Transcript: The 10 Commandments of Food & Wine Pairings

- Hi and welcome to another delicious episode of Lucky Rock Wine Lounge, I'm Jesse Inman. And ironically, I have a spaghetti stain on my shirt.

- Nice. I'm Aaron "lost my taste buds in a skiing accident" Inman.

- Hashtag COVID. Today we'll be obviously discussing food and wine pairings, hence the delicious episode.

- In whatever order you want to have it, is either food and wine pairing, or wine and food pairing. It depends on if you're an eater or a drinker.

- That's right, or a e-drinker.

- Now, this topic has been covered every which way, analyzed, it's very popular, some might say, beaten to death like a horse.

- Yeah, we've done a couple of different episodes on, what would we call 'em? Like everyday food pairings. Non-pretentious food pairings.

- Casual?

- Like, hotdog, hotdogs and wine.

- Tacos.

- Yeah, what goes best with hotdogs? That's us.

- Yeah, so today, we're going to provide you with a couple of general rules of thumb when you're deciding which wine you want to pair with your food, or which wine to order at dinner when you're out enjoying a fancy meal.

- Yeah, so we'll take you through a couple of stories we've had with food pairings that we thought were especially good, and then some food pairings that we thought were especially bad. So, it says here that our business is failing 'cause we don't have enough likes and subscribes.

- No, Oliver Twist, I'm hungry and I need some more. Like and subscribe please.

- So, because champagne and sparkling wine supposedly go with everything, we decided while were having our best and worst food pairings, that since it goes with everything, why not have a little sparkling wine? So, this is Iron Horse, what is this? The-

- 2017 vintage.

- Russian River Cuvee, which I've had many times, and is consistently very good.

- Yup, I'm not a huge sparkling wine guy, but when I am, I go for Iron Horse. So, before we jump into those titillating experiences of ours with food and wine, were gonna go over the 10 Lucky Rock commandments for food and wine pairing.

- Yeah, and there's ultimately no right or wrong, it's kinda like what we always say, as long as you like it, it's good.

- Yeah, I mean at the end of the day, these are just simple suggestions and guidelines, if you're gonna jump in there and take a stab at food and wine pairing, these will help you have a little bit more of a consistent outcome.

- Yeah. Its like, wear sunscreen at the beach or you'll get burned.

- Yeah, but don't wear too much sunscreen all the time, or you'll be vitamin D deficient!

- Yeah, that's right. Okay, so tip number one, know thy food. Salt, sweet, sour, you know the other ones.

- Slappy, samsonite.

- Slippy, slappy.

- That was way off.

- Number two, know thy wine. Tannic, fruity, acidic, savory, umami.

- Ooh, mommy. So, number three, pair wines with texture. So, like, barbecue with Zinfandel.

- Like similar textures?

- Rich to rich. Yeah.

- You know, a lot of times you wanna go weight with weight, and a lot of times people talk about, what does that mean? But like, you know, prawns with Chardonnay, like that's a good example. Like medium weight with medium weight.

- [Jesse] Number four.

- Number four, acid mellows acid. So, the spaghetti like that you have with a nice red sauce that's kinda acidic, goes really well with a Chianti with high acid, those tend to mellow each other out. Also acid can be a nice cleanser of the palette with any kind of oily dishes.

- And some fava beans and a nice bottle of Chianti, right? So, number five, Aaron just mentioned like with like, then there's opposites like fat and acid. Acid cuts through fat, I think Chardonnay with a little bit of acid and a pork chop with a high amount of fat, or Pinot with a little bit of acid cutting right through the fat of a duck.

- Number six, salt elevates flavor. Just think Chinese food here. MSG, big time flavor enhancer. But, don't go overboard, you gotta be careful with tannic wines like really attractive Cabernets and salt because the salt can actually make the Cabernet a little more bitter.

- Hmm. So, number seven, umami wines makes wines less fruity.

- I mean umami's basically like really savory notes and flavors, and sometimes if you're having a really fruity wine with them it does kinda dumb those down. And so if you have a wine that's aged and has a little less of those, its kinda like the like with Like, a lot of the older wines tend to have a little bit more umami.

