Q: Choosing the Right Wine in a Restaurant
Question from Jonathan: I had a question about wines in general and just looking for some guidance. I am planning a nice dinner for me and my girlfriend and I have placed reservations at this really nice restaurant where I live. The restaurant has an extensive wine list however I really don’t know much about what wine would be good to go with a dinner such as red meat or seafood. Since I am new to wine and really wanted to expand my knowledge I am wondering type of wine would be appropriate? I am just looking for some guidance so I can make the right decision. Thank you
Reply: Hi, Jonathan! Thanks for writing! Sounds like a very special occasion!
Please don’t worry about making a “wrong” decision. Most wines and foods taste good together. There’s a natural affinity and the wine is only meant to make the meal more enjoyable. Plus, “best pairing” is subjective – we won’t all agree.
However, there are some general guidelines that seem to work well for a lot of us.
When it comes to steak and most fish, the traditional advice works pretty well – I’d say most of the time a full-bodied red like Cabernet, Merlot, Syrah or Zinfandel are great choices for a steak. Most often fish and shellfish taste best with a white. A somewhat tart white, like Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio or sparkling wine is a natural choice. Don’t you usually squeeze lemon juice on your seafood? It’s the same concept.
But, the most important thing to do is order a wine you like. If I suggest that you have red wine with your steak, it’s not good advice if you don’t like red wine. If you prefer white wine, you should order it and enjoy it.
Generally speaking, bold flavors call for bold (which usually means red) wine. Subtle flavors call for subtle (usually white) wine. The preparation is extremely influential. A simple sauté in butter doesn’t add nearly the flavor that grilling does. I usually prefer red wine with anything that’s grilled, and that can include a piece of fish. If the food is sauced, are the flavors in the sauce strong or subtle?
You can also think in terms of complement or contrast. If you have a rich, creamy pasta dish and pair it with a rich, buttery Chardonnay, you’ve made a complementary pairing. Some would love it and others would say it’s too much richness. Those people would probably prefer a tart Sauvignon Blanc with the cream sauce to create a contrasting pairing. Either one can be terrific.
Contrast usually works best for hot, spicy food. If you have hot Thai or Indian cuisine, fruity wine that’s low in alcohol and maybe even a little sweet makes a very refreshing contrast. Think Riesling, Gewurtztraminer, Chenin Blanc or even good ol’ White Zinfandel. Sparkling wine also works well. Most boldly flavored red wine is also relatively high in alcohol and, combined with the spicy food, can turn you into a fire-breathing dragon!
If you’re confident your server won’t just point you to the priciest wine on the list, he/she will probably be flattered if you ask for advice. “What are some of your favorite wine matches for this dish?” You shouldn’t worry about not seeming to “know it all”. No one does – there’s too much to know.
So, in a nutshell:
1. Bold food flavors (except for hot and spicy), full-bodied wineÂ
2. Subtle flavors, subtle wine
3. Complementary pairing (buttery sauce with buttery Chardonnay)
4. Contrasting pairing (buttery sauce with crisp, tart Sauvignon Blanc)
5. Careful with hot foods! Usually light, fruity wines taste best
6. Dessert: The wine should be at least as sweet as the dessert or it will taste sour
You might get a kick out of a fellow blogger’s thoughts on food and wine pairing. I don’t entirely agree with him - if you’re putting thought into your choice of foods, then why not put a little thought into your wine choice? But, it’s a fun read, and I like the spirit of the thing – just enjoy and don’t worry!
We have a little more information on our website.
I hope this helps and that you and your girlfriend have a wonderful evening! Thanks, again, for writing! Cheers! Nancy
Stone Fruits
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Fun Fact by Sherry Page, Culinary Getaways: Stone Fruits
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NVWR® 89 – Long Meadow Ranch
July 28, 2009 by David
Filed under Napa Valley Wine Radio
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In this episode, our good friend Sherry Page of Culinary Getaways visits Long Meadow Ranch, a beautiful place that takes a holistic approach to farming by producing organic fruits and vegetables, olive oil, grass-fed beef, wine and even fresh eggs. It was a windy day at the ranch, so please bear with us as you hear some rustling along with the birdsong and the hum of the tractor. Cheers!
