MANUAL
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NICE PAIR
Make the most of your meal with a complementary wine pairing — it's easier than you may think // EMILY JOHNSON
Like any good college student, Emily Copeland, McPherson senior, enjoys her pepperoni pizza with a glass of spicy pinot noir.
pepperoni pizza with a glass of spicy pinot noir.
Copeland picked up her know-how of wine pairing from her experience as a server at a country club and at Ingredient, 947 Massachusetts St. One summer when she worked at Ingredient, the restaurant held a wine pairing workshop with an expert to teach the employees what types of food and wine go well together and why. Copeland tried different types of wines with all sorts of flavors from sweet cookies to bitter lemons and developed an understanding of how the flavors in food and wine work together or detract from each other, which shows that wine pairing is truly an experimental, hands-on experience.
"Let's say you have a merlot," Copeland says. "If you drink it with something sweet then it's going to strip the sweetness out of the wine so all your taste is the acid. But if you eat something salty with it, like steak, then the sweetness comes out in the wine so it's not gross when you drink it."
Scott Schmidtberger, manager at Alvin's Wines and Spirits, 4000 W, 6th St., says the store provides a pairing chart, but any reputable liquor store staff should be able to make pairing suggestions depending on what you're looking for. The most important thing is the combination of food and wine enhances each other's flavors and enrich the total experience.
Schmidtberger says it's important to remember that the first rule of wine pairing is there aren't many. If you have a certain wine you love, drink it with whatever you want. But, there are some useful guidelines that will help you make a good pairing as you develop your taste. "When you first start out, it seems really intimidating. But once you start drinking the wine and exploring, the more you try the more you want to try."
An old standby that is effective and easy to remember is pair red meats and sauces with red wine, and white meats and sauces with white wine. Red wines have a bold, hearty flavor, Schmidtberger says, which is why they complement rich, flavorful foods. White wines, on the other hand, are refreshing palette cleansers that go well with the light flavor of white meat.
But fear not if you want to have your steak and drink your chardonnay, too — the white chardonnay is sturdy enough to stand up to your steak. Or, if you're a red wine lover but tonight's menu features chicken, try a light red such as a pinot noir.
When Copeland needs a recommendation for a good wine pairing, she visits Cork and Barrel, 2000 W. 23rd St. "I think the staff is really friendly there and they'll answer your questions. That's how I found the Chocolate Box wine; they've introduced me to a lot of different things." Copeland doubles the guilty pleasure she takes in dark chocolate desserts with a dark red glass of Chocolate Box wine, which runs about $17 per bottle.
Many online resources exist for the tech-savvy — if not wine-knowledgeable — among us. One such site, Winewebcentral.com, has a simple pairing guide that is divided into three steps. First, choose your course from the four main categories that are broken down by meat type, including vegetarian. Then, choose the main flavoring from options such as barbecue, garlic and mushroom. The chart provides three or four suitable pairings rated for the dish as good, better and best. But to really find out what you like and what flavors go together, you just have give combinations a try.
Ken Baker, owner and executive chef of Pachamamas, 800 New Hampshire St., says wine pairing is a hands-on experience that you can develop through practice. When creating a menu, Baker usually chooses his recipes and picks wines based on the flavors, as opposed to choosing the wine and creating the food menu around it. This method is good for beginners because it is much easier to choose a wine based on the flavors of a meal than to discern the flavors of the wine first.
A good way to get started is by attending a wine tasting. Pachamama's, 800 New Hampshire St., holds wine tastings each Friday night from 6 to 8 p.m. Every tasting features four or five wines with hors d'oeuvres for $25 to $35 per person, and the wines sampled typically cost $10 to $20 per bottle.
With a little advice and a little trial and error, you can be on your way to wine-pairing perfection in no time. JP
Fine wine and dining. The basic rule of wine pairing is to put white wine with your white sauces and meats and red wine with red sauces and meats. But don't让 this stay you from drinking your alcohol with a tasty dinner.
Photo illustration by Jerry Wang
Drinking wine can easily become an expensive indulgence. Cork and Barrel manager Mike Strano paired this list of reputable wines, each around $15 a bottle, with complementary foods as a quick and financially friendly guide.
Kendall Jackson Chardonnay, $13.99, with grilled chicken
Rutherford Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon, $15.99, with steak
Ravenswood Old Vine Zinfandel, $14.99, with barbecue
WillametteValley Pinot Gris, $14.99, with shrimp scampi
Beringer Napa Valley Pinot Noir, $21.99, with salmon
Sandeman Ruby Port, $13.99, with chocolate or nut-based desserts
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