- Yeah, they have a richness to them.

- Number eight, spicy foods need sweet wine. Now, this one is interesting because a lot of times when you're having spicy food, you actually don't wanna drink wine. It can be hard to pair spicy food with sweet wines, because you also run the gambit of like done too sweet.

- Like overpowering?

- Yeah, overpowering 'em, and so a lot of times, if you're gonna go spicy food, you can curb some of that heat with an off-dry wine, with a little bit of residual sugar. But a lot of times, maybe just grab a cider, or a beer or something else.

- A beer.

- Number nine, classic pairings usually work out, like classic Cab and steak, there's a reason why people have always eaten Cab and steak together. Don't ask questions, just do it.

- Tannins, protein, fat, all the things.

- Yeah, yeah. Just remember, fish and white, and red and red. Red meat and-

- Intensity versus intensity. If you have something kinda low intensity flavors, maybe a lower intensity flavor wine. Like think citrus and citrus, 'cause a lot of times why people do like lemon sauces on white fish and things like that. And a lot of times maybe you want like a dry Pinot Grigio or something like that with that fish. Kinda simple, match intensities, like with like.

- Yeah.

- Tends to work out.

- Yeah, just follow our rules, you'll be okay.

- Number 10, don't be afraid to experiment. Nobody knows your mouth like your significant other, I mean you. All right, no, so for number 10, were serious here, nobody knows your preferences better than you and so don't be afraid to experiment. I think that that's where a lot of people are always looking for, hey, here's that killer guideline of how I'm gonna do this, and they let that curb even trying some food and wine pairings. Granted, there's professionals out there and you can go to a restaurant, and have a sommelier make recommendations to pair exactly with your food. You don't have to do that on a Monday night.

- Yeah, I was reading a blog about Thanksgiving, it said, basically, as long as the wine isn't taking away from the food or the conversation, then its fine.

- All right, so to get into these stories from the roads of restaurants with foods. I've been drinking wine and eating food for a long time. But the one that always is seared into my mind was, there used to be a restaurant in St Helena called The Martini House,

- Yes, I know it well.

- Yeah, its closed now, but it was a great spot for a long time. And they had an American Wagyu beef hamburger, and they had an '04 Napa Valley Cab on the menu. And so one of the reasons I loved this lunch so much is because it was free, somebody else bought it for me, and it was like $50, which by inflation standards is like 75 now. And it was basically that intensity with intensity that we were talking about. It was a rich, savory burger, with a nice savory Cabernet, but also a Cab that had enough acidity to kinda cut through the fat in the burger.

- [Jesse] Hmm.

- And it was just absolutely delicious, and when I think about simple pairings that I just really enjoyed, that one always comes to mind.

- Like all the right things in all the right places.

- Exactly.

- And also, it was free.

- And it was complimentary!

- Also, we didn't, Aaron and I didn't grow up real fancy like, and so-

- Speak for yourself.

- We didn't drink things like Port in my house, or our house, we didn't eat a lot of fine cheeses outside of American cheese. And so, one of the best pairings I ever had, it was just like, what the , this tastes awesome! It was a Manchego cheese, which is like a Spanish hard cheese, they used to call me that in prison, and then it was a 30 year Tawny Port from Dow's. And so, Dow's is a really famous Port producer in Porto, and so its a completely different style than the wines we make or drink, but and I'd never really had those, I'd never really had that, and I had them together and it was like flavor explosion in my mouth, prison talk.

- Yeah, and that happens sometimes when you get like the magnification of flavors and these new flavors and those are kinda like what I think everybody thinks they're going to have, but those are kind of the rarity.

- Yup.

- And when you have 'em, they stick to you. So, maybe we jump into the one that wasn't so tasty now. And for me that was actually more fairly recently and it kinda happened twice. It was a butterfish, which is like a real soft-textured fish, with a lemon butter sauce, with an off-dry German Riesling from Donnhoff, and its got a really long name that I'm not going to try to pronounce.

