Exceeding Expectations

R

Rahsaan

Rahsaan
I was expecting a delicious dinner because I knew the 2016 Koehler Ruprecht Pinot Noir Kabinett trocken would be delicious and I knew the seafood pasta with shrimp, clams, chard and a light red wine tomato sauce would be delicious. I did not expect exactly how well the food and wine would go together, elevating everything way beyond the sum of its parts.

The iron/salty sea notes from the clams and the shrimp went so well with the iron earthy spätburgunder notes, the sweet juicy succulent fruit kissed the tomato sauce, and the slight vegetal edge of the spätburgunder played well with the chard. Together, it was sublime.

I’m sure I’ll never be able to recreate the exact balance of all the elements that made it such a perfectly thrilling meal. But I’ll always have the memories!
 
Post of the year. And we are only in February.

But I don't think you'll get as many social media likes as you deserve unless you back this up with some numbers, particularly your claim that the whole (presumably the length of the cross product of the food and wine vectors in n-space) is greater than the sum of the lengths of the two individual vectors, also known as points.

Dark sarcasm in the classroom aside, I could fill pages with stories of both failures and successes in attempting such challenging pairings, but you'll have to buy the book.

My guess is the sweetness of the fruit would not have been allowed to kiss the tomato sauce without the benevolent permission of that matriarchal matchmaker that you've alluded to as the vegetal edge of the variety, but I won't know for sure until I try the wine, which you have inspired me to do.
 
originally posted by Pavel Tchichikov:

My guess is the sweetness of the fruit would not have been allowed to kiss the tomato sauce without the benevolent permission of that matriarchal matchmaker that you've alluded to as the vegetal edge of the variety, but I won't know for sure until I try the wine, which you have inspired me to do.
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I think you're right, although the composition of the tomato sauce (or more accurately broth) also helped bring it all together in ways that will be difficult to replicate exactly. A bit of strained tomatoes, thinned with pasta water and the wine and cooked with the clams to add the delicious savory brine, finished with a bit of bitter. The concept is simple enough, but getting the perfect balance is easier said than done (and what separates us from the professionals).

On the wine, I'm sure you'd like it. It always brings me joy and I think I've posted before about how I wish I had more friends who would enjoy it, because it is such uncomplicated pleasure when you need a wine of character that drinks well from the first glass. (Unfortunately, my friends usually want more weight in their red wines)

It wouldn't stand out as much in Germany where there are so many more options. But for what is available to me in the States among the basic spätburgunders, it is a clear winner.
 
Hmm, I probably would have picked a richer white to go with that dish, but if you needed a red this sounds like a good compromise.
 
originally posted by MarkS:
...but if you needed a red this sounds like a good compromise.
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Not so much that I needed a red wine. More that I started with a desire to drink this wine. Then came into the logistics of it being best to cook the shrimp and clams last night, so I figured out a dish that could work. But did not expect it to go that well!
 
originally posted by Pavel Tchichikov:
I could fill pages with stories of both failures and successes in attempting such challenging pairings, but you'll have to buy the book.
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No doubt, and same here. But I have to say there's not much downside. The few total successes are memorable, the partial successes are tasty and the failures are usually of the sort where the wine and food are just irrelevant to one another. The number of cases (just my experience) where food and wine make each other taste worse are very few. And they usually involved smoked or very strong preserved fish or intense capsicum heat.
 
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):
originally posted by Pavel Tchichikov:
I could fill pages with stories of both failures and successes in attempting such challenging pairings, but you'll have to buy the book.
Click to expand...
No doubt, and same here. But I have to say there's not much downside. The few total successes are memorable, the partial successes are tasty and the failures are usually of the sort where the wine and food are just irrelevant to one another. The number of cases (just my experience) where food and wine make each other taste worse are very few. And they usually involved smoked or very strong preserved fish or intense capsicum heat.
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I have always believed that the small percentage of total successes might be improved in a restaurant situation where the staff could have access to consistently prepared dishes and stocks of wine. But they're probably just employing the same generalities that most of the rest of us use at home.
 
originally posted by MarkS:
Hmm, I probably would have picked a richer white to go with that dish, but if you needed a red this sounds like a good compromise.
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I have found a variety of light red wines or hearty rose' wines to be very good with mixed seafood in an herbal tomato sauce.
 
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