My wife made a very pedestrian, yet delicious bean and bacon risotto the other evening (if you follow the link to her post, you can get the recipe). We were a bit skeptical about how it would work, but it turned out divine. Yet, when you pick up a little fat and extra juice from the bacon, you wonder "is there any wine that will go with that?"
The wine needed to be nice, but not overpowering, and this was a situation where many of the wines I would otherwise choose, would fit in that category - they would have dominating and minimized the risotto. I needed to open a red wine to be used in the cooking process, and figured that the wine I choose would have to work for that (pretty much most wines - even ones well past there peak do!) and for serving with the risotto.
The 2006 Gabbiano Riserva was a great match and the blending of the food and wine were perfectly balanced.
Wine Texture is a big part of of how I perceive how good a wine is, especially when served with food.
A wine can range from tepid (usually a very old wine or a poorly made wine in the first place with poor grape selection) to smooth (like some beautifully aged Pinot Noirs or Cabernet Savignons) to having a bit of friction on your cheeks (usually from the tannins in a wine built to last a long time, but where the tannins are not completely integrated yet), to gritty (where the tannins are big and far from integrated). A good example of a superb, yet 'gritty' wine was the 2006 Seppelts we had with lasagna. Both the food and wine were gritty and matched beautifully. I needed to accomplish the same with matching a wine to the bean and bacon risotto.
I needed a wine for the bean and bacon risotto which was smooth, yet still possessed some character and fruitiness, and would still compliment the bit of fat and extra juice. The 2006 Gabbiano Riserva was a perfect match. Like Goldilock's, "not too big and not two small, but just right!"
No comments:
Post a Comment