Goosecross: Wine Trivia du Jour
A standard 60-gallon wine barrel holds:
a) 150 bottles
b) 300 bottles
c) 500 bottles
d) 1000 bottles
Whattaya think? Find out in our Wine Trivia Challenge!
And, did you know that up to 5% of the wine, aging in the barrels, is lost to evaporation, annually? Yup! It’s called the “Angel’s Share” 
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Learn more about barrel aging.
The grapes are changing color!
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Fun fact by Nancy Hawks Miller: The grapes are changing color!
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Refreshing Summer Whites
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Fun fact by Nancy Hawks Miller: Refreshing Summer Whites
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A Grape of a Different Color
Last time we checked in the grapes were still pretty small, but coming along nicely. By now, the’re about 2/3 their normal size and yesterday, an eagle-eyed guy on our tour noticed the first sign of veraison in our Cabernet! Hmph!! That’s my job…
What’s veraison? It’s the word we use to describe the color change. The green Cabernet grapes hanging out there now should be a gorgeous, nearly black shade of purple in a few weeks. Cabernet always reminds me of a small blueberry when it’s ripe. But, the transition is lovely. Take a gander.
It starts like this:
And soon it will look more like this:
Drop-dead gorgeous!
And, finally this:
Veraison is a significant stage in the viticultural cycle. It tells us that the vine’s energy has shifted from shoot development into fruit ripening. If you tasted one of the grapes today, it would taste like the most sour blade of grass you can imagine. But now, the hard, green berries will begin to soften as they turn color. The sugar will begin to rise as the acid decreases.
So, how are things going? Pretty darned good. Overall, the season has been very mild, so far. Aside from a short blast of heat in early May, another short one at the end of June and this past warmer-than-normal week it’s been decidedly on the cool side. But, I don’t think it’s slowed us up too much because the first signs of veraison in the middle of July is just about right.
The biggest thing we’ve attributed to the cool weather is rampant shoot growth. The vines are loving it – they want to be bushes this year! I can’t remember when I’ve done so much shoot and leaf thinning in the spring and early summer. But, it’s a blessing, given these few heat waves we’ve had. The leaves help protect the clusters against sunburn.
I’ve done a bit of cluster thinning, too, and may well need to do more once veraison is a little further along.
After it’s complete, I can figure that the sugar will increase by about 1/10 of a percent every day, so it’s a good time to get a baseline sugar reading. If it’s hot, it will rise faster and if it’s cool – then slower. But, it gives me a ballpark idea of when a particular section of vineyard is likely to land on my doorstep come harvest time.
All in all, we can’t complain. We’ll just hope the weather continues to cooperate and look forward to harvest starting around Labor Day, maybe a little earlier. Cheers!
A Year In The Vineyard
Managing a vineyard, like many of the most worthwhile things in life, is a labor of love. Before planting, the grower must make a thorough investigation of the soils and meso-climate1 on the site to determine what variety will perform best in that situation. He must select the various clones2 and rootstock hybrids3 to suit the inevitable variability of those factors throughout the property. He may decide to vary the vine spacing depending on the anticipated vine vigor, or lack of it, in different areas of the site.
After planting and training a new vineyard over a period of three to four years the grower is rewarded with his first small harvest. Once the vineyard is established, keeping the vines healthy is a year-round project. Surprisingly, the weather experienced in winter can have an influence on the timing, quantity and quality of the harvest to follow.
Winter
Grapevines are like roses in some respects. Once we have some frost in November they drop all of their leaves and go dormant for the winter. This rest is very important to vineyard health and performance in the following season. Like roses, the vines require severe winter pruning which will help to determine how many shoots and clusters will appear in the spring. Almost all of the growth from the previous season is pruned off, so that the vines will bear a small, intensely flavored crop.
If we have a long, cold winter, the vines “sleep in”, and come out of dormancy late. If the winter is mild, they’re likely to wake up (we call it “bud break”) early. Bud break is usually in the middle of March, but we’d much prefer that it be late than early. Early bud break increases the risk of frost damage. A beautiful, clear day in the late winter/early spring can turn into a freezing, cold night. The newly exposed, tender buds will be damaged if the temperature drops below 32° F. The risk lasts through about mid-May. This can lead to many nights of poor sleep for growers all over the valley. Geoff Gorsuch, our Winemaker, may have to get up in the middle of the night several times during these months, to protect the vines from frost using wind machines4 and smudge pots5. The upside of early bud-break is that it can translate into an early harvest and reduce our risk of rain damage on the other end. It all depends on the weather that follows.
