Salut/Hi Vincent,
le/on Tue, 05 Oct 2004 03:54:07 GMT, tu disais/you said:-
>"Mike Tommasi" wrote in message
>
>> Cheese is about as broad a category as wine. Be aware that 99% of red
>> wine and cheese matches would be improved by using white wine instead.
>> Most cheese do not go well with red wine.
>
>What is the cheese that would be in the remaining 1%?
I've answered these questions in my comment on Dale's article.
>What is the best cheese for red wine?
>If too broad, what is the best cheese for Bordeaux?
>If still too broad, what is the best cheese for 1995 Ducru Beaucaillou?
>(that question is not meant to be silly, though sounds like it. Is it?)
A little bit!! Though I did once hear "the world's best sommelier 1999", I
think, it was, claim that THE perfect cheese for the Szepsy 1991 6 putts was
a Bleu des Causses made by the cheesery "Beulet". I think that's pretty
pretentious, but then I don't have either his palate nor his breadth of
tasting experience..
I guess that if you were to see "perfect" matches, you would probably
parallel increasing limitation of the wine with increasing precision of
cheese.
Thus.
Red wine <> hard cheese (HUGE but reasonably valid geralisation)
Northern Red Rhone <> Parmesan style
Crozes Hermitage <> 2 year old Parmigiano-Reggiano
Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle 1962 <> A specific Stravecchione Parmigiani
Reggiano.
But to be able to make that kind of precision, you would need either to have
specialised for years, or to have stumbled on it by complete luck, I guess.
>> have to go back to a lighter wine, serve a salad or something to
>> cleanse palate. Put dry wines before sweet ones.
>
>Since I began enjoying wine with food regularly, it seems that salad
>sometimes ruins the enjoyment I get from subsequent courses.
Agreed!! Unless you take GREAT care over it. I find (with apologies to my US
based friends here) that the habit of serving a composed salad at the
beginning of a meal, dressed with a sweetish creamyish dressing, so common
in US restaurants, to be as unfriendly to the natural evolution of a meal,
as is the french habit of serving foie gras with a sweet wine right at the
beginning of the meal.
> Somebody suggested that it's the vinegar in the dressing, and I have since stopped
>having salad (when dining out). Don't most salads have vinegar-based
>dressings? Would I be considered "correct" in avoiding them?
Correct shmorrect.
You have what your palate tells you works for you and stuff the idea of
"correctness".
More seriously, and to come to the heart of your question, yes, the vinegar
in most vinaigrette (french dressing) sauces as served with salads acts as
the kiss of death to wine. But mayonnaise is scarcely better - even if I
prefer it! - as it contains egg, which don't match wines well, AND vinegar,
usually. When we make vinaigrette here, for a salad either to accompany or
follow a meat course, which is how we prefer our salads, Jacquie has
developed a recipe which uses little or _no_ ordinary wine vinegar. She uses
quite a lot of proper french mustard (I believe you CAN find stuff that's
edible in the States, though try to avoid the brownish mass produced
products), a little walnut oil (crafstman produced, and VERY strong) quite a
lot more of neutral oil, a slurp or two of moderate quality balsamic
vinegar, (you don't need the $60/100 mls stuff here) and then if the
dressing needs sharpening, a bit of white wine or lemon juice. Salt &
pepper, conclude the vinaigrette, but she'll have rubbed the salad bowl with
a cut clove of garlic first.
But of course that doesn't solve the problem of salads when eating out. If
at a very good restaurant, I think I'd be tempted to engage the waiter in
some dialogue here. What kind of acid ingredients are used in the dressing?
Is there any vinegar? What kind? So go and ask please. In other words, make
it clear that you are aware and concerned about the match with the wine. In
your local Red Lob, avoid salad or ask for it undressed. What _I_ find
difficult is to persuade the waitperson to leave the salad on the table till
after I've eaten my meat, so I can have it when I want it.
--
All the Best
Ian Hoare
http://www.souvigne.com
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