Food & Wine Pairing

USE A PROGRESSIVE WINE LIST TO PLEASE THE PALATES OF PARTY MEMBERS Sommeliers and chefs thrive on matching food and wine at their wineries and restaurants, but individual wine enthusiasts can take the same pleasure when entertaining. Providing pairings at parties can be great fun!

I’ve turned the Calendar to November, and when I look out and see frost on the rooftops, I know it’s time to think about the Holidays. No matter how we celebrate, as it gets darker, our hearts get warmer, and we gather friends and family close. Nowadays, family can mean the one in which you were raised, or your chosen “urban family”. After Thanksgiving, the next holiday is Hanukkah, the Celebration of Light.

Tim Halloran's piece on Thanksgiving Reds can be viewed here . Thanksgiving dinner, while delicious and nutritious (well, at least delicious) is not the easiest meal to pair with wines. So many different elements are present; there are savory/mild foods like turkey, gravy, yams and potatoes, crisp/acidic foods like cranberry sauce and salads, and hearty foods like ham and stuffing. Throw in a few other vegetables and you have a veritable cornucopia of flavors and textures to match.

It happened again a few weeks ago: I was exploring the wine section at a new local supermarket where I was taking notes on unfamiliar wines and comparing prices. You know, just minding my own business when another shopper came up to me looking quite desperate, and started asking me questions about wine. Now, I was dressed in my summer khakis, white linen shirt and sandals, definitely not the store uniform, but that made no difference to him. “What’s a white wine?” he asked me. Several replies came to mind, so I took a moment to study him.

Last month, we touched on some basics around dessert wines and their terminology. This month – as dinner party season fast approaches with the holidays – let’s wow your guests with some basics around dessert wine and cheese pairings. I recently spoke to a well-traveled epicurean friend of mine, Carrie Voorhis , who used to manage a cheese and wine shop in Indianapolis, Indiana. Every day she’d help folks like us find the perfect compliments to wines from all over the world.

Planning a trip to wine country takes some doing. There are decisions to make about what day to go, which valley to visit, which wineries to see and where to make your appointments, not to mention the wrangling required to figure out who’s going to drive and whose car gets donated for the occasion. On top of all this, one can easily overlook perhaps the day’s second most important decision: where to eat.

CULINARY PROFESSIONALS OFFER SAVVY SOLUTIONS TO WINE-FOOD PAIRING PUZZLES Ever sit around munching on a snack and think to yourself, “Boy, it would be great to be drinking a nice glass of wine with this,” but you haven’t the darnedest idea what would go with it? Or you’re eating a nice steak , and the wine you’re drinking tastes terrific with it, but when you take a bite of the side dish and another sip of wine, something in you goes BOING because something isn’t quite right?

Enjoying wine is as much a hands on experience as is anything. The history of the wine –the grapes, the region, the winemaker, the vintage- and the people with whom you drink it are the variables that shape the wine drinking experience from one of simple consumption to something of deeper impact in our daily lives. Award winning writer Natalie MacLean has carved out a career by skipping past the pretensions of wine and food and embracing the personalities, emotions, and simple human curiosity that make wine and food a sensual obsession rather than just basic sustenance. IntoWine recently caught up with Natalie to discuss her new book, Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass , as well as her views on wine.

I learned to cook from my Mom, cooking programs on PBS, and a wide range of authors whose books perched on the kitchen shelves, patiently waiting for the moment they were needed. We reached for these books frequently, usually three and four at a time, spreading them across the kitchen table to compare ingredients and techniques. We had a rule – always follow the recipe as it was written the first time, then we could improvise. Of course, we broke this rule frequently,