Reimagining Food Pairings
A few weeks ago I was invited to a virtual food and wine pairing by Washington State Wine. The idea was a fun one: myself and three other wine writers were sent two burgers, one from a fast-food outlet and another from a high-end restaurant. We would then eat the burgers together in the company of two winemakers while also tasting their wines.
Although there are many classic food and wine pairings, it’s often much more fun to experiment and to challenge one’s palate. Even when an experiment doesn’t work, it’s still a learning experience. I don’t usually focus on flavour profile as it’s hard to match the many tastes of a great food dish with the varied aromas of a great wine. Instead, I concentrate on the structure of both the food and the wine: acidity, salinity, oiliness, tannins, body, alcohol, intensity.
At the beginning of the webinar, host Averyl Mooney asked us to write down an unusual pairing we had recently tried. My answer was Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon (Inglenook Rubicon 2017) and salmon, a pairing which should work neither on paper nor in practice. However, it did: the fruitiness and ripeness of the Cabernet added extra weight to the food, while the salmon dish had enough flavour and structure to balance the tannic profile of the wine.
It was a great example of how food and wine pairings can offer up wonderful surprises—Cabernet doesn’t just have to be drunk with steak. And the webinar itself threw up another surprise: rosé and burgers.
The two Washington wineries represented were Canvasback, owned by Duckhorn of Napa, and a new, small producer Devison. The Canvasback wine was “Grand Passage” Cabernet Sauvignon 2017 from Red Mountain (✪✪✪✪✪; $84), a classic and unsurprisingly successful burger pairing. Meanwhile, I was able to open two Devison wines, a 2018 GSM blend called “Above the Flood” from Boushey Vineyard in Yakima Valley (✪✪✪✪✪; $49), and a 2019 rosé from the same vineyard, 75% Mourvèdre and 25% Grenache (✪✪✪✪✪✪; $24). The GSM was big, bold, and fruity, and a wonderful pairing with the burgers.
But, to my surprise, it was the rosé that worked best of all. Bright and fresh, it had enjoyable aromas of red fruits, herbs, roses, and spices which made it appealing to drink on its own. Paired with the burgers, its acidity and fine texture made the food feel a lot lighter and less overtly meaty. Rather than the wine being overpowered by the heavy flavours in the food, it instead felt the equivalent of adding verjus to a salad. And it demonstrated the sheer quality of rosé these days, as winemakers take the style much more seriously.
The pairings managed both to confirm and alter expectations. Burgers go well with Cabernet or a GSM blend, that I knew. Drinking rosé with a burger was something I would never have contemplated, but I’m going to have to go back and do so again. However, the tasting did confirm that a burger from a high-end restaurant is much, much better than one from a fast-food joint…. Pair quality with quality and the results will always be interesting, intriguing, and satisfying.
