A Mouthful of Wine

Aroma Junkies Get Center of Olfactory Art

I don't do much re-reporting, but this bears a look: New York's Museum of Arts & Design is dedicating a department to aroma arts, that is, perfume, curated by Chandler Burr. Read more about it here. Who knows--perhaps the aromatic art of wine will get a nod.

Adaptation 3: Tricks for Wine Pairing

With so many tastes and aromas layered in the food and wine you consume, it can be a tricky game to figure out which of your senses will adapt to what, and how to maximize your sensory pleasure. The “rules” of wine pairing are often contradictory—the first step is to choose which rule to apply; the second step is to choose the right wine! Experimentation is the best way to learn what works, but here is a collection of pointers that may help.

Like cancels like: There are certain tastes in food that can alter the taste of your wine for the worse—your palate adapts to a certain level of, say, sugar, and can no longer register any sweetness in the wine. This makes the wine taste sour. (If you want to experience this, try the toothpaste experiment.) The key here is to make sure your wine has more of that taste than your food. In other words, the wine should be sweeter than the food. This also applies to acidity.

Sometimes opposites attract: Contrary to the above rule about tastes, textures tend to accumulate until they’re too much of a good thing. The heat of a high-alcohol wine only aggravates the heat of spicy food, and a structureless, “fat” wine makes fried or creamy foods into a bland mess. In these cases, it’s best to play elements off each other: spicy needs sweet; creamy or fatty (like fettucini alfredo) needs acidity; and fatty proteins (like steak) need tannin.

Remember weight: If your food is heavy and rich, try pairing it with a rich, full-bodied wine. Delicate foods often call for light-bodied wines.

The lemon trick: If your food is something that could be served with a wedge of lemon for squeezing—salad, oysters, fish, shellfish, fried calamari, even chicken paillard or plain veal scallopini—feel free to choose a wine that acts like lemon: one with high acidity. Muscadet and Chablis are classic with oysters and would work well with most green salads or seafoods; and high-acidity whites and reds such as Beaujolais and Sangiovese/Chianti work like lemon with chicken and veal.

When in doubt (the easiest trick to remember): The European countries developed their wine making over centuries, which means the wines were developed in harmony with each culture’s taste in food. When in doubt, go with the wine that comes from where your food comes from. If you can narrow your food source down to a region (Alsace, Sicily…) and match that, even better. Chances are you’ll end up with a harmonious pairing.

 

A Sweet Wine Tasting

At the shop where I work I led a sweet wine tasting earlier this week that was particularly interesting because the four wines we tried were so different. I brought four foods to mix and match with the wines, without having tasted the wines in advance, which led to a fun quasi-scientific evaluation that everyone took part in. It would be easy to try this at home. Here’s how it went.

The wines:

1. Hétsolo Tokaji Aszú 2000 (Tokay, Hungary; $38/375 ml)

The least sweet of the wines, with 3 puttonyos (the range of sweetness from 1 to 6 that Tokaji is measured by) and some of the honeyed apricot flavor of noble rot.

2. Cooper Mountain Vin Glace Pinot Blanc 2006 (Willamette Valley, Oregon; $30/375 ml)

An ice wine made by manual freezing, but nonetheless pure, with zingy acidity and a bright, intense grapefruit and guava flavor. Made from organic and biodynamic grapes.

3. Favaíto Moscatel do Douro NV (Douro, Portugal; $15)

A fortified wine (17% alcohol) made from Moscatel Galego grapes, a subvariety of Muscat with its typical heady floral aromas. The simplest wine of the four, but a customer favorite. The Portuguese like to spike their beer with this—and I can attest to the success of that cocktail!

4. Quinta do Noval Late Bottled Vintage Port 2003 (Douro, Portugal; $28)

Also a fortified wine (19.5% alcohol), this is an unfiltered LBV that provided a needed red wine counterpoint to the previous three whites. The differences are in the tannin and the earthy berry/fig/date/licorice flavors.

The foods:

1. Roasted almonds

These were almost too light in flavor to hold their own with the wines, with the exception of the Tokaji (1).

2. Blue cheese (Danish, but anything would work)

This was too pungent for the gentler flavors of the Tokaji (1), but was remarkably good with all of the rest of the wines, particularly with the high acidity of the Vin Glace (2) and the earthier flavors of the Port (4). Wines 2 through 4 were sweet enough to stand up to the sweetness of the cheese, which brings to mind the all-important Dessert Pairing Rule:

When pairing desserts and sweet wines, the wine should always be sweeter than the dessert. If you want to know why, read about adaptation. 

3. Dark chocolate

Chocolate is notoriously difficult to pair with wine because of its sweetness and tannin. Milk chocolate is all but impossible to please (too sweet), but dark chocolate (greater than 50% cocoa) likes Port a whole lot. Port (4) has the sweetness and tannin to pair with a less-sweet dark chocolate.

4. Carrot cake

Super-sweet, with its cream cheese icing, and mildly spicy, this was beautiful with the Vin Glace (2), whose acidity lasered through the creamy sugariness, and with the Port (4), which nicely complemented the winter spices. Also fine with the Moscatel (3).

