What wine goes with this dish? What dish goes with this wine? We're asked those questions all the time. We recently had an experience that might help answer them.
Our story starts a few years ago, when we were in Napa for a quick trip, staying at a small hotel in Rutherford. After we had dropped our luggage in our room, our noses led us to a pretty, little restaurant attached to the hotel. It was early afternoon and the restaurant was closed, but there was a buzz at the bar. There, with about a dozen bottles of wine and several plates of food before them, were the restaurant's staffers, including the chef and the sommelier. We asked what they were doing and they said they were trying to pair wines with foods that would become the next week's wine-pairing menu.
We asked for a reservation for that night, and they looked at us as if we were crazy. We didn't know then that the restaurant, La Toque, was pretty famous and reservations were hard to come by. We vowed to return, and we finally did during our recent trip to Napa and Sonoma. Arriving anonymously with Media and Zoe, we found a prix fixe menu for $85. For an extra $45, which turned out to be a bargain, they'll pour the wine they've selected for each dish. The menu changes every Wednesday.
Elevated Tastes
We believe that great pairing of wine and food is what elevates fine restaurant dining from delicious to truly memorable. As more top American restaurants present tasting menus, we always find it fun to tell the sommelier to match each course with a different wine - 'and be bold.' We set a price limit and then sit back and enjoy being surprised. Sometimes the staff sees this as a fun mission - such as at New York's Gramercy Tavern, Chicago's Charlie Trotter's and Yountville's French Laundry, where we've had meals we'll always remember because of the pairings. But other times, even at expensive and famous restaurants such as Daniel in New York, the staff approaches this with a lack of passion, and we quickly forget the food and the wine.
At La Toque, things were different because so much thought had been put into the pairings before we sat down. The matches were inspired and some were downright risky, such as Gary Farrell Pinot Noir and monkfish with red-wine sauce, fava beans and white asparagus. Pinot with monkfish? Monkfish and red-wine sauce? White asparagus with red wine? Hard to believe, but it worked. After floating back to our hotel, it occurred to us the people who created such magic could probably give us some tips about pairing our own meals to wine. So we called chef and owner Ken Frank and his sommelier, Scott Tracy.
'A little growth happens every Wednesday,' Mr. Frank told us. 'Sometimes we're matching the wine to the meat or matching to the sauce. Sometimes we'll make a match that works with parts of a dish. Sometimes one works with the whole thing and it just sings. Sometimes the wine brings out the best in the dish. Sometimes a wine and a food bring out the best in each other. Sometimes there are parallel tones and they're in perfect harmony.'
One recent pairing that pleased Mr. Tracy was sashimi of dayboat scallop with Japanese vegetable salad, paired with a dry Alsatian Riesling. Why? 'I wanted some fruit here to balance the pickled vegetables and a bit of weight for the spice, and I knew it needed to finish dry to cut the sauce cleanly,' he says.
Both men are quick to say that this is poetry, not science, and that it's all about finding what works through trial and error. Still, in a series of interviews with Mr. Frank and Mr. Tracy, here are some lessons we gleaned from what they told us:
1. Start with what you know and grow from there. Trust your palate. Just like cooking - and wine - common sense and experience are what count.
2. Show no fear; experiment. When in doubt, pop the cork and try a new wine. Never stop exploring. A couple of weeks ago, La Toque offered seared rare yellowfin tuna on a marmalade of red onion and portobello mushroom. Before going on to the next paragraph, close your eyes and think about what wine you'd serve that with.
No, wait, take another minute. OK, now.
La Toque served it with a Sangiovese - the earthy Italian varietal with a core of upfront fruit - from Washington. 'It was just fabulous,' Mr. Frank says. The Sangiovese, Mr. Tracy says, 'has a beautiful, cherry note with leathery tones and it worked well with the mushroom and the sweetness of the onions. Sangiovese works well with beans as well. It has a great affinity for certain dishes like beans and herbs.' If you remember that Sangiovese is what makes Chianti in Italy, you can begin to appreciate this context, and almost taste the combination.
