Red Wine & Fish

I too missed that earlier thread. I consider it balderdash. Judging fish with scallops as the example is feeble. The reader comments were more interesting - from the Portuguese drinking reds with dried codfish (of course! what else?) to how perfectly a verdejo from Rueda and its iron-rich soils goes with some oven-baked turbot... The fact is that fatty fishes (the kinds of fish with more than 5% fat, as opposed to lean fish which has about 2%) go well with tannins, as do fatty meats such as well-marbled steak. In Spain we often drink red wines, preferably not overwhelmingly tannic of course, with such fish as bluefin tuna, albacore tuna, sardines, fresh anchovies, salmon, mackerel, horse mackerel, lamprey (naturally!) and even some strong-tasting lean fish as indeed rehydrated cod (we follow our Portuguese brothers there).
 
originally posted by VS:
I too missed that earlier thread. I consider it balderdash. Judging fish with scallops as the example is feeble. The reader comments were more interesting - from the Portuguese drinking reds with dried codfish (of course! what else?) to how perfectly a verdejo from Rueda and its iron-rich soils goes with some oven-baked turbot... The fact is that fatty fishes (the kinds of fish with more than 5% fat, as opposed to lean fish which has about 2%) go well with tannins, as do fatty meats such as well-marbled steak. In Spain we often drink red wines, preferably not overwhelmingly tannic of course, with such fish as bluefin tuna, albacore tuna, sardines, fresh anchovies, salmon, mackerel, horse mackerel, lamprey (naturally!) and even some strong-tasting lean fish as indeed rehydrated cod (we follow our Portuguese brothers there).
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From the article:
These findings show that, contrary to popular belief, tannins are not responsible for the difficulty in pairing red wines with seafood. Instead, monitoring the iron content of wine is the key (unfortunately, there is as yet no way to guess in advance from grape variety or soil which red wines will be iron-free). The data also hint that highly acidic white wines pair well with particularly fishy-tasting seafood because the acids act as chelating agents, reducing the amount of iron in the whole combination, regardless of its source.
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It's not the tannin, rather, trace amounts of iron.

Hopefully the chemists will chime in.

Personally, I've always thought red wine with fish was balderdash.

Maybe if there is enough acid in the red it might work.
 
Has there been anything that states or graphically depicts which red wines are loaded with iron? Or even touched a bit with iron?

. . . . . Pete
 
originally posted by VLM:

From the article:
These findings show that, contrary to popular belief, tannins are not responsible for the difficulty in pairing red wines with seafood. Instead, monitoring the iron content of wine is the key (unfortunately, there is as yet no way to guess in advance from grape variety or soil which red wines will be iron-free). The data also hint that highly acidic white wines pair well with particularly fishy-tasting seafood because the acids act as chelating agents, reducing the amount of iron in the whole combination, regardless of its source.
Click to expand...

It's not the tannin, rather, trace amounts of iron.

Hopefully the chemists will chime in.

Personally, I've always thought red wine with fish was balderdash.

Maybe if there is enough acid in the red it might work.
Click to expand...

Much of what people consider "fishy" aromas arise from biogenic amines produced after the death of the fish. Acids in wine react with those amines, rendering them non-volatile and hence much less offensive to the senses. There is another sort of fishy aroma that arises from oxidized fatty acids. Iron might play a role in our sensitivity to those odors, but it's by no means obvious. So, maybe balderdash, maybe not.

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by Peter Creasey:

Has there been anything that states or graphically depicts which red wines are loaded with iron? Or even touched a bit with iron?

. . . . . Pete
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According to www.getfitnutrition.co.uk - "One standard glass (125ml) of red wine provides just over 1.0mg of iron."

Then there's this: Humagne Blanc which is, uhm, white, and apparently has 3 times the amount of iron that other wines do.

Some might say this is more than slightly ironic.
 
originally posted by VLM:
It's not the tannin, rather, trace amounts of iron.

Hopefully the chemists will chime in.

