When last I blogged , I began discussing piece by piece what a wine geek might look for when looking at a wine menu. I chose a Pittsburgh Restaurant, the Sonoma Grille, as my sample restauarant and wine list, and in Episode I, we picked a sparkling wine to start with, NV Iron Horse Brut “Russian River Cuvee”.
Then, I forgetting that I am not Superman and also forgetting that I am no longer athletic, decided to play two-hand tab football with some younger relatives. I was awesome on the first drive. The second drive, not so good. After landing directly on my shoulder after attempting to make a Deion Sanders-esque interception, I have now announced my retirement. And I don’t mean in that “The Who” kind of way. I mean for good. I felt like Superman in that Lex Luther’s swimming pool with the Kryptonite chained to me. For about a week. My flag football career is over because I have only in about the past 24 hours regained the ability to move my left arm and hence type. (Not so ironically, this coincides with the release of EA Sports College Football 2008.)
Back to the meal and menu. Okay, so we’re sipping on some Iron Horse Bubbly and now we have to look at the appetizers/first courses and then start thinking about the white we will order. Let’s look at the apps (http://www.thesonomagrille.com/DinnerMenu1.php?SECT=3)
[Disclaimer again: I have no affiliation with the Sonoma Grille. I know one of the bartenders vaguely that's about it.]
I’m going to purposefully order a variety of things so that this isn’t to easy. (If you read part 1, there are four of us dining.)
My date and I are going to get the Tapas for two. One guest is going to order the Serrano Wrapped Diver Sea Scallops, and our other guest is a vegetarian and will be getting the wild mushroom and goat cheese strudel.
Okay let’s start determining what we might be looking for in a wine by looking aty the important elements in the dishes:
Tapas for two:
Shrimp Tempura, Asian slaw, scarlet orange and apricot chutney: Normally with most breaded or deep fried things, I drink something with bubbles, either sparkling wine or beer. Our Iron Horse will continue nicely with this, but if we’re going to drink a “still” white wine the slaw, orange, apricot combo leads us to something with sweetness – not necessarily sugar – but ripe fruitiness, spice and sour. This is a complex dish that needs a complex wine, not to full-bodied, but with a lot of character and probably a good dose of acidity to cleanse the palate just like the bubbles would.
Veal cheek and black truffle ravioli, roasted shallot cream, black pepper demi-glace: The truffle and veal cheek are going to be very earthy, the shallot cream sweet, the demi-glass spicy. Again sweet and spicy, and now a wine with some earthy flavors would probably be a good idea as well.
Ahi tartare, sushi roll, white truffle and wasabi mayonnaise, fried lotus root, Tobiko caviar: Spicy. Truffle again – earthy. Tuna is fatty, and the best thing for fatty foods is to use the counterpoint of acidity.
Sesame fried calamari, yuzu and roasted poblano remoulade: FRIED needs bubbles or acidity as we’ve already covered. Poblanos are a type of pepper of course, not real biting, but a little sweet and a little spicy.
And…
Serrano Wrapped Diver Sea Scallops: The Scallops have a fatty texture like the tuna + the spiciness of the serrano ham.
Wild Mushroom and Goat Cheese Strudel: The mushrooms, like truffle, are earthy. We’ll go back to the goat cheese.
Okay so we need a wine that is palate-cleansing; it will cut through fatty fish or greasy fried foods; it should match the spiciness of our foods, be earthy and ripe with good acidity.
In the next post, we’re going to start crossing off white wines from the list until we get a few possible choices for our white wine..
