Birthday Bash Wines

posted by Kirstin in Wine, Guest Bloggers, Food

To celebrate my husband’s most recent birthday, we invited my cousin and her man over to our place for exuberant bash for four. And by exuberant I mean that there was tons of food and wine and that I added chocolate chips to a cupcake recipe that didn’t call for it for dessert. This post is the wine and food pairing story of that night.

The food (albeit the Oreo cupcakes) was mainly Thai and Vietnamese inspired, but cooked by a very Scandinavian-American girl -me. The wines were all Spanish. The dinner menu starred my version of the carrot, cucumber, bell-pepper and light fish-sauce salad often served atop cold Vietnamese rice noodle dishes. Also sharing the stage were lime, honey and chili marinated skewered shrimp, and grilled flank steak served over wide rice noodles in a spicey, kaffir lime, lemongrass Thai inspired coconut sauce.

I choose Spanish wines for this Birthday Bash for three reasons. One, they were reasonably priced and my excellent foresight told me that we’d consume from two to three bottles between us friends. Two, because I’m enamored with Spanish wines (especially the whites, sparklings and rosés) and was selfishly catering to my happiness even on my husband’s birthday night. Three, I chose Spanish wines for the menu because they can be awesome matches for Vietnamese and Thai spices and flavors and seafood.

I popped our first wine while waiting for our guests. Our invitees claimed not to be huge fans of white wine, so I took it upon myself to thwart their past experiences by unleashing an Albarino. Albarinos are meant to charm. They’re from the Galacian coast of Spain and classically paired with seafood at Spanish tapas bars. With their apple, peachy, lime and sometimes floral scents, they’re instant pleaser’s. Furthermore, they’ve got enough going on in the glass that they can handle a little spice. Each dish I prepared for the dinner had lime juice, zest, or leaf mixed in, which I thought would play up the lime streak and cozy up to crisp and stoney fruits in the wine. Worked well. We sipped this while I put the finishing touches on the salad and headed to the BBQ to cook the shrimp and flank steak. Then we opened the Super Wine of the night.

My only firm and fast wine rule for a celebration such as a birthday, anniversary, or Christmas, is that something sparkling must be included amongst the wine entourage. Birthdays just don’t happen without bubbles. The bubbles don’t have to be big, but they have to be present.

Such reasoning led to the second wine that we drank that night- a Txakolina Rose from Spain. This was my favorite. It was luscious, oh so pink, peachy and rasberry-ie and tart and slightly. Txakolina (shock-oh-lee-nah) is the name of a Basque, Spanish wine made traditionally with the Hondarribi Zuri and Hondarribi Beltza grapes. They’re meant to drinken within a year or two after bottling, and will be, because you just can’t help yourself. Most Txakolinas aren’t Roses, but are just as enchanting as the pink bottle that we poured that night. Their pear, tart apple and lime flavors compete for attention with the tiny, spritzy bubbles that fill the glass. And bubbles go with almost anything, even egg breakfast sandwiches. They snuggled up to the coconut milk and spicy shrimp, and even handled the marbling in the rich flank steak. I looovvee this wine only slightly less than my man.

Towards the end of the night we slipped a light cheapy-but-goody Spanish Grenache on the table. Just in case someone wanted a little red with the flank steak. Spanish Grenaches (Garnachas) can be pretty dark and heady, but ours that night was a lighter style, with blackberry, stoney scents. And I didn’t just serve it because it was also left over from our wedding wine, I served it because Garnachas are great red wines for spicy foods. They’re spicy themselves, and the pepper streak in the grape can handle a chile or two.

Finally, we ended our night with a Birthday dessert request of cupcakes. Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate chips topped with cream cheese frosting and crushed Oreos. Muddlers are great Oreo crushers. It was a fantastic end for the night. My cousin and I ate two, and the guys ate three each. And I was just going to prepare a half dozen.

Kirstin Jackson Ellis works as a wine bar manager and wine and food consultant in the San Francisco Bay Area and writes about wine and food pairing at Vin de La Table, her luxurious and lighthearted blog.

“Reds for Cheeses: Meeting Demand with Suggestions”

posted by Kirstin in Wine, Guest Bloggers, Food

Despite the fact that white wines are ridiculously easier to pair with cheese than reds, some people still refuse to go walk on the light side even when they break out their cheese board.

“I don’t like white,” they say, wrinkling their noses. Well, I often find these people annoying because its quite clear that they just haven’t hand the RIGHT white (yes, I also think that I’m the right person to find it for them), I can’t be too upset because I too used to be a hater.

Even though I have long realized my wrongs and apologized to the Trebbianos, the Sauvignon Blancs, the Rieslings of the world, some people are not at that point.

In honor of people who haven’t yet found the light-hued wine that touches their heart, this post is about finding them a red to pair with cheeses that seemingly prefer whites.

Why do most cheeses generally fair better with whites?

Whether it’s the tannins, the heaver body, or the difference in flavors in reds that leads to the red-cheese conflict, I’m not entirely sure. I tell myself a story that its the scents and flavors in the wine that make the difference- that the apple, pear, quince, or light fig flavors in white wine, for example, naturally taste better with cheese than the blackberry, strawberry or raspberry, chocolate or tar flavors often found in reds. It’s possible. I’d rather have an apple with cheese than a raspberry.

Whatever the reason, the combination of red wine and cheese can taste off. Bitter, overly salty, astringent, or more gym sock-like than mass-produced, grated “Parmesan.” This isn’t good.

Here are two ways to find a red for your cheese:

1. If the cheese is European, what do people of the region from which the cheese comes sip with that cheese? In the Loire Valley, people drink their local wines, Cabernet Franc, Sauvignon Blanc, or Chenin Blanc with their local cheeses. They’re smart, those guys, they make sure that their local wines pair well their local foods. I firmly believe that if they didn’t, the towns would run the cheese or winemakers out of the region.If you have the wine you’re enjoying that night in your hand, walk into the cheese shop and tell them you want dairy deliciousness from the Loire Valley. Or, switch it up and walk into a wine shop with a Loire Valley cheese. A good cheesemonger or wine salesperson will meet your needs.

2. Choose a Rhone Valley wine from France or a Rhone-blend. Grenache, Syrah, and Mouvedre, the main grapes of a Rhone blend, are a god-send to red-heads. Anything from Chateauneuf-du-Pape to Cote du Rhone, to a Minervois Rhone-inspired blend will do. The spicy, earthy, meaty, peppery flavors gracing the wines snuggle up to familiar tastes in the cheeses without bringing out the “animal” scents in say, an aged, funky sheep’s cheese. Sometimes these Rhone blends even have aromas of mushroom that matches the savory flavors in the more pungent cheeses.

3. Sometimes, just sometimes, a thick, super fruity, low alcohol Zinfandel with a touch of residual sugar can cozy up to a ripe cheese like no other wine. The concentrated, heavier bodied lush wine essentially caresses the cheese into wine pairing submission.

4. Get to like whites! Start with a dry Riesling, Viognier, or another aromatic white. I’ve heard that they’re delicious with cheese.

What do you pair with your cheeses?

Kirstin Jackson Ellis works as a wine bar manager and wine and food consultant in the San Francisco Bay Area and writes about wine and food pairing at Vin de La Table, her luxurious and lighthearted blog.