Personally, I've always thought red wine with fish was balderdash.
Click to expand...
Yes, go tell it to the Portuguese eating bacalhau and drinking Do and Vinho Verde reds.

The iron thing is amply refuted by Rueda wines. After the French paradox, the Rueda paradox, I guess.

originally posted by Joel Stewart:
If you order the horse mackerel, does that come with lamprey automatically?
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Ha, ha. See, in Spain we eat a lot of fish - about 105 lbs per capita/year, vs. 16 lbs in the United States. This also means that we eat a much larger variety of fish than in the US, particularly fatty fish with their healthy Omega-3 fatty acids, and that does include those strange things I've listed and many more - including red mullet, turbot, sea trout, baby eels, conger eel, leer fish, gaucus... So - yes, we are constantly pairing fish with all types of wine. We do it at least as much as the Portuguese do, and a lot more than the other two big fish consuming countries, Japan and Norway.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
The overlap in iron content between white and red wines is apparently quite large.
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But generally white wines have higher acidity which has a chelating effect thereby modifying the effect of the iron.

Perhaps I have mis-read this and the other thread but the article didn't seem to me to be pronouncing on whether red wine could or couldn't taste good with fish [which some certainly can particularly for fish like salmon and tuna et al] but was seeking to provide an alternative rationale for why the [now generally ignored] rule of thumb which indicated that most red wine and fish don't work well together might have come about.

The choice of any wine with fish is also highly likely to be affected by what the fish is cooked in and/or with.

The 'old' rationale' was the tannin in red wine which is largely absent in white was the cause and basis of the formulation of that 'rule of thumb'.

Their 'new' explanation was that an unpleasant 'fishy' reaction with wine seemed to correlate strongly with the presence of iron [from whatever source] AND a [relatively] low acid environment - which, they implied, was considerably more likely to occur with red rather than white wine.

This seems a perfectly feasible conclusion from the tests they described and doesn't require that white wines will ALWAYS have less iron then red wine although it is probably fair to say that, for their hypothesis to hold, red wines should generally have a significant iron content AND [perhaps more importantly] generally lower acidity than white wines.

Of course if the iron content of a large sample of red and white wines was known together with their acidities it would provide an intuitive basis for support for or scepticism about the new idea.

As far as Humagne Blanche is concerned it may, as reported, have a high iron content but without knowing what it is one cannot compare it with levels found more generally in red wines and there was nothing about its acidity which might of course also be high.

Perhaps Thor could help here since he posted on Savioz Clos Chateau Ravire 2000 Humagne Blanche in February 2007.

More importantly I cannot see any assertion in the [very summarised] report that no white wine would ever have a high iron content. I also note from some posts that the soils of Rueda have a high iron content and would be interested to know if the wines of Rueda have the same characteristic.
Even if they do it does not necessarily provide a point of contradiction to the report without a study of the acidity and its performance with fish. As far as the latter is concerned I can confirm that I have drunk [white] Rueda wine with fish and enjoyed the experience.

Without more information it is difficult to form a definitive view but equally I see nothing obviously faulty with their science or their conclusions and I also recognise that the opinions expressed about matching red wine and fish and the possible difficulty of changing attitudes viz the last paragraph came from the journalist not the researchers.
 
originally posted by VS:
originally posted by VLM:
It's not the tannin, rather, trace amounts of iron.

Hopefully the chemists will chime in.

Personally, I've always thought red wine with fish was balderdash.
Click to expand...

Yes, go tell it to the Portuguese eating bacalhau and drinking Do and Vinho Verde reds.

The iron thing is amply refuted by Rueda wines. After the French paradox, the Rueda paradox, I guess.
Click to expand...

I'm sure that this is much more complex than this article or experiment have represented it and is certainly not the last word.

I'm more railing against the "drink what you like, red wine with fish" bullshit that folks have been know to push over here. I think that's crap. Outliers and Iberian exceptions notwithstanding.
 
This fish is dying for red wine.

mccormick_mustard.jpg
 
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