OK, what else other than pinot noir

More and more we try very hard to match food with wine for my daily dose of alcohol. Tonight we had delicious pork pasta in a cream sauce. The recipe recommended a PN or a Chard. I opened a $15 Oregon PN and everyone loved it (three of us). To prevent boredom I then opened a nice Spanish Tempranillo and asked for comments. Everyone liked the Spanish wine but preferred the PN, myself included. What is this world coming to? A good Oregon PN or village Burg seems to go with almost everything. This has nothing to do with "Sideways" but has all to do with food/wine matches. Good acidity, good fruit, nice balance seems to do it all. In general I find myself opening PN on an everyday basis to go with food. Any comments?
Walt

In general I find myself opening PN on an everyday basis to go with food. Any comments?
Walt

My comment is that I wish I had enough money to open nice red Burgundy to go with my daily meals.

I agree that the acidity and suppleness of some pinot noirs are great for food matches. But it really all depends what you are eating. Sometimes they can get clobbered with rich foods that need sturdier tannic wines.

Well... I had some leftover 94 CVNE Vina Real that I drank with dinner tonight - N. African seasoned lamb tenderloins with a couple of pouches of Indian vegetarian side dishes. The lightness of the Rioja went just fine with the spicy dishes.

The lightness of the Rioja went just fine with the spicy dishes.

Yes, rioja may not be Burgundy, and I don't know how spicy your food was. But I will say that when I have a nice bottle of red Burgundy I don't want the spices to be too aggressive. Aromatic food is one thing, palate-assaulting food is another.

(This from a man who loves reductions, and who usually uses one clove of garlic per meal, but has learned that the practice does not always make for the best wine pairings)

I agree that Pinot is a very versitile food wine with exceptions noted above; but I think Riesling beats it. Unlike Pinot, Riesling does hold up to spicy foods from many cuisines. When we lived in Germany back in the '60s, Germans drank Riesling with everything from steak to whitefish.

(This from a man who loves reductions, and who usually uses one clove of garlic per meal, but has learned that the practice does not always make for the best wine pairings) Empathises mine

Rahsaan, did you really mean one clove of garlic, and not one HEAD of garlic? I mean what good is one lonely clove of garlic?

In general I find myself opening PN on an everyday basis to go with food. Any comments?
Walt

My comment is that I wish I had enough money to open nice red Burgundy to go with my daily meals.

I agree that the acidity and suppleness of some pinot noirs are great for food matches. But it really all depends what you are eating. Sometimes they can get clobbered with rich foods that need sturdier tannic wines.

Rahsaan,
My heart goes out to you since you are not able to drink good wine.

Two comments, 1) the PNs I am talking about are mostly Oregon and village Burgs, usually 2-5 years old. The price point is $15-35. The acidity and fruit and somewhat light body seems to go with many of our dishes. I feel the same about many CC. 2) This is not a wine for all foods but seems to be a wine for the type of foods we eat. We tend to eat light meats, little beef, and most dishes are seasoned with fresh herbs. We use mushrooms and there is another plus to PN.

More and more we are focusing on food matches. One of my favorite wines but one I find most difficult to match is Bordeaux. When opening an old Bordeaux we tend to have it with a pleasant chees and a baguette.
Walt

I agree that Pinot is a very versitile food wine with exceptions noted above; but I think Riesling beats it. Unlike Pinot, Riesling does hold up to spicy foods from many cuisines. When we lived in Germany back in the '60s, Germans drank Riesling with everything from steak to whitefish.

Carl,
Good point and can't argue. Evey time I open a Riesling it seems to work and everyone likes it. I know little about German wines so probably why I do not drink more. For spiced foods
I alway open a bubbly.
Walt

Well, if I have a "go-to" food-friendly red it's Pinot Noir. But I can also argue for other lighter reds with good acidity, such as Gamay, Loire Cab Franc (know Walt dislikes), and .......Tempranillo. Walt doesn't mention what Tempranillo this was, but for my tastes old-style Rioja is quite food friendly, especially for the dishes you describe. Modern bigger riper styles might do worse, but that is true of PN too.

I think for Bordeaux it's not too hard to match:
young ones with rare red meat
mature but vigorous ones with braised meat
mature and delicate ones with roast chicken.

