Pairing Party

Saturday, April 12, 2008 - Wine and Tapas Pairing Party

For our first official Wine Pairing Party since moving to Indianapolis last year, we co hosted with a new friend. Sarah, an excellent cook and hostess, shares my same passion for food and wine. Sarah and I had been talking about hosting a party like this for a few months and finally decided on the 12th.

Of course, half the fun is deciding on the menu and picking / shopping for the wines. After a week of discussion and a great wine shopping experience at Cottage Grapevine we settled on the menu, 6 courses, 6 wines.

First Course

Assortment of Cheeses
Perrier-Jouet, Grand Brut NV, Champagne, France


Second Course

Tandoori Style Shrimp, Assortment of Cheeses
Dr. Loosen, Dr. L Riesling 2006, Mosel, Germany


Third Course

Crab, Mango and Avocado Salad, Citrus Dressing, Assortment of Cheeses
Pine Ridge, Chenin Blanc-Viognier 2007 , Napa Valley, California


Fourth Course

Mushroom, Fig, and Nut Pate, Assortment of Cheeses
Joseph Drouhin , Chorey-les-Beaune 2004, Burgendy, France


Fifth Course

Herbs de Provence Lamb Chops, Assortment of Cheeses
Chateau Brown Lamartine, Bordeaux Superieur 2003, Bordeaux, France


Dessert Course

Chocolate Crème Brulee
Warre’s Otima, 10 Year Tawny Port, Oporto, Portugal

White Chocolate Raspberry Crème Brulee
Rudolf Muller, Eiswein 2004, Pfalz, Germany

The guest list, composed of good friends and family, included Ajay and Sarah, Adrian and Annie, Jamie and Markel, Aaron and Betty-Ashton, and of course, Erin and I.

As a first course, we served some fresh Brie and one of my favorite non-vintage Champagnes. The Perrier-Jouet Grand Brut was great for a toast and kicking off the evening. With the spicy wood and light toast, great acidity, layers of wonderful citrus (including tangerine) and floral aromas, the Champagne is a very balanced and lively wine. It was a great start to the party!

The second course featured Tandoori Style Shrimp and a great German Riesling. A lot of people don't like Riesling saying "its too sweet or sugary." Many Rieslings are not sweet at all. In Alsace, France, Riesling is bone dry, showcasing great minerality and acidity. Many dry Rieslings come from Austria as well. Of ccourse, you can have great off dry Rieslings, but the key is balance. Acidity must balance the sweetness, and in my opinion, German Mosel and Pfaltz Rieslings do that the best. These wines are actually the easiest white wines to pair with food, especially with Asian cuisine. The spiciness of many Asian dishes is balanced by the slight sweetness and vibrant acidity of an off - dry Kabinett, and that is exactly what I sought to accomplish with this pairing.

The shrimp was marinated in a yogurt mixture containing, among other things, jalapeno pepper, ginger, garlic, and tummeric. This gave the shrimp a nice spiciness and after grilling, the flavors really popped. The fun of this pairing was the ability to highlight the sweetness and acidity of the wine with a lemon wedge. The shrimp alone had a residual sweetness while the marinade added a little spice. When the wine followed a bite, the sweet flavors of the wine were highlighted by the shrim and spicy flavors. But by squeezing a lime over the shrimp, the wine showed its strong acid and mineral backbone. See how amazing Riesling can be? Dr. Loosen partnered with Chateau St. Michelle in Woodinville, WA and created an amazing Riesling called Eroica. It is very easy to find and a really enjoyable bottle.

The next course featured Sarah's Crab, Mango, and Avocado Salad with a Citrus Dressing. This dish was the hit of the party. The sweet crab was accentuated by the mango and balanced nicely with the avocado. The red onions added a slight kick. The light citrus dressing really pulled it together.

I was initially concerned in regards to pairing a wine with this dish. Avocado is tough to pair with and the recipe originally called for endives, which are bitter and bring out some less than desirable qualities in a wine. But in the end, this was one of the top pairings. Wine has good acidity and some nice apple and pear flavors that highlighted the mango. The Chenin Blanc had a little sweetness to it and brought out the crab while the Viognier added a bit of spice and floral notes. It really matched up perfectly, in a great example of the food bringing out the best qualities of the wine. It was also fun to see how, with a little faith, a complex pairing can turn out really well.

Course four was a mushroom, fig, and nut pate. The pate was a great dish, focusing earthy components, mushrooms and nuts, while the fig brought in some fruit flavors. The red burgundy was delicious, with great red fruit flavors, a bit of a bite at the end, followed by a nice finish. Unfortunately, this wasn't the best pairing. It wasn't bad, in that the wine took away from the food or visa verse, but each didn't make the other better. The wine had too much fruit and not enough of the earthy terrior driven expression you expect to see from a red burgundy. Overall, good individually, not the best together.

The next course represented one of my all time favorite pairings, grilled lamb and red Bordeaux. (Sorry there are no pictures of the food moving forward. I guess we just forgot to take them, a causality of the experience). The lamb chops were grilled rare to medium rare after a short marinade in olive oil and lemon juice. They were seasoned with salt / pepper and a very aromatic Herb de Provence. This simple preparation brings out the best in the lamb by managing the gaminess and adding / accenting herbal flavors.

Red Bordeaux pairs perfectly here. I prefer left bank Bordeaux, as the predominant grape, Cabernet Sauvignon, contributes full tannins. The fattiness of the lamb can easily over power many wines but the tannins found in a Bordeaux cut the fat very well. Bordeaux is also unique in that as the wines ages, which many quality Bordeaux's can do for many years, the strong fruit flavors give way to some herbal and floral nuances. This quality really ties in well with the Herb de Provence. This is really a special pairing with a well aged (minium 10 year) red Bordeaux from a strong chateau in a good vintage.

The 2003 Chateau Brown Lamartine was served with them lamb for this course. 2003 was a good vintage but the wine was still very young. It probably needs 3-5 more years of bottle age. Typically, I do not decant wine, unless to remove sediment, but in this case the was decanted and left open for 1o hours or so. Having tasted the wine before and after the breathing period, I did feel the young tannins softened a little.

The desert, and final course, featured two Crème Brulees, one traditional and one chocolate. Erin is a master at Crème Brulee so she ran the show there. We paired the chocolate with a great 10 year tawny port. Port is great with chocolate but even better with a nice Stilton or Maytag blue cheese. We had some ready to serve but after 5 courses and a good bit of wine, I think we simply forgot to bring it out (a lot like the pictures we forgot to take). B lue Cheese and Port is a great pairing based on the salty, sweet concept, like Kettle Corn. Stilton's have a great salty, almost briny, taste and together with the thick richness of the cheese itself pair well with the thick, viscus, sweetness and dark dried fruit flavors of a Port. The combination is classic.

Back to the Crème Brulee, the chocolate was delicious, with a brownie batter consistency. A few raspberries on top tied in nicely with the port. The traditional Crème Brulee was paired with a delicious German Icewine. The creamy consistency of the Crème Brulee was cut nicely by the sweetness of the Icewine. A nice honey flavor in the wine tied in nicely with the vanilla flavored caramelized sugar on top of the Crème Brulee.

The party was a lot of fun and Erin and I really enjoyed hosting everyone. We all ate good food and drank a lot of great wine! Thanks to Sarah for two amazing dishes and all the help composing the menu. Thanks to Erin for two very impressive and delicious Crème Brulees. We can't wait to do this all over again!