Indian food and wine...

D

drssouth

Stephen South
Barb and I got inspired and made
Homemade Naan
Phul Gobi (Cauliflower+peppers+spices)
Lamb Saag (Lamb and Spinich)
Chicken Tikka Masala (Curry spiced chicken)
Basmati Rice
Aloo (potatoes)

The "cooking wine" (i.e. that consumed by the cooks) was
'01 Chablis Fourchaume...clear evidence of progeria..dumped..
So..we opened
'02 Vincent Dauvissat, Chablis "La Forest", alc 13%, $35: Clean clear and crisp with freshly cut apples and great acidity...just getting going..revisit in a couple more years...

With dinner
'89 Luneau-Papin L'd'Or...badly corked
So...
'03 Fritz Haag Bauneberger Juffer-Sonnenuhr Riesling-Auslese Goldkapsel(#09)
alc 7.5%...pale in color..a little lime on the nose...slightly spritzy but not in an offputting way...gently sweet (not cloying) and stood up well to the spicy food... developed nicely in the glass...still very young..did far better with the non-lamb parts of the meal...

Overall, a good night except for the 0.500 batting average on the whites..Damn!!
 
I'm envious of your Fritz Haag GKA

I had a similar experience recently, so I thought I would share:

Beth and I got inspired and made:

red curry chicken noodle soup w/ rice noodles, spinach, and snow peas.

during the cooking, opened a 2006 Robert Rousset Crozes Hermitage Blanc- grossly corked. Grrrrrr! Humbly defeated, I opened a 2006 Gilbert Picq Chablis ACC- clean and crisp with lemony notes and nice minerality. With some air, became more suave and round.

with dinner, we opened a 2006 Weins Prum Estate, QbA- fresh pears and minerals, with mouth watering acidity. Nicely balanced. It let us focus on the exciting spices in our curry soup.
 
I have had a lot of success trying the "good" ("Florida Jim") Beaujolais with Indian food, even hot or spicy Indian food. It is surprising how well this works.

For Thai I have tended more toward Alsatian or German whites...

F
 
originally posted by Frank Deis:
Indian food and cru BeaujolaisI have had a lot of success trying the "good" ("Florida Jim") Beaujolais with Indian food, even hot or spicy Indian food. It is surprising how well this works.

For Thai I have tended more toward Alsatian or German whites...
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I concur.
 
originally posted by Levi Dalton:
I have bad luck with Thai and wine. I have tried several different types. I feel that beer is perhaps most appropriate.
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A cool refreshing beer sounds good. But most beers are either too hoppy so bitter or too gassy with injected artificial CO2.

Champagne / Cava / Prosecco are a better alternative but perhaps too much gas.

Low temperature is good.

Mouth watering acidity is good. Lemonish. Nimboo Pani as they say in Hindi.

No mouth drying tannin. And low temperatures depress fruit and sugar and seemingly enhance tannins. So maybe ross or very light reds. Or enough sugar to counteract the tannins.

Oak clashes with cumin, coriander and ginger leading to bitterness.

Moderate alcohol. Low alcohol makes for a floppy wine without structure and high alcohol and chilli leads to mouth burn.

Residual sugar rising in relation to rising Scovilles - chilli heat. Try chasing a bite into a chilli with a sugar cube and see.

So all that spells for me - Moscato Frizzante, Brachetto, a (good) Lambrusco frizzante, red sparkling, Dry (sic) Champagne ...
 
originally posted by Levi Dalton:
I have bad luck with Thai and wine. I have tried several different types. I feel that beer is perhaps most appropriate.
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last tuesday at dbgb, the bartender told me that every beer that they would be selling would be fermented with ambient yeast. i had three that night and they were all very tasty and individual. i'm very excited to explore.
 
A cool refreshing beer sounds good. But most beers are either too hoppy so bitter or too gassy with injected artificial CO2.
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That may be true, but that's a bit like saying that most wines are too tannic or too alcoholic. Of course there are a lot of wines (and beers) that won't match, but there are certainly plenty that will. And on the whole, I think there are actually an number of beers that would work quite well.

Indeed, when you mention "lemony," I think of Challenger hops, which often lend a lemon or lemongrass, citric, mildly acidic quality to beers. If I'm not mistaken, Kingfisher, the common English/Indian beer pairing for the cuisine in question uses predominantly Challenger hops. I'm actually not a giant fan of that beer, but I think that better-made beers of that modestly bitter character with a bit more punch are fine matches to Indian food. I think about some mildly hoppy German pilseners that aren't as sharp as their Czech counterparts (e.g., Mahr's, Kulmbacher, etc), and I think about some of the mildly funky, almost cider-like French and Belgian beers with a very moderate bitterness or with more robust grain bills that can work well too. There are even American counterparts now that could be nice: I haven't tried it, but I would suspect that my locally produced Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere could be a solid pairing.
 
