Dr Vino's wine blog

Okay, we just did an “impossible” challenge but it reeked of pipi and April foolery. So here’s something more useful: five veggie burger recipes via the Times, where the article was as high as number two on the most emailed article list over the weekend.

Seeing it on the way to the Trade Joe’s, we decided we would try it out here at the Dr. Vino World Headquarters. We made the “curried lentil, rice and carrot burgers” and they were pretty good (though the cumin smell will linger in the kitchen for days). It was so impossible for me to pair with wine that I went with a Bengali Tiger, the supremely balanced and utterly delicious IPA from Sixpoint brewery in Brooklyn.

There are other challenges on the list: Beet, Rice and Goat Cheese Burgers; Quinoa and Vegetable Burgers With Asian Flavors; Mushroom and Grain Cheeseburgers. Each has a particular aspect making it difficult, but at least a couple can offer some fun red wine pairings for vegetarians. Unless you think they are…impossible?!?

Is food-wine pairing dead? Never! And the same is true of our “impossible” pairings. So by request, we kick off 2012 with an easy one for you: grilled cheese.

Yes, it’s comfort food. And, no, it’s not impossible as the bread-cheese duo is the basis of so many delicious staples from pizza to ravioli. So raise the degree of difficulty, if you so desire, by adding a twist to the classic by suggesting your favorite cheese. (Incidentally, Ruth Reichl gave some tips last week on Gilt Taste about how to make grilled cheese better, including grating the cheese and adding a thin layer of mayo!) Who knows, maybe your grilled cheese will be graced by a depiction of the Virgin Mary it and you can sell it for $28k on eBay!

Bryan, who asked the question originally, said he went with Australian cheddar and a Simon Bize Savigny-les-Beaune 2009. How would you spin it?

My wife has a dilemma: she loves red wine and she is a vegetarian. Granted, by picking the right reds–lighter varieties such as pinot noir, gamay, or poulsard–or the right vegetables–mushrooms or lentils–the problems are surmountable and the results rewarding. Nonetheless, my wife represents what may well be a growing number of Americans who eat less or no meat, urged on by Michael Pollan (“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”) and Mark Bittman (who recently suggested eating a vegan diet once a week). Heck, there are even vegan bodybuilders! (I also eat a mostly vegetarian diet but enjoy whites more than my wife, which reduces the food-wine pairing dilemma.)

Many wine enthusiasts have drawn a line in the pomace and said no to wines over a certain alcohol percentage. But the changing food preferences of Americans may represent the greater challenge to high-octane reds since they generally make for lousy partners with seafood, lighter, or plant-based fare. And don’t forget spice. Much Indian food is vegetarian and spicy; dousing it with a 15% Chateauneuf du Pape sounds to me more like a recipe for pain, not pleasure. The big reds are easy to pair with the fat and protein of grilled meat but if Americans are feasting less on flesh, the treacly cabernet producers of the world face a challenge (as do the oak barrel makers of the world).

Charlie Trotter is one chef who put vegetarian cuisine literally on equal footing with meats since diners at his restaurant had a choice of either a meat menu or non-meat menu. So with news this week that he is closing his restaurant in August after 25 years, it seemed timely to broach the subject of how a vegetarian diet could impact the wine world. My wife and I have fond memories of Charlie Trotter’s since we lived in the adjacent building after we were married. One dinner we had there that highlighted the difficulties of vegetarian pairings was an all-tomato menu, a challenge for any wine, but particularly challenging to wash down with young Cabernet (unfortunately, I can’t recall what we had).

Anyway, with bacon-drenched everything appearing these days (ice cream, vodka, toothpaste, and the “explosion”), it’s not as if vegetarians are “occupying” the dining rooms of the world’s finest restaurants. But eating less meat appears to have taken hold in America and, for the wines that people actually drink wine (as opposed to collecting and flipping it), this will likely have an impact.

Beets are contentious. Not because one variety can be made into sugar cubes or ethanol. But because some people don’t like them!

I was at lunch with a friend who has fine taste when a beet salad appeared. And a zinfandel. He didn’t touch the beets. I asked him if it was the unflattering pairing with the wine. He said no, he just not a fan.

