Wine study weeks three

What is a good wine pairing?

Somehow found myself behind with the blog. The last week of wine study was less intense, than previous two. We had a quiz on Monday about European countries we had learned during week two and the final exam on Friday. The final was easy, as it was an open book exam. There were a couple of crazy questions, but it was not so bad.

On Monday we had a food pairing exercise in class when we were given six wines, bean soup puree (quite basic), and a tray with 25 different food items (cheese, bacon, pork, herbs, sour cream, and so on). The idea was to find best adds on to the soup, to improve it taste when you try it with wine.

On Tuesday, as a part of the class we had a lunch at the school restaurant with wine tasting. For each course (appetiser, main, and dessert) we had three different wines. The idea was to taste food with wine and find out which one is the best choice for the food item. Then we had to write a paper
explaining why the certain wine is the best choice and also we had to provide our suggestions for the wine pairing. We had to come up with one red and one white for each course. Our suggestion had to be specific. It was not enough just to say Merlot. We had to be specific about grape, producer, and year. The wine tasting journal I kept during class was a huge help.

During the lunch the most memorable for me was dessert. We had slow baked chocolate mousse and for the wines we had Cabernet Sauvignon, Tawny Port, and Tokay. I was not impressed by Cab. Port was alright, but nothing outstanding. The Tokay was sensational. It was really sweet by itself. Chocolate mousse was probably too rich. But together it was a perfect combination. There was not too much sweetness in Tokay and the richness of the mousse was leveled with Tokay. It was really great combination. Some people however preferred Port.

What I learned is that good wine pairing is when food and wine complement each other and improve taste of each other. If the taste of food only (or wine only) is improved, then the pairing is not good. All traditional recommendations are just a guideline. For example white wine only with fish. You may find a good red one to pair with fish. It should not be high in tannin (fish will taste metallic) and overwhelming. However it could be a good match for red wine and fish.