For truly spicy dishes I think beer, offdry Riesling or maybe Chenin, or bubbly. But I think aromatically spicy dishes do very well with Gamay, Pinot Noir, etc'

Following the chorus I tend to like Riesling and Pinot Noir with a wide variety of foods. It doesn't hurt that those are my favorite white and red grape varieties. I like Sauvignon Blanc for salads with vinaigrette, a variety of green vegetables and some fish dishes, etc. I enjoy Zinfandel but sometimes have trouble with food pairings as I don't eat a lot of red meat or do grilling and barbecueing. Cote du Rhone can also be a versatile red wine at an everyday price.

[Jenise]

Walt, Bob and I borrowed a page from Bob Ross' book and limited our wine consumption to just pinot noir for an entire month. I did not change my cooking style. So we drank pinot with Italian, fish and steak and dishes with a lot of garlic and rarely found the wine to be out of place. (The only food I deliberately avoided were the really bad matches I know of, like chinese fermented black beans with pinot.) Now admittedly my cellar offers a variety of origins and vintages to choose from so I could ramp the fruit up or down, but I honestly tried to not let that influence my selections, and to the point I did I sometimes deliberately chose against type. And you know what? I found it almost impossible to offend the wine. And not only did we not tire of our only wine, we became kind of dependent on the fruit-acid balance you speak of. So like you, we're drinking more pinot than ever these days.

I agree that Pinot is amazingly versatile....it is the lightness and acidity that Jenise mentions in the best of the Pinots....we had a Castle Rock RRV the other day, just for kicks, and it was gobby and thick.. like it had Syrah in it.. which, it turns out, it does!!.... I guess this versatility explains why about 1/3 of my cellar is Pinot/Burgundy

In general I find myself opening PN on an everyday basis to go with food. Any comments?
Walt

Walt, you just put your finger on why my wine purchasing has changed in the last decade. Whereas I used to buy a lot of CalCabs, Zins and CdPs, I now buy far fewer Big Reds and far more whites, rosés and lighter reds. Why? Because my focus is now even more on matching foods and wines and those Big Reds just don't match many foods, even fewer of which we eat on a regular basis. If your diet is rich in fish, birds and/or veggies, those big wines just don't make much sense. Bdx, OTOH, occupies a special niche. Despite its big scale in its youth, aged Bdx qualifies in my book as a lighter red, certainly one that can be paired with various birds. (Disclaimer: I still don't buy much new Bdx since aged Bdx can be had for cheaper at auction)

Mark Lipton

Young Bordeaux or Chianti works as well as Pinot in my opinion for food matching. But admittedly, sometimes chiantis acidity can be off-putting for a lot of folks. As can the tannic structure of young Bordeaux. But I like tannins and acidity in a food wine.

Richard

(This from a man who loves reductions, and who usually uses one clove of garlic per meal, but has learned that the practice does not always make for the best wine pairings) Empathises mine

Rahsaan, did you really mean one clove of garlic, and not one HEAD of garlic? I mean what good is one lonely clove of garlic?

Yes, correct, I meant one HEAD.

My mistake..

[Jenise]

Mark said:

Despite its big scale in its youth, aged Bdx qualifies in my book as a lighter red, certainly one that can be paired with various birds. (Disclaimer: I still don't buy much new Bdx since aged Bdx can be had for cheaper at auction)

Ditto on both counts!

. Bdx, OTOH, occupies a special niche. Despite its big scale in its youth, aged Bdx qualifies in my book as a lighter red, certainly one that can be paired with various birds. (Disclaimer: I still don't buy much new Bdx since aged Bdx can be had for cheaper at auction)

Can't argue with your buying strategy.

I think I will argue with the idea, however, of aged Bdx being a lighter red. It certainly can be, and that's why I included elegant Bdx as a roast chicken match. But I've had plenty of bottles of 20-35 year old Bordeaux that still qualify as big wines. I think on alt.food.wine you just listed the '82 Gruaud as one of your wines of the year. 25, and I wouldn't count it as a light red. As a matter of fact, looking at my Bdx 1989 or older, I'd count maybe 1/3 as lighter reds, and 2/3s as bigger.