But some people are. And summer is a great time for a beet salad as a part of a buffet or a picnic (don’t spill them on the blanket, however). They are good for you, packed with folate, featuring in the number one slot on a list of “The 11 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating.” So if “eat your beets” is the new “eat your peas,” then we should at least know which wine to pair with them! Complicating factors in the beet salad for the wine pairing are the sugars in the beets as well as a vinegar dressing. After many trashy “impossible” pairings, here’s a healthy one to help us all look awesome in our swimsuits.

Which wine would you pair with a beet salad–or is it impossible?!?

Champagne, it’s not just for toasts, celebrations, boat launches, New Year’s Eve and locker rooms any more. (In fact, as our spy cam shows, it’s not even used in locker rooms these days.) Champagne elevates many foods; food, it turns out, also elevates many Champagnes. (I, for one, am very convinced of the food-friendliness of Champagne and found myself craving a glass of blanc de blancs the other day while lunching on some sushi.) But this is hardly breaking news for readers of this site–almost none of our “impossible” food-wine pairings without someone saying, “easy, Champagne!” If roasted chicken is the sort of food that a lot of wines would pair with, Champagne is the wine that a lot of foods pair with.

Nonetheless, it’s a good point to make and Mike Steinberger eloquently urges readers to cast off stereotypical assumptions while making some excellent Champagne selections.

Interestingly, in the piece, a sommelier makes the point that pairing red wine with a main course is going to be a hard tradition to break for many people. What do you think: If you were offered a Champagne or Your Favorite Red at the same price with a meal, would you categorically rule out the Champagne?

A final word: if you have kids, consider ringing in the new year tomorrow on an earlier time zone, such as Paris, as we do. Then you can enjoy the wine with food–while you’re still awake.

Ah, Thanksgiving, it has a habit of recurring once a year. And with it come questions about what to serve with a meal whose flavors range from a neutral turkey to the crazy sides of candied yams and cranberry sauce.

Let’s make this an open thread to discuss all turkey-day wine questions. If you’ve never commented and have a query, now’s your chance to say hi! I’ll start the Butterball rolling with just two suggestions.

1. If I were having a lot of people over to my house for Thanksgiving (or were responsible for the wine at someone else’s house), I’d have lots of wine, in a variety of styles. I’d make it a tasting for people who don’t usually get to taste a lot of different things–red, white and bubbly–yet have some conventional choices for those relatives who don’t want a real challenge. I’d keep the pre bottle price down, maybe even throw in a box wine, and budget about a half a bottle per adult.

2. If I were having a more intimate Thanksgiving with known wine enthusiasts, I’d have fewer, more expensive wines.

What are you planning on serving and what’s your strategy? Also, is anyone having a non-turkey Thanksgiving–or is that heresy?

A Carnival cruise ship headed on a seven-day tour of Mexico’s Pacific coast had a fire and was adrift for two days. Mexican tugboats and American Coast Guard and Navy ships have come to the aid of the 4,500 people on board Carnival Splendor. No one was hurt, but the AP reports that they were without air conditioning, cell phone service, and internet access! Here’s more from the story:

U.S. Navy Seahawk helicopters were ferrying supplies, including Spam, crab meat, croissants and Pop Tarts to the ship from the USS Ronald Reagan, an aircraft carrier that reached the Splendor after it was diverted from training maneuvers to help.

My goodness, are they trying to rescue these people or kill them? Pairing those with wine sound…impossible! (Crab meat is the easiest by far, though.) So in this emergency edition of our impossible pairings, consider which wine you would send these marooned vacationers to pair with their emergency rations and plight. Which wines would you send along if you were the Coast Guard sommelier?

reduced size crop of AP/Gregory Bull image.

Ah, meat. You’d think this one would be a no-brainer for pairing with wine as so many of the full-bodied reds made today are natural wine pairings.

But we don’t like to make it easy for you–that’s not impossible, after all!

So here you have it: raw (unspecified) meat that has been on Lady Gaga’s body in the form of her meat dress. Which wine would you pair with that?!? If you want a little less to, er, digest, you can keep the pairing at the sartorial level.

Funny, but the dress wasn’t on display during New York Fashion week, rather, the MTV Video Music Awards.