Vintage Story

Epistemological epiphany:
Life must be lived forwards,
but can only be understood backwards
Mercifully, life may be enjoyed sideways!

WINE AND FOOD PAIRINGS            

           The title of this blog represents one of the most tired expressions in wine literature these days. Whether in the supermarket checkout line or an upscale wine retail shop, magazine covers shout at you about some new or ideal match between a particular wine or wines and food discoveries. Even assuming Indiana wholesalers allow us access to the wine or wines so touted, none of these journalistic treatises address what vintners themselves drink or what top palates around the wine world really drink. Wine and food pairings have almost become gimmicky.

            In the home of the late Gustave Rinn, long-time holder of a Michelin star in his 18^th-century inn in Alsace, I watched him pour a bottle of pinot blanc into his pot of mussels, then open a cabernet franc from the Loire Valley for us to drink with the mussels. When I told him I thought we were to do white wine with shellfish, he shrugged and said if I wanted white wine I could have it.

            One morning I surprised the late chef Alain Chapel sitting alone in his three-star restaurant dining room near Lyon nibbling on some deep-fried smelt and sipping on a red Sancerre. “I like them together,” he said. (Red Sancerre, by the way, is a pinot noir.)

            At a mid-morning breakfast with the great Paul Bocuse, his server, along with some slices of smoked salmon, brought my wife and me a glass of champagne, while the great man drank a village Beaujolais.

            At more than two dozen visits to the cellars of Leonhard Humbrecht, producer of some of France’s most prestigious white wines, his wife, Jinette, would start our tastings with a  pinot noir. “Why red before white,” I asked once. “Why not,” she answered. “It soothes the palate and makes it ready for the different whites in the flight.”

            Throughout wine producing areas all over Europe and from California to Washington, when we get close to the producers and the cooks, we find the old-time published rules just don’t exist.  Of course, we never saw any of them pop a chocolate into their mouths before sampling a crisp sauvignon blanc or trot out a mature Bordeaux with their barbecued ribs, but on the whole, we saw these great men and women drink the wines they liked with whatever food they liked.

            In recent years, I have escaped my inhibitions and fear of wine steward intimidation and have ordered a red wine with my sea bass or trout. Guess what? These orders haven’t even raised an eyebrow, let alone stimulate a sneer.

            Having blasphemed thus far, I’ll retreat sufficiently to acknowledge that there really are food and wine matches that just will not work. Rather than list some of them here, I’ll just say that your own palate is the ultimate judge of those matches. How do you learn? The same way the hippie answered the flustered woman in Manhattan asking, “how can I get to Carnegie Hall?”

            “Practice, lady, practice,” he said.

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             Addendum:  The Pontiff hereby bestows free membership in Vinsense, Inc., a not-for-profit consumer group dedicated to opening up the Hoosier wine market.  The Internet will change the way we buy wine in Indiana as inexorably as market forces brought down the Berlin Wall.  You will receive free updates of important legislation affecting the sale of this commodity in Indiana, at no cost or obligation.  You may learn more, or volunteer your services, by visiting www.vinsense.org.  Zum Wohl, and welcome aboard!   

    Vintage Story is an e-newsletter authored by Ole Olson and published by the Story Inn, and is available free of charge to all who appreciate good wine. Vintage Story is published at each full moon. The author and the Story Inn specifically authorize the republication, reprinting and circulation of any issue Vintage Story so long as due credit is given to the author and to the Story Inn (which holds the copyright).

If any newspaper or website desires to make use of any issue of Vintage Story, we do request that you notify us. Thanks, and here's to your health!