If you’re trying this yourself, you almost can’t go wrong: Think…who would complain about sweet wines and desserts in any combination?! But it can be very interesting to suss out the finer affinities of an assortment of goodies. Treat yourself—and let me know what you find out.

 

The Truth About Sulfites

Many wine consumers seem to worry about sulfites. Perhaps it’s because of the mysterious warning on the wine label. But this is one thing most people can relax about: Sulfites are dangerous if you are asthmatic and/or have a sulfite allergy (sulfites cause breathing difficulties in about 5% of asthmatics). Unless you’re a member of the small group who need to be aware of sulfites, that “Contains sulfites” statement is just like the one on a chocolate wrapper that says it may have been processed in a facility that processes nuts. You need to know this only if you have trouble with nuts; the package tells everyone just to be safe.

Almost all wine makers use sulfur dioxide as an antioxidant (preservative), although most try to minimize its use. What most people don’t know is that the yeast that cause the all-important fermentation in wine making also produce sulfites naturally during that process—some 6 to 40 parts per million (ppm). The FDA requires the “Contains sulfites” statement on the wine label starting at 10 parts per million. Another little-known fact is that any food or beverage containing 10 ppm or more of a sulfite must declare its presence on the label (with the ingredients). And many, many foods contain sulfites, including deli meats, condiments, processed potato products, frozen doughs, fruit juices, and fruit products such as dessert toppings and dried fruit.

Many people believe that organic wines do not contain sulfites. Aside from the natural sulfite contributions of the yeast, organic wine makers are allowed to and often do use sulfites—up to 100 ppm. Wines that are marketed as “sulfite-free” may be organic, but organic wines are not necessarily sulfite free. “Sulfite-free” wines may simply contain fewer than 10 ppm, thereby avoiding the labeling requirement.

Here are the numbers.

Maximum sulfite level allowed in wine in U.S.: 350 ppm (parts per million)

Maximum sulfite level allowed in organic wine in U.S.: 100 ppm

Sulfites produced by yeast during fermentation: 6 to 40 ppm

Minimum sulfite level requiring sulfite statement on wine label: 10 ppm

Minimum sulfite level requiring sulfite declaration on any label: 

 

Wines for the Feast: 5 All-American Options

The problem with Thanksgiving (if there could possibly be one) is that there are so many different dishes and styles of feasting that it’s impossible to find a wine that complements everything perfectly. The only thing to do is have a selection of wines for different foods and different tastes. They don’t have to be American wines—after all, we Americans, like wines, come from everywhere under the sun—but for this typically American feast, why not source wines “locally”? Here are five ideas.

1. Champagne goes with almost everything. American “champagne” is, of course, referred to as sparkling wine, and there are great examples from California—look for the words “traditional method” on the label to guarantee a wine made using the methods used in Champagne. Or, for a very budget-friendly sparkler, try Gruet, made in New Mexico, particularly the rosé.

2. A rich white such as Viognier will hold its own with the opulent flavors of Thanksgiving. Zaca Mesa in Santa Barbara makes a nice one, or Cline’s is a very respectable lower-priced option.

3. Pinot Noir is almost a no-brainer, because its naturally high acidity allows it to complement a wide range of foods. Generally speaking, if you like slightly fuller body and fruit, look to California; for a light to medium body and tart cherry flavors, go with the Willamette Valley in Oregon.

4. Zinfandel is the Thanksgiving classic, partly because the grape is so strongly associated with California. Go with Zin if you like a full-bodied, super-juicy-fruity, almost chocolatey wine—this will pair best with the richer foods on the table: think bacon…blue cheese…stuffing.

5. For dessert, try ice wine. The grapes for ice wine are picked and pressed after they freeze on the vine, resulting in a thick, sweet, high-acidity juice, since the grapes’ water content is bound up as ice. More affordable versions are made by late-harvesting the grapes and then freezing them. Try Cooper Mountain’s Pinot Blanc, from Oregon, or there are many ice wines produced in New York’s Finger Lakes region.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

The Sweets of Verduzzo

You could be forgiven for never having heard of the Verduzzo grape, a white variety grown in Friuli that produces largely forgettable dry wines. But try the sweet wines of the Ramandolo DOCG just to the north of Colli Orientali and you won’t soon forget Verduzzo.

Giovanni Dri produces three sweet wines from this grape. Ramandolo and Il Roncat are passito-style wines (made from dried grapes), and Uve Decembrine is a single-vineyard, late-harvest wine. All three are remarkable for their gentle sweetness, well balanced with acidity, that allows the straw and apricot flavors of the grape to shine. There’s no Botrytis intensity here. Il Roncat, in particular, medium-sweet with a year of oak on it and beautiful balance, would pair well with nuts and cheese, or with a lightly sweet walnut or almond cake with orange zest flavors.

Contact Dolce Sarde for retailers.

