A Pairing That Worked

Some foods are more of a challenge than others. Last night was certainly a bit of a challenge -- seared ahi tuna in an Asian style soy-based marinade. Let's see how it worked.

For starters, and while you don't have to stick to this, there is some merit, there is an old adage that says that you pair red wine with red meat and white wine with white meat and when the meat is some color in between, you just guess a lot.

Well, ahi tuna has red meat and some substance to it, but doesn't do well with the big, bold red wines. It needs something gentler.

Then, there is the soy sauce. It is salty. It is bold. It has lots of umami or savory. That's a tough combination. An off-dry sparkling wine would probably have done the job, but we're always restricted to what we have. Or we could go with a wine with high levels of umami. Aglianico comes to mind, but we don't have any Aglianico, at least not that I know of.

Well, let's add to the confusion. The US is having a heat wave right now and to add to the heat, we always have humidity here. But, right now, it's even higher than usual. And, while there is no science to it that I can find, cooler wines just work better in weather like than wines served warm.

So, what fits all those categories? Probably nothing. But, I decided to go for as much as I could get. I found a Rose of Pinot Noir, Merlot, and Syrah (percentages decreasing in that order and served it particularly cool at probably around 50F/10C. 

The umami in the soy brought forward the fruit in the wine and the variety of red grapes had just enough tannin for the salt and fat content of the tuna. It's not the first time we've had this dish, but it was one of my favorite pairings with it.