fine with milk, but, of course for me it’s evening, when my thoughts turn to wine. Sadly, I’ve not yet found a good pairing.

I really would love to know if there’s an actual wine that works. It would have to be something that goes with the nutty flavors of the pancakes (I tend to throw in some sunflower seeds or some toasted flax seeds — you know, sneak in a little healthy stuff when the kids aren’t looking!). Given that milk works so well, I’m tempted to think that a wine with some lactic acid might work — like a white that’s gone through some serious malolactic?

I guess with the sunflower seeds, it’s a safe bet Andy doesn’t serve pancakes and sausage on a stick!

Last week I was chatting with a food writer who was all about the soft shell crab. Then I was cleaning up over the holiday weekend and intercepted Saveur on its way to the recycling bin: “American Crab: A celebration of our favorite spring catch” read the cover. Crabs, they’re everywhere! Perhaps even on your plate.

Since we are now unofficially in summer, when blockbuster movies turn our brains to mush, I thought I’d give you an easy one for our “impossible” foods series: which wine would you pair with softshell (blue) crabs?

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Why does so much food writing neglect wine? A lot of restaurant reviewers gladly discuss the decor but don’t discuss the wine program even though wine can easily account for a third or more of the diners’ final bill. Most food blogs don’t look to include a discussion about wine either even when they are writing for home cooks who can escape the exorbitant mark-ups of wine in restaurants. Many wine blogs, by contrast, have shifted the discussion about wine away from simply tasting notes of berries and leather and the concomitant scores to talk about pairing food and wine. Why no wine love from the foodies?

I put the question to Ed Levine who runs the food juggernaut SeriousEats.com. Ed is friends with such wine luminaries as Josh Wesson of Best Cellars and Daniel Johnnes of Daniel Boulud’s restaurants who have poured him many great wines, trying to convert him to wine’s pleasures. To no avail. With good humor, Ed told me “I’ve never had a wine that takes food to the next level. I’ve never had a wine that impresses me like a great hamburger.” He also cited cutting wine as a good way to cut calories.

While Ed just doesn’t like wine, which is fair enough, he suggested that other food writers might be intimidated by it. That may be true since there are a lot of details about wine, from the producer name, to the vintage, to the grapes and where they were grown. But that shouldn’t stop an thumbs up or thumbs down for a certain wine and why it did or didn’t work with a certain dish. A lot of food writers are all too happy to have an opinion about a hamburger and if they don’t like it, then it’s a bad hamburger. By contrast, if they don’t like a wine, I fear they think it reflects badly on them as if they should know more about it. That’s too bad.

At least food writers aren’t alone: wine is woefully underrepresented in food TV shows, and, as we’ve discussed before, it’s not likely to change on the Food Network. How about the Travel Channel? When Tony Bourdain advises his viewers about which wine goes with still-beating snake heart, then we’ll know a page has been turned in the way foodies think about wine.

What makes food writers neglect the cork in favor of the fork: a lack of interest? Price? Intimidation/lack of confidence? Rampant teetotalerism?

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