Three Real-Life Pairing Challenges

You are eating at a French restaurant in the US. The wine list is good enough to have earned a "Best Of" Award from Wine Spectator -- that's the level below the Grand Award, but it earns the two wine glass logo not surprisingly better than the one wine glass logo. The wine list is dominated by French wines, although there are others. So, in approaching this challenge, imagine that you have in front of you a list of French wines of different styles from different regions. But, no, we are not going to get into specific Chateaux and vintages (young, some age, old is the most we will do).

And, of course, the challenge has two diners in it as one would be too easy after nine months of being educated (or bored) with my meandering rants. With that, here we go.

For first courses, your table has chosen two not particularly similar, but classic French hors d'oeuvres -- Escargots de Bourgogne and Terrine de Foie Gras. When it comes to wine, these are not necessary complementary dishes, although the common bond is that they are both rich and completely unhealthy. 

The escargots are loaded with butter and garlic while the foie gras is the fatty duck (it could be goose) liver of specially fattened birds. We are going to need something to handle this level of fat and butter. And, there are classic pairings with each of them, but they are not identical. With the escargots, we might expect a rich oaked Chardonnay that has gone through malolactic fermentation, so perhaps a Montrachet or Meurault. On the other hand, with foie gras, the classic pairing is Sauternes or Barsac. One of these wines is Chardonnay while the other is partially, but usually not predominating Chardonnay. We need a compromise.

Any French-heavy wine list worth two wine glasses will have its share of sparkling wine. And, those made using methode Champenoise or methode traditionelle, if you prefer will have the structure and substance to pair with our first courses. Recall though that each dish would pair well with a wine that is completely or partially Chardonnay. So, our choice is a Blanc de Blanc, a Champagne made entirely of Chardonnay.

For our maine courses, we have chosen steak tartare as well as venison paleron in a red wine sauce with shimeji mushrooms. The good news is that these are both red meat. Both, however, are pretty lean, so we will be staying away from heavy tannins, but we do need sufficient acidity to handle the richness of the food and we need enough age on the wine so that some of the earth tones to complement the mushroomes will have come through as they might not have in a particularly young wine.

Thankfully, there is this lovely section of France, Bourgogne or Burgundy if you prefer where the locals are good enough to produce lots of red wine. And, Pinot Noir fits the bill quite well. So, we are prerusing the wine list for a Bourgogne Rouge, not too young, and we are fortunate enough to find a lovely 2015 from Cote de Nuits -- just tannic enough with nice acidity and some of the earthiness coming through.

On to dessert where things get easier. We have chosen to share a single dessert, a traditional creme brulee. When we think creme brulee, we think crunchy custard, a bit sweet, but not overly so. So, we want to choose a wine sweeter than the dessert with some natural acidity and a bit of fruit to complement our dessert (recall that many cremes brulees) are served with a bit of fruit accompaniment. The wine list sends us to Bordeaux and more specifically to Sauternes. The classic pairing here, much like with foie gras, is the Semillon-Chardonnay botrytized blend. The hints of lemon from the Semillon combined with the structure from the Chardonnay make for a delightful finish to the evening.

See how easy that was.

Happy New Year. May your 2021 be better than your 2020 (that should be easy for most of us).