Food & Wine Pairing

Use a progressive wine list to please the palates of party members. Each season, I intend to share my favorite party foods and several wine options to serve with a few of the courses, using what is called a progressive wine list.

A blending party is one of the most enjoyable of the various events offered by wine clubs. When combined with a lobster feed, it makes for a most memorable day of hands-on play at winemaking, then hands-on work at lobster -cracking. A tasteful pairing of higher education and higher hedonism. It was just such a day at Alderbrook Winery, located just west of Healdsburg, just off US Highway 101 in California’s Sonoma County.

Now that it’s actually getting warm here in Seattle, it’s time for those delicious Summertime meals – lots of fresh vegetables, salads, and seafood. Normally, I watch my food budget very carefully, but when the farmer’s markets are rocking the produce, I fill up my bag with abandon and gather friends around to enjoy the light fresh flavors of the fields, rivers and ocean. While some people drink red wine year around, I match my wines to the season and, of course, the food.

How many knights do you know who have raced vintage cars and taught at the California Culinary Academy? Or visual display artists equally versed in the secret Malaysian Nonya and French cuisines? These diverse sets of skills and experiences can be found in Roy Salazar and Julie Tan, each of whom has worked professionally with Martin Yan of Yan Can Cook .

Oh my goodness, I thought. I cannot possibly drink this big, full-bodied red wine in this heat – I’ll pass out! Nevertheless, there I was, in Paso Robles during a heat wave (100˚ in the shade), on a wine tasting tour. “Oh, no, this isn’t normal for May” they said “…but it’s great practice for the summer when it’s 110˚ for months!” A pale Seattle girl, I wiped my brow, took another swig of cooling water and headed determinedly back to the bar.

It’s been a long day. At work, your boss yelled at you, at home your spouse snapped about the overfilled laundry hamper, and the cat just expressed her opinion all over the carpet. Nothing will sooth you more than a great glass of wine. But dinner is planned, and it’s not exactly beef bourgogne . So what’s a food-conscious oenophile to do? Here are a few suggestions for pairing decent or even good wines with classic comfort foods to create a fun, relaxing evening.

“I’ll try the Madeira” I said to the sommelier. After retrieving a new bottle from the back of the wine bar, she poured a glass of the deep red wine and set it down. As I made a motion to begin my first sip, I heard: “wait a second; I have something for you to try.” A small dish was placed in front of me, filled with brownish-black disks. “Its chocolate,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Oh, of course,” I responded, not totally understanding the pair of wine and plain pieces of chocolate. Then, as I tasted the bitterness of the chocolate combined with the smooth sweetness of the Madeira, I began to appreciate the origin of the slight smirk flashed by the sommelier. What a perfect match.

It is a warm night in the month of May. Everything that has come out of the kitchen to your table seems to be shouting at the top of its lungs that it is spring. The baby lettuces with strawberries and marcona almonds, the fava bean raviolis, the hamachi skewers with avocado and pomelo. The gruner veltliner you ordered has paired up famously with these items, and the bottle of frappato that succeeded it has also proven itself an amiable companion to both the pork tenderloin with asparagus and pea tendrils with gnocchi and romesco, and the pan- roasted halibut with arancini in a green garlic sauce.

RENEGADE WINE EXPERT CREATES NEW PRODUCT TO ENHANCE THE WINE/FOOD EXPERIENCE: VIGNON , BY NAPA SEASONING COMPANY, TO LAUNCH IN JUNE! ENJOY ANY WINE WITH ANY FOOD. I remember the first wine that flipped my pancakes. It was in the early 1980s, when tasting Sebastiani’s Blanc de Noir, Eye of the Swan—a blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. I’ve always looked back at that and laughed, belittling my own baby steps towards acquiring a taste towards superior , drier wines.