Let's Put Pairing in Perspective

Apr 06, 2024

Hi Wine Friends,

Hope you all had a great Easter holiday and enjoyed the sunshine. This week marks the first in a series on pairing food and wine. With Spring upon us, so many great ingredients are coming into season. And when the sunshine returns, so do social engagements. So my goal for this series is to give you all the tools you need to host an awesome dinner party, write a perfect menu, pick the ideal wine off a restaurant list, and so much more.

(As always, my course Seven Day Sommelier is available to anyone who’s ready to take their wine knowledge to the next level - and it includes a whole lesson on pairing!)

Drawing from my decade-long journey as a restaurant sommelier, I've crafted some easy-to-grasp principles and pro-tips to empower you in confidently selecting the perfect wine for any dish. But before we dive into specific principles (each of which I’ll elucidate in coming weeks), allow me to share a metaphor close to my heart…

My dad is a very talented artist and photographer (shoutout to Paul Glasser!) and, growing up, he taught me how to pencil sketch. If you’ve ever attempted drawing, you’ll know that one of the trickiest things to nail is perspective – the art of taking an image from 2D to 3D. It’s all about understanding light and shadow to accurately depict depth perception. But the trick he taught me was this: look at whatever I was sketching and squint my eyes to determine what was brightest and what was darkest.

Meaning, don’t look at the million details – just look at the big picture and notice what’s brightest and pops out the most versus what’s really dark and in the background. You can fill in all the details later. But that’s how you nail depth perspective.

As I ventured into the world of food and wine pairing, I realized that I was applying this same philosophy. Just as I focused on the brightest and darkest elements in a landscape, I mentally squinted my eyes to identify the key flavors in a dish. Instead of overwhelming myself trying to pair to every ingredient, I honed in on the ‘brightest,’ most prominent elements on the plate, and paired to them first. Then I paired to the details later.

For instance, we just put a new dish on our menu at Arden: pan-roasted halibut served with english peas, grilled maitake mushrooms and pickled rhubarb. If you weighed all those flavor components equally, you might be stumped, because all four ingredients could call for five very different wines!

But when I tasted the dish, I found that the most prominent pops of flavor were the bright, vegetal notes of the peas and the sweet, tart flavors of the pickled rhubarb. The earthy, umami note of the maitake and the rich weight of the halibut itself came in second.

So I paired to the pea and rhubarb first… I looked for a wine that had a green, vegetal note to match the puree and also crisp acidity with sweet aromas to match the rhubarb. That put me in the family of aromatic white wines, most likely coming from a cold climate so they would have good acidity and green notes (which tend to disappear the riper grapes get).

But that still left me a lot of options! So then I thought about what else the wine needed… it needed to have weight and creaminess to match the rich texture of the halibut and a slight savoriness to match the mushrooms.

What I settled on was an Austrian Grüner Veltliner. Grüner actually means green and the grape has a distinctive note of snap peas, green apple and tarragon. It’s a very aromatic varietal and has a sweet, stone fruit nose to it, which picks up the sweetness of the rhubarb. And coming from the alpine climate of Austria, it has plenty of acid! Lastly, Grüner has a full body with a slightly oily texture (much like Riesling or Chardonnay) and this particular one was aged on the lees, giving it a creamy mouthfeel. All this allows the weight and texture of the wine to match that of the dish harmoniously.

You can apply this same principle when serving more than one dish at a time… maybe your entree course features barbecued pork, cornbread, grilled broccoli and homemade pickles. But you determine that the barbecue sauce (sweet and spicy) and the pickles (sour) have the most prominent flavors. So you go for a juicy, fruit-forward red wine to match the saucy sweetness. And you make sure it has good acidity - to match the pickles and the vinegar in the barbecue sauce - and low tannins - since tannins make spicy things taste bitter (more on this in coming weeks). Perhaps a California Zinfandel, an Argentine Malbec or a Spanish Garnacha.

It can seem overwhelming to consider so many components at first. Which is why I recommend starting simply with what’s ‘brightest’... don’t get bogged down in the details, just think about what single flavor element pops out the most and pair to that.

And don’t worry - I’m going to spend the next six weeks explaining the six pairing principles that I’ve developed over my career. I promise they are easy to understand and will have you pairing like a pro in no time!

If you don’t already follow me on social, make sure you start, because I’ll be elaborating on these concepts in lots of informational videos.

Cheers and Happy Pairing,

Kelsey

Never Miss a Post

Join our newletter and stay up to date with all things wine related.

Let's Put Pairing in Perspective

Never Miss a Post

I HAVE A FREE GIFT FOR YOU...

Want to PAIR WINES like a Pro?