 

Adaptation 2: An Experiment

Your skin adapts to the touch of your clothing. Your sense of smell adapts to persisting odors that your brain accepts as harmless. In the same way, your sense of taste adapts to sensations that repeat, the better to register new tastes that may signal danger for you (such as spoilage or poison). This caveman trick of the body provides us with much of the joy of eating, too, as it allows us to perceive each new, pleasurable flavor as long as that flavor is sufficiently distinct from the one preceding it.

This is one reason successful chefs offer a harmonious interplay of flavors in their dishes. As each taste—sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami—expresses itself, it refreshes the palate from the previous taste, and you taste more in every bite. (Add the effects of texture and temperature to taste, and your total experience becomes even more layered.)

But it’s not quite that simple. Food rarely exhibits only one taste—most foods have different levels of various tastes. An apple is sweet (from natural sugars) and sour (from acidity). Miso is sweet, salty, and umami. So, when ingredients are combined, adaptation may suppress one taste and cause another to become artificially heightened. Chefs work to use this side effect to their advantage and to avoid being snared by its downside.

To experience it, try this experiment. You’ll need commercial toothpaste and orange juice. First put a dab of toothpaste on your tongue, taste, and swallow. Note the sweetness. Now take a sip of orange juice. Not as sweet as it should be, is it? The OJ tastes bitter because the taste receptors in your mouth have adapted to the greater sweetness of the toothpaste. This “cancels out” the lesser sweetness of the juice, making its bitter component stand out more. 

Adaptation can work for or against you in food and wine pairing. An upcoming post will include a few tricks to remember.

 

Pairing: Green Pea-Parmesan Ravioli and Greco di Tufo

I was trying to capitalize on the umami element of Parmesan in the ravioli (click for the recipe), which I figured would balance the umami of the yeasty lees in Terredora Dipaolo’s Greco di Tufo ($19). It’s a pleasant match and an easy recipe, but try cutting back the black pepper, which dominates the wine. Another (untested) option: browned butter instead of simply melted, for drizzling on the finished dish. If you try it, let the rest of us know what you think.

 

Adaptation: How Your Body Avoids Sensory Overload

Imagine for a moment what it would be like if every nerve ending in your skin were registering what you’re wearing right now—if you could really feel your clothing on every body surface it touches. Every area of your body would be sending sensory readings to your brain right now: “Scratchy—oh, friction!—soft cashmere there—watch band, left wrist—whoa! sock elastic—touching—touching again!—not touching—rubbing now.” Every second of the day. In fact, you probably can’t feel your watch band at all, unless you move your hand and think about it. And does the skin of your ankles feel your socks at this moment?

The human senses evolved as a system of protection for the body. If your nerve endings were busy all day long registering every sensation of your clothing on your skin, the truly dangerous or irritating, like sunburn, that scratchy label in your t-shirt, or a blister forming on your heel, would have to fight to make themselves known.

The body adapts to the banal in its surroundings in order to give priority to the novel, uncomfortable, painful, and poisonous. Adaptation occurs in the senses of hearing, smell, and taste, as well as touch: You may be overcome by the smell of a roast in the oven upon arriving at a friend’s house, but once you’ve been there a few minutes, you can’t smell it nearly as strongly. Your subconscious brain says, “Okay, I still get roast—still roast—still roast—Okay, forget about the roast, did someone just unwrap a Taleggio?” Thus, your sense of smell adapts to the roast and allows you to discover a stinky cheese.

With the sense of taste, adaptation can be more complicated, but it has great impact on how chefs construct their dishes, the order in which wines should be served, and which food and wine pairings are most successful. In future posts, I’ll write more about how adaptation affects successful gourmandizing.

 

Umami: The Mysterious Fifth Taste

You’re familiar with the four tastes that register on the tongue: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. But a little-known fifth taste deserves some attention. Umami (oo-mom-ee) is not a new invention—we’ve been tasting it at least since ancient times, but weren’t able to scientifically identify it. We have only known, across the centuries, that a certain condiment or seaweed or mushroom had a pleasing brothy savor.

The word umami is Japanese, but doesn’t have a direct translation to English. The closest we have come is “delicious”—not very specific! And the concept has not been fully studied; in fact, it was only in 1990 that umami was internationally accepted as a fifth taste, perceived only on the tongue, like sweet, sour, salty, and bitter.

Still, chefs know how to add “deliciousness” to a dish: Foods high in umami include miso broth, parmesan cheese, asparagus, many seaweeds, scallops, dried mushrooms, and soy sauce. MSG, developed in the early 1900s in Japan, became known as an “instant” umami, and is still used in many foods to simulate flavor cheaply. If you put MSG, which looks like elongated sugar crystals, on your tongue, the sensation is of a slightly salty chicken broth, without an actual poultry flavor. But true umami is much more complex than this, and exists in many hundreds of foods.

 

Dried mushrooms and many seaweeds are among the foods highest in umami.

Is umami detectable in wine? Absolutely. You can taste it in many Champagnes and sparkling wines, and in some chardonnays, as a result of their contact with yeast cells after fermentation. The umami taste may correspond with a brioche or yeast aroma in these wines. In red wines, yeast can impart umami during a long, cool fermentation.

For more information on umami, check out the Umami Information Center.