- It was about $28. And I was really excited to have these, and this is where one of those commandments was kinda knowing the wine, I didn't know the wine that well, I knew that it was slightly off-dry, but it was a little more off-dry than I had anticipated. And it actually made this muddled texture of the soft fish, with the kinda the viscous wine. There wasn't enough acidity to that to like cut through and marry with the kinda the lemon sauce and the texture of the fish. And it made this really kind of muh. My wife actually stopped eating it, and I tried to continue eating it but I think I got about halfway through and I was like, I think I'll just put some of the kids chicken nuggets in the microwave.

- Yeah. My worst pairing, it's basically, every time I've had asparagus. And asparagus is famous for being almost impossible to pair with. I remember having, it was a really nice asparagus, and I don't really go all out on asparagus, but it was like Manchego cheese, my favorite cheese,

- [Aaron] Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. .

- And like all the other fixings, and so I'm eating this, and I had like three bottles of wine open and I'm like, ugh, horrible, ugh, horrible, ugh, horrible and its just like you can't win when it comes to asparagus and wine. Sauvignon blanc can be kinda vegetal, that's where a like with like does not work, because it just makes it taste like cat piss and cat piss and green beans.

- Well, lets stop there.

- Yeah.

- 'Cause you don't really want to have that.

- Hmm.

- And now to go into the most surprising for me, it was actually really clear, the story, I went right to it in my mind. There's a restaurant in Santa Rosa, where we live, called Jackson's, and they've been a good supporter of ours for many years, and occasionally they have gumbo on the list. Not always, it kinda cycles through. And I just happened to be sitting down there for lunch one day, got the gumbo and decided to get a glass of our 2017 Lucky Rock Pinot, not expecting them to go whatsoever, like I described, a lot of times I'm just eating and I'm drinking too, right? And the, not necessarily what you would think, because sometimes the spiciness of gumbo doesn't really marry as well with like a red wine, it kinda like magnifies the alcohol, and it doesn't really work. This was the complete opposite, married perfectly, like the earthiness of the gumbo and the spice kinda magnified some of the red fruit and the earthiness in the wine and it was just, there was enough acidity in the wine to kinda cut through some of the richness of the dish, and it was actually amazing. And you did get some of those kinda new flavors, and it was like really, like it stuck with me because I was not anticipating, it was completely out of the blue. I actually thought it wouldn't go well, and it went great. And now I'm just waiting for 'em to put the damn gumbo back on the list.

- Well, my most surprising is, actually, very simple, it was this great pork chop, we have a Sonoma County Meat Company, best pork chops I've ever had. Salt, pepper and then with a August Briggs, it was a August Briggs Chardonnay that I had made.

- [Aaron] Mm.

- It wasn't necessarily about the wine, it wasn't necessarily about the food. Yeah, they're both nice, but it was the combination of the two and I know how the wine was made, it was relatively simply made, and the food ,very simply made, but together, when they were in the same room, phenomenal.

- Yeah, you can have a lot of those kind of experiences just Monday through Sunday at your house, if you start playing around and experimenting.

- Exactly, and that's what it ultimately comes down, it's like just 'cause that wine and that food didn't go well together, doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Just like, its not gonna knock it out of the park every time, but again, as long as it doesn't steal away from the conversation.

- Sure, and even the pro's mess it up, I was recently at a dinner, a fancy restaurant in San Francisco, and did the food and wine pairing, a big whiff. So, there's no like perfect situation in food and wine pairing.

- [Jesse] Yeah.

- Anyways, those are some of the Lucky Rock guidelines, commandments, whatever you want to call 'em. Commandments gives you a little bit more of a headline.

- Yeah.

- Its a little bit more powerful. But at the end of the day, those are some tips, if you use those to do food and wine pairing at your own house, you're gonna find some winners, keep a little Rolodex of the winners and then you got some go-to's.

- That's right.

- So, get out there, get pairing, or not, we don't care.

- No pair, no care.

- And we'll see ya in the next episode.