I understood your point, but this is Tues and I'm feeling argumentative.

Bored with PN..... How is that possible, Walt???

What about a PN bubbly to end your boredom????

In general I find myself opening PN on an everyday basis to go with food. Any comments?
Walt

Walt, you just put your finger on why my wine purchasing has changed in the last decade. Whereas I used to buy a lot of CalCabs, Zins and CdPs, I now buy far fewer Big Reds and far more whites, rosés and lighter reds. Why? Because my focus is now even more on matching foods and wines and those Big Reds just don't match many foods, even fewer of which we eat on a regular basis. If your diet is rich in fish, birds and/or veggies, those big wines just don't make much sense. Bdx, OTOH, occupies a special niche. Despite its big scale in its youth, aged Bdx qualifies in my book as a lighter red, certainly one that can be paired with various birds. (Disclaimer: I still don't buy much new Bdx since aged Bdx can be had for cheaper at auction)

Mark Lipton

Mark,
We agree 100% with the possible exception of CnP, a wine I enjoy. 30% of my cellar is still Bordeaux but it is all aged stuff and I buy very little new vintages. I have a few big reds for the rare time we grill red meat, maybe once every other month.

I've actually found a few Cotes du Rhones that I think have good acidity-and I actually like the funky, meaty, savory character better than the typical cherry flavors of most New World Pinots.

More and more we try very hard to match food with wine for my daily dose of alcohol. Tonight we had delicious pork pasta in a cream sauce. The recipe recommended a PN or a Chard. I opened a $15 Oregon PN and everyone loved it (three of us). To prevent boredom I then opened a nice Spanish Tempranillo and asked for comments. Everyone liked the Spanish wine but preferred the PN, myself included. What is this world coming to? A good Oregon PN or village Burg seems to go with almost everything. This has nothing to do with "Sideways" but has all to do with food/wine matches. Good acidity, good fruit, nice balance seems to do it all. In general I find myself opening PN on an everyday basis to go with food. Any comments?
Walt

Walt,
Where the HELL are you finding Oregon Pinot Noir for $15? I thought it was extinct !

Where the HELL are you finding Oregon Pinot Noir for $15? I thought it was extinct !

Bill, I so wanted to say this, but knowing that St. Louis gets so much more than Lexington, Ky. I didn't want to show my ignorance. Heck, Even Linda gets about $18 for her regular bottle, and I love all her wines.

We agree 100% with the possible exception of CnP, a wine I enjoy. 30% of my cellar is still Bordeaux but it is all aged stuff and I buy very little new vintages. I have a few big reds for the rare time we grill red meat, maybe once every other month.

Oh, I still enjoy CdP and it still occupies a significant chunk of my cellar space (~20%) which is why I don't feel so compelled to buy lots more right now (I'm still working through my '89s, '90s and '94s and have yet to approach my '95s,'98-'01s). These days, though, I try to limit myself to Beaucastel, Vieux Telegraphe, Pegau, Clos des Papes and an occasional Vieux Donjon, Bois de Boursan or Grand Tinel and at current prices I'm not buying half cases, either.

Mark Lipton

I think I will argue with the idea, however, of aged Bdx being a lighter red. It certainly can be, and that's why I included elegant Bdx as a roast chicken match. But I've had plenty of bottles of 20-35 year old Bordeaux that still qualify as big wines. I think on alt.food.wine you just listed the '82 Gruaud as one of your wines of the year. 25, and I wouldn't count it as a light red. As a matter of fact, looking at my Bdx 1989 or older, I'd count maybe 1/3 as lighter reds, and 2/3s as bigger.

I understood your point, but this is Tues and I'm feeling argumentative.

Since it's Tuesday (still) I'll respond in kind It all comes down to what we mean by aged: I was thinking of the '59s and '61s I've had over the past 5 years. With 40+ years, I find the ones I've tried to be quite ethereal (but far from insubstantial), with a mouthfeel akin to that of old-style GR Rioja or aged Burgundy. Is that "light"? Maybe not; perhaps we should call it "graceful" instead. Whatever it is, it's a far cry from a 10-year old Cab (or Bdx for that matter).

Just my $0.02,
Mark Lipton