With Thai? Sure. Depends on the beer, of course. Some of them are far too phenolic, and some of the American ones are far too sweet. But some of the crisper, more lemon-focused beers would work.

With Indian, I think we're probably looking at only a handful of weissbiers that would work without getting really overpowered -- going maybe for more of those funky-but-fresh flavors that you'd find in farmhouse beers. Mahr's Weiss comes to mind. Never tried the combo, though. Maybe it would suck.
 
originally posted by evan hansen:
A cool refreshing beer sounds good. But most beers are either too hoppy so bitter or too gassy with injected artificial CO2.
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That may be true, but that's a bit like saying that most wines are too tannic or too alcoholic. Of course there are a lot of wines (and beers) that won't match, but there are certainly plenty that will. And on the whole, I think there are actually an number of beers that would work quite well.

Indeed, when you mention "lemony," I think of Challenger hops, which often lend a lemon or lemongrass, citric, mildly acidic quality to beers. If I'm not mistaken, Kingfisher, the common English/Indian beer pairing for the cuisine in question uses predominantly Challenger hops. I'm actually not a giant fan of that beer, but I think that better-made beers of that modestly bitter character with a bit more punch are fine matches to Indian food. I think about some mildly hoppy German pilseners that aren't as sharp as their Czech counterparts (e.g., Mahr's, Kulmbacher, etc), and I think about some of the mildly funky, almost cider-like French and Belgian beers with a very moderate bitterness or with more robust grain bills that can work well too. There are even American counterparts now that could be nice: I haven't tried it, but I would suspect that my locally produced Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere could be a solid pairing.
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If you're looking for something that is only challenger hops, a very good example would be Coniston's Bluebird Bitter. I would place them (challengers) in in citric family, but my personal association is orange rind. Bluebird is pretty balanced and I would think that would pair pretty well. Commercialish disclaimer I am the Shelton Brothers rep for Iowa. Actually all of the beers that Evan mentioned, save for Kingfisher are imported/distributed (in the case of Jolly Pumpkin) by Shelton Brothers. I may have to try out the Bam Biere with Indian myself, as it is a boom/bust proposition for me. Bam is the three pronged assault of dry, (aggressively so) bitter, and with the signature Jolly Pumpkin acidity. It might go better texturally with Thai food, due to its lightness. Though that said, it's probably one of my 10 favorite beers of all time. I absolutely adore it.

As for wheat beers, and I'm talking German-Style hefeweizen, I think that they have the ability to soak up a lot of heat. Many good wheat beers have a stickiness in the mouthfeel that I find soaks up a lot of heat, so it may do well with the more firey Thai foods, but I would stay away from the wheats with coconut milk based sauces as I think their textures would be too similar. Obviously pairing with individual dishes would be way easier than broad assumptions.

Cheers,

Kevin
 
I have found that Lafarge Aligote Raisins D'Ores from riper vintages like the 2003 to be a surprisingly good match for Indian food - and this is a wine I find very hard to match with anything.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Do you think a weissbier would work?
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Definitely - for a beer a weissbeer is a head and shoulders match above any other kind of beer. (Obviously IMHO)

Low hops so not bitter; fruity/banana palate with residual sugar complementing the chillies.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by Warren Edwardes:
Low hops so not bitter; fruity/banana palate with residual sugar complementing the chillies.
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You almost make it sound like mango lassi.
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Good. Thanks. Never thought of it that way. But more like a banana lassi. Just eaten my last Alphono Mango for the season. Alphonsos are the BEST mangoes in the world.

In terms of residual sugar in wine with chilli heat think of it as a Yin and Yang match.

The chilli takes out the sweetness and the sweetness takes out the chilli - sort of man-to-man marking.

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And then the spices go round the chilli and the fruit goes round the sweetness.

So take a mouthful of something fiery.

Calm it down with something off dry (20 grams/litre is fine for even very hot dishes)

And then another burst of chilli fire.

And so on.

So you have a succession of waves of pain and pleasure leading to a near tantric experience.
 
originally posted by evan hansen:
A cool refreshing beer sounds good. But most beers are either too hoppy so bitter or too gassy with injected artificial CO2.
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That may be true, but that's a bit like saying that most wines are too tannic or too alcoholic. ... .
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Yes. Quite a bit.

All things and ingredients being equal why would a medium to high hop bitter beer be more appropriate (i.e. for me refreshing) than a low hop beer?
 
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