Spring
Early spring brings the period we call “great growth” in the vineyard, because the new shoots grow like gang-busters. We sometimes imagine we can see them grow! This great growth creates a lot of work, including weed cultivation and suckering6 or shoot thinning. The suckering is done by hand, and is like a post-pruning. We prune during dormancy with the idea that we’ll get certain results, but inevitably, the vines do as they please, and require more of our attention. Once the shoots are a few inches long, Geoff can begin walking the vine rows to make sure they’re developing well and also to look for signs of disease or nutrient deficiencies. This continues throughout the growing season.
The buds flower and form clusters around mid-to-late May. We are fortunate that the flowers are self-pollinating, so we don’t have to worry about bees or wind to carry the pollen. We only worry about the weather. Too much rain, high winds or excess heat can impair pollination. Again, we are fortunate because most years we go for months without rain after the end of April. The weather is blessedly boring and predictable most years, and generally leads to good “fruit set.”7 Once the crop is set, we count the clusters. Of course, there’s nothing we can do about too few, but if we count more clusters than we believe the vines can ripen well, we drop the excess on the ground right then and there.
Summer
When the grapes first form, regardless of the variety, they look like tiny green beads. They’re not recommended for tasting at that point because they’re highly acidic. They plump and develop amazingly quickly. Usually, by mid-to-late July, they’re 2/3 their full size, and the dark varieties begin to soften and change color (we call this veraison). White varieties like Chardonnay go through a much more subtle color change, going from a bright, spring green to more of a yellow-green as they soften.
During this time, Geoff continues to walk the vineyard to make sure it’s healthy, and he monitors the leaf canopy and clusters to see if we need to do further shoot, leaf or crop thinning. He takes leaf samples to do a “petiole (the leaf stem) analysis”, which just means he’s checking for nutrient deficiencies.
Irrigation may be necessary a few times during the long, dry season, but Geoff prefers to keep it to the minimum. Too much irrigation or fertilization may take away from flavor intensity. He can test the vines in different parts of the vineyard to see if they’re becoming water-stressed and respond accordingly.
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Stags Leap District AVA
No one knows exactly how long the Stags Leap area has been known as such, but the best loved and oft-repeated story is that the regional name grew out of an old Wappo Indian legend that an enormous stag once eluded hunters by leaping from one of the area’s craggy mountain peaks to another. In any case the name stuck and the region received well-deserved official recognition as an AVA (American Viticultural Area) in 1989.
Wine grapes have been grown in what is now the Stags Leap District AVA since the mid-1800s and the district’s first producer, Occidental Winery, was established in 1878, on land that is now home to Regusci Winery. The first winery to be called Stags Leap was built in 1893 and, remarkably, was producing over 40,000 cases by 1895. The first set back came with the phylloxera problem beginning around the late 1880s. Early in the new century the death blow was dealt as the states began to go dry, one-by-one, in anticipation of prohibition and vineyards were gradually converted to orchards.
Award-winning wines
Nathan Fay is an important name in the region because he was at the forefront of a rebirth, planting the first Cabernet there in 1961. Of course, Cabernet is king in Stags Leap these days. When Warren Winiarski tasted Fay’s home-made wine, he knew he’d found the right location for his winery and built Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars right next door. He later went on to acquire the Fay vineyard. He amazed himself and the wine-world when his 1973 Cabernet took first place over some formidable first growths of Bordeaux in the famous “Judgment of Paris” tasting in 1976. This was a turning point in the marketing of Napa Valley wines. In a rematch, thirty years later, both the 1973 Stag’s Leap wine Cellars Cabernet and another wine of the region, the 1972 Clos du Val Cabernet, came in 2nd and 5th respectively, ahead of their French counterparts.