3. Open the wine while you're cooking and taste it. It might inspire you.
4. Generally speaking, the more oak in a wine, the less versatile it is with food. The sommelier asks: Sweet butterscotch and vanilla are great flavors, but are you having popcorn and ice cream for dinner tonight? That said, for those members of the ABC (Anything But Chardonnay) Club who think no big California Chardonnay ever pairs well with food, Mr. Frank gives an example of a pairing that sang: 'A rich, buttery, toasted oak, typical big California Chardonnay with Alaskan halibut with a toasted leek beurre blanc sauce, sauteed corn and chanterelle mushrooms.'
5. Sauces are a lost art in most kitchens. They're a bridge between wine and food, and they are as important to the wine as they are to the main ingredient.
6. Have Pinot Noir and Cabernet Franc handy. They're so versatile. Of course, there's California Pinot Noir and Oregon Pinot Noir and Burgundy made from Pinot Noir, not to mention Cabernet Franc from all over the world. And they're all different. But that's what's fun about this - you never can be sure. You need to experiment to get this right for you. La Toque pairs American Pinot Noir with fresh corn polenta with seared foie gras and chanterelles, for instance, because 'the sweet corn with the rich, savory seared foie gras and sautéed chanterelles may be the perfect complement to soft, forward Pinot Noir,' Mr. Frank says. 'But paired with a more traditional-style red Burgundy, the sweetness of the corn overpowers the wine and can almost make it taste sour.
'With Burgundy,' he says, 'the fruit is less lush and berrylike, and there's often a little funk that I find very sexy in the right amount at the right time.' Mr. Frank often serves that with his 'Forager's Salad,' which he says 'evolves through the year with either root vegetables in winter or beans in summer, wild mushrooms of the season, duck or pork confit and sometimes foie gras and fresh truffles.' Why? 'The natural slight sweetness of the vegetables, the earthy mushrooms and pork or duck flavors bring out all that is good about red Burgundy.'
