Dr Vino's wine blog

Happy Chinese new year! Or lunar new year or spring festival. Call it what you want, we’re now in the year of the rat! And the year of the Beijing Olympics!

China is getting a thirst for wine. But is pairing the cuisine with wine…impossible?!? Rather than an Americanized dish such as chop suey or General Tso’s chicken, let’s go for the real deal: Peking duck!

Hit the comments with your suggestions!

Belinda Chang, 34, has been a sommelier at leading restaurants in three cities including Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago, Rick Tramonto’s Cenitare, and the Fifth Floor (Laurent Gras) in San Francisco where she was nominated for a James Beard award for excellence in wine service. In November last year, she started as the wine director at The Modern in New York City.

I asked her eight questions via email and discovered how she plans to change the wine list and what’s the best value wine, whether you can pair wine with art, what differentiates diners in those three cities, and find out why she has no wine in her wine cellar.

How did you get into wine? Read more…

Just in time for Super Bowl Sunday, a giantly patriotic dish showcasing American innovation: Buffalo wings!

Is it impossible to pair wings with wine? You make the call! (And don’t forget the blue cheese dip.)

Related: “Betting wine for football.”
“Impossible food-wine pairings: chips and salsa!”
UPDATE: Thanks, Mark, for pointing out the “classic” wine pairing!
Image: istockphoto.com

Have you ever tried a rare romorantin? The grape is a little off the beaten path. But that’s good.

From Cour-Cheverny in the Loire, the Francois Cazin, Le Petit Chambord 2005 is an attractive wine–excellent balance between acid, minerality, and subtle tropical fruits. Sort of splits the difference between chenin blanc and sauvignon blanc. It’s limited availability, as you might imagine since romorantin is hardly made by the tanker, but I found this bottle for $15 (find this wine).

Then I paired it with a piece of “cave aged gruyere” from Trader Joe’s. It was one of those wine-food pairings where you take a good wine and a good food and make a great pairing. A Ratatouille moment, if you will.

One question for you: is cave aged gruyere from Trader Joe’s really aged in a cave? (or just come guy’s basement?) What are the norms of production on that? The greatest cave aged cheese, Roquefort, doesn’t even bother mentioning that it was aged in a cave. So I’m suspicious…I want pictures of spelunking regulators! And while we’re talking terms, what’s up with “vendages manuelles” (hand harvests)?

Conventional wisdom: artichokes and wine are an impossible food-wine pairing!

Tim Hanni sez: add salt and lemon juice to the water while cooking them to mitigate a strong sweet taste or a strong bitter taste that people get while tasting wine (or water!) with them.

What say you? Hit the comments with your thoughts, on this, our most impossible-ist pairing ever!!

For details on Tim Hanni, check out the WSJ story on him from Saturday’s paper.

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It’s really more of an autumnal dish but, hey, a reader just sent in this query: which wine would you pair with butternut squash soup? Post your thoughts in the comments below!

I like the soup to have the zip of ginger but yours can be as you like it. Michael Ruhlman would now doubt tell us it’s all about the stock used anyway.

OK, it’s not a seasonal dish. But it’s a popular one!

Help us in the latest food challenge — which wine would you pair with: shrimp pad thai!

I don’t think it needs any explaining. But in case you haven’t picked up a take-out menu in recent years (or been to one of the many Thai BYOB restos), the main wine challenges are the sweet-ish spicy sauce, a little egg, rich shrimp, and the chopped nuts. Go crazy!

Image: istockphoto

It’s Thanksgiving time. And you know what that means: crazy side dishes!

One of the craziest of them all is candied yams–sweet potatoes imbued with maple syrup and butter, topped with marshmallows.

What’s your suggested wine pairing for this oddball food that goes with Butterball? Comments are open!

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