Location
The Stags Leap District is on the east side of the valley about five miles north of the town of Napa, bisected by the Silverado Trail. The region is enclosed by the rugged palisades on the east side and rolling hills and the Napa River on the west. It’s sometimes called a valley within a valley at about one mile wide and three miles long. The region is 2700 acres, about half of it planted to grapes. The Yountville AVA wraps around the western side of the region and the Oak Knoll District is close by.
Soil
Like other regions in the Vaca range, which forms the eastern boundary of Napa Valley, volcanic soil plays a huge role. Two main soil types dominate the Stags Leap district. The eastern palisades contain a good deal of bare volcanic rock, unsuitable for planting, but as you move down-slope there’s a mixture of coarse, extremely well-drained gravel over volcanic bedrock.
The narrow floor of the “valley within a valley” has only few feet of loose topsoil. It was once a pathway for a much broader Napa River and old river sediments have created a remarkable blend of fine-particle loams and gravelly loams over a hard, clay-like substructure that prevents the vine roots from penetration. According to Dr. Deborah Elliot-Fisk of UC Davis, the shallow soil “limits the vigor of the vines so the canopy is smaller and (therefore) the fruit crop produces lower tonnage and increases flavor intensity.”
Syrah
Common synonyms: Shiraz, Sirah, Syra, Schiras, Sirac, Syrac, Petite Syras
Syrah is one of the oldest varieties we know. Just think – Julius Caesar may well have enjoyed a glass of Syrah just as much as we do today.
There’s some confusion about the name. There was a time when many believed that Syrah came from ancient Persia, so they named the grape for its capitol, Shiraz. Now, DNA fingerprinting indicates that it’s the offspring of a couple of very ancient varieties of southeast France called Dureza and Mondeuse Blanche. It made its home in the Rhone Valley before becoming a world traveler. So, Syrah and Shiraz are two different names for the same grape.
Not so, with Syrah and Petite Sirah. They are each their own entities, although Syrah has recently been identified as a parent of Petite Sirah along with a relatively obscure grape from southern France called Peloursin. With such longstanding confusion about its identity Petite Sirah was looked upon as kind of a lesser step-child of Syrah, but has gained respect and popularity in recent years, almost exclusively in the new world.
All wine grapes express themselves a little differently, depending upon where they come from, but Syrah seems to be more of a chameleon than most. The classic descriptions include a relatively big wine with great pigment, and a meaty, smoky character and peppery spice along with the black fruit. If you treat yourself to a glass of Syrah from the Northern Rhone and compare it to an Australian Shiraz you’ll notice a marked difference in flavor profiles. That’s soil and climate at work, of course. In our own experience at Goosecross, we’ve made Syrah that was grown on the South Coast that had a lot of meaty Rhone-like character and also from here in the Napa Valley, where it makes a much more fruit-driven wine – two different, but equally delightful styles.
Syrah from the northern Rhone tends to be nearly 100%, although it’s common to blend in a little Viognier for aromatics and to help fix the pigment. But, Syrah takes well to blending and, in the southern Rhone, it’s a player in what can be a rather large ensemble. In Chateauneuf du Pape, they’re allowed to blend as many as 13 varieties together! The Australians make pure Shiraz and have come up with a variety of popular Syrah blends. Here in California you’ll find varietal (minimum of 75% Syrah) representations and Rhone-style blends.
It’s an easy variety to grow, with good vigor and disease resistance. It’s late to bud in the spring, decreasing the chance of frost damage and not too late to ripen, so most years it comes in before the rain. It’s adaptable and can grow in various conditions but it needs a good amount of heat to fully ripen. This explains why some of the most famous Syrah of France comes from the Cote Rotie, which literally means the “roasted slope”, and also why you’ll find very nice Syrah from many different regions here in sunny California.
Syrah can be very long-lived and, when serving a young one, decanting is a good idea. It’s usually a substantial wine, so it pairs well with hearty foods, like grilled steak or sausages. True to its origin, it’s a natural with Mediterranean cuisine – wild mushrooms, garlic, olives, lots of herbs and olive oil. The slight gamey character and hint of smoke make a very good partner for venison and game birds. Aged, dry cheeses are the best match for Syrah. You can find delicious recipes to pair with Syrah or any other variety in Colleen’s Kitchen.