7. Finally, the more willing you are to try new wines, the more opportunities you have to try a different pairing. Gruner Veltliner is a weighty white wine that's a specialty of Austria. It's not widely available everywhere yet, but be on the lookout for it because it's quite tasty and different. Mr. Frank created a skate dish with pea curry sauce that he describes as 'a very unusual dish, and hard to pair.' Sure sounds like it. 'If you try to match to the pea flavor, the curry throws you a curve,' he says. 'So after trying at least four or five wines, even Scott was scratching his head. And then the Gruner Veltliner light went on! It was like bingo on the first sip. It handled the minerally vegetable tones of the peas and the exotic aromatic quality that hooked up with the curry. We were saved.'
Mr. Tracy adds: 'We had the winner and it was instant. People would never think of ordering it. But it's pairings like that that turn the lights on.'
Dorothy J. Gaiter / John Brecher
编者按：喜欢葡萄酒的中国人越来越多，既为它有益健康的一面，也为每种酒所带来的不同人生体验。《华尔街日报》中文网将陆续翻译刊登美国著名葡萄酒专栏作家Dorothy J. Gaiter和 John Brecher的《葡萄酒指南》。
哪
种葡萄酒适合配这道菜？什么菜适合搭这种葡萄酒？人们总是向我们提出诸如此类的问题。我们近期的一段经历也许有助于解答这类疑问。故事缘起于几年前，我们去著名葡萄酒产地加州纳帕山谷(Napa)做短途旅行，住在Rutherford的一家小宾馆。把行李放在房间后，我们一路闻香，来到酒店旁的一个小餐厅。当时正值午后，餐厅没有营业，但吧台那儿却热闹非凡。包括主厨和酒侍在内的餐馆工作人员都聚在一起，面前摆放着十几瓶葡萄酒和几碟菜。我们上前询问，他们说正在研究葡萄酒和菜肴的亲和度，准备下周的美酒美食搭配菜单。
我们提出要预订当天的晚餐，他们直勾勾地盯着我们，彷佛看到一群疯子。当时我们并不知道，这家名叫La Toque的餐厅非常有名，很难订到位子。我们暗下决心，有机会一定要再来一次，不久前再度去纳帕山谷和索诺玛(Sonoma)时终于如愿以偿。我们和梅蒂亚(Media)和佐伊(Zoe)一道造访那家餐厅，在菜单上找到一份85美元的套餐，只要多加45美元（事后证明这个价钱太值了），他们就会为每一道菜倒上与之相匹配的葡萄酒，套餐的菜品每周三都有所改变。
提升品味
我们相信，如果葡萄酒和菜肴搭配得当，在一家不错的餐馆用餐的感受就会从好吃提升到难忘。在美国，越来越多的顶级餐厅推出品味菜单，我们总是乐此不疲地让酒侍给每道菜倒上不同的葡萄酒，并让他们“大胆尝试”。我们给选用葡萄酒的价格定个上限，然后就往椅背上一靠，享受美酒与美食的搭配给我们带来的惊讶。一些餐厅觉得这种做法很有趣，比如纽约的Gramercy Tavern，芝加哥的Charlie Trotter's和扬特维尔(Yountville)的French Laundry，那里的酒食搭配总让我们记忆犹新。但在其他餐厅，即使是一些名声在外且价格昂贵的餐厅，比如纽约的Daniel，服务生对这种做法却没啥兴趣，我们也很快就忘掉了那里的食物和葡萄酒。
在La Toque餐厅的感受截然不同，因为在我们坐下用餐前，他们就已经精心设计好美酒佳肴的搭配方式。有些搭配是神来之笔，有些则很有冒险精神，比如法雷尔酒厂(Gary Farrell)的黑品乐(Pinot Noir)红葡萄酒与“蚕豆白芦笋红酒酱安康鱼”的组合。黑品乐配安康鱼？安康鱼加红酒酱？白芦笋搭配红酒？难以置信，但真的很棒。晕晕乎乎地回到酒店后，我们突然想到，打造这一魔幻组合的人也许能给我们提供一些美酒美食的搭配小窍门。就这样，我们给餐厅老板兼主厨肯•弗兰克(Ken Frank)及其酒侍斯考特•特雷西(Scott Tracy)打了个电话。
