Food and Wine Pairing Menus

Everyone is talking about pairing food and wine. You can’t get around it—it’s the new “hot” topic in magazines, wine stores (there’s one in NY that has life size paper mache animals atop kiosks filled with wine to tell you what goes with chicken, fish, beef, lamb). It’s hilarious!

Now, I’m always up for an adventure in food and wine pairing—I love red wines with lobster for example—and with so many varietals from around the world available, I love to be introduced to a new wine. Albarino from Spain will be this summer’s “hot” wine choice (it’s cheap and refreshing), and I just had a beautiful white from Languedoc—Coteaux du Languedoc 2006  Picpoul de Pinet—that is going to be our “poolside” white this summer at $12.00 a bottle. I’m already imaging figs and prosciutto—orange melons—quesadillas with chevre and grapes...

But last night I dined with some friends at a new “wine bar” that has turned into a series dining experience—pairing creative and complex foods with sometimes wines that are not quite “there.”

I love experimenting, but at the end of the night—after seven courses that took us until midnight—one of the dinners said pointedly, “don’t you think this meal would have been more fun if we had chosen by the bottle instead of each course having it’s own wine.”

We stopped dead in our tracks—and then immediately all heads nodded yes.  There’s something about the enriching experience of the evolution of the wine in the glass over the course of several hours that is a dynamic on its own.

Which wines would we have “passed” on? What would we have chosen to accompany everything from hamachi to filet? We chatted on into the night about the possibilities.

We asked this question to our host and owner of the establishment—doesn’t anybody order from the wine list (we suddenly realized that we hadn’t even seen it)? Doesn’t anyone order a la carte (it seems not) and choose their own wine?

Has the idea of pairing food and wines with each course gone a bit too far?

We all agreed that it had been a fun evening—the food was incredibly well executed and ambitious AND tasted good too.

Would we go back? Yes, but not as an “everyday” restaurant. This is an adventure that should only be had when one is in the mood for going along for the ride.

Hoping your “pairings” are inspired.