“每个周三，我们的菜单都会发生一点变化。”弗兰克向我们介绍说，“有时我们用葡萄酒搭配肉食，有时用葡萄酒搭配酱汁，有时让酒去配菜肴的一部分，有时让酒去配整道菜肴；简直妙不可言。在某些情况下，葡萄酒能凸现出菜肴的精华，有时则相互烘托，有时两者琴瑟相合，达到一种完美的和谐。”
最近让特雷西感到愉悦的一款搭配是“日式蔬菜沙拉扇贝生鱼片”跟亚尔沙斯区薏丝琳干白(Alsatian Riesling)的组合。为什么呢？特雷西说，我想用一些果味来平衡腌菜中稍重的味道，我知道得用干白来搭配，在菜肴浓郁的酱汁之中给人以清新口感。
弗兰克和特蕾西都坦言，美酒美食的搭配就像做诗一样，不是一门严谨的科学，而要通过不断的尝试和失败来寻找最佳的组合方式。尽管如此，在与弗兰克和特雷西的一系列交谈中，我们总结了如下一些要点：
1、从自己熟悉的开始尝试。相信自己的感觉，选酒和烹饪一样，常识和经验才是最关键的。
2、不要害怕，多试几次。如果无法确定一款搭配是否合适，不妨换种新的葡萄酒试试，永远不要停止探索。几周前，La Toque餐厅推出一道菜，“红洋葱褐蘑菇微醺黄鳍金枪鱼”。在看下一段之前，先闭上你的眼睛，想想自己会选什么葡萄酒与之搭配。
不，等一等，再想一分钟。好了，往下看吧。
La Toque餐厅选的是从华盛顿运来的一款朴实无华、果香味浓郁的意大利红葡萄酒桑娇维赛(Sangiovese)。弗兰克说，感觉简直太棒了。特雷西说，桑娇维赛有一种黑樱桃的气息，强劲坚实，与蘑菇和洋葱的甜味非常相配，跟豆子也很搭。桑娇维赛与豆类和香草有一种天生的亲和力。桑娇维赛葡萄是用来酿造产自托斯卡纳区的勤地酒(Chianti)的主要酿酒葡萄，了解这一点，你就能开始体会其特点所在，并几乎能亲身感受到桑娇维赛与那道菜的美妙融合。
3、在家做菜的时候不妨打开一瓶葡萄酒品尝一下，说不定能给你带来灵感。
4、通常而言，一种葡萄酒里的橡木味越重，与菜肴搭配的多样性就越低。虽然橡木味是葡萄酒的一种独特风味，但并不适宜与菜肴搭配。这好有一比：奶油和香草的味道都很好，但你用晚餐时会选择爆米花和冰激淋做主食吗？ABC俱乐部(Anything But Chardonnay，即认为霞多丽葡萄酒太过泛滥的人)认为，好的加州霞多丽葡萄酒根本没办法配任何菜肴。对此，法兰克给出一个绝妙的搭配：大品牌的加州霞多丽葡萄酒口感浓郁，呈明亮的柠檬黄，拥有完整的橡木味，配上“白奶油沙司嫩烤玉米鸡油菌阿拉斯加大比目鱼”这道菜是最好不过了。
5、在大多数的烹饪过程中，调制酱汁是一门失传的艺术。酱汁是沟通葡萄酒和菜肴的一架桥梁，不但对食材主料的发挥很重要，对葡萄酒的选择也有很大的影响。
6、家中不妨常备黑品乐和品丽珠(Cabernet Franc)葡萄酒，它们适合各种场合。当然，黑品乐有加州的，俄勒冈的，还有法国勃艮第(Burgundi)黑品乐；品丽珠就更不用提了，产地遍及世界各地。而且，不同产地的黑品乐风格不一，但这也是乐趣所在，因为你永远说不准下一瓶会是什么味道，必须多尝试才能找到自己喜欢的品种。举例而言，La Toque餐厅将产自美国的黑品乐葡萄酒与“干煎肥鹅肝鸡油菌及玉米粥”搭配，因为“玉米的微甜以及干煎肥鹅肝鸡油菌的丰腴恰好与黑品乐细致平滑的口感相得益彰”，弗兰克说，“但如果这道菜搭配传统风格浓厚一些的勃艮第黑品乐，红酒的风味会被玉米的甜度掩盖住，品起来有些发酸。”
“勃艮第黑品乐的果香不那么浓郁，如果保存时间理想，饮用适量，勃艮第黑品乐的口感往往强劲有力，让人感觉很性感。”弗兰克说。他经常用这款酒配“掠夺者沙拉”(Forager's Salad)，这道菜“历经多年的改良演变，冬天可以用马铃薯、胡萝卜等根用蔬菜，夏天可以用豆类，外加时令野生蘑菇，配上脆皮鸭肉或猪肉，有时选用鹅肝和新鲜块菌。”为何如此搭配？“因为蔬菜的天然气息和微甜、野生蘑菇以及猪肉或鸭肉的风味能激发出勃艮第黑品乐红酒的精华所在。”
7、最后一点，你越愿意尝试新的葡萄酒，就越有机会体验新的酒食搭配方式。格联纳威特林那(GrunerVeltliner)是一款口感厚重的奥地利著名葡萄酒，目前还未在全球广泛供应，但由于口味上佳，特点鲜明，很多人都在找这款酒。弗兰克发明了一道用豌豆咖喱酱的冷盘，以他自己的说法，这道菜“非常独特，很难找到葡萄酒与之搭配” 。事实也确实如此。“如果你想匹配豌豆的气息，就很难兼顾咖喱的味道，”他说，“我们尝试了至少四五种葡萄酒，但都不行，连斯考特都开始挠头了。最后我们灵机一动，选了格联纳威特林那葡萄酒，喝上第一口，就发现这简直是天作之合，它兼顾到了蔬菜的天然气息以及咖喱特有的异香，我们得救了。”
特雷西补充说：“我们找到了一对绝配，人们根本想不到这样的组合，而正是这类灵光乍现的选择，给我们带来无尽的享受。”
Dorothy J. Gaiter / John Brecher
