I guess sometimes I just get too close to it- it being the “food and wine” pairing think. Let me explain…

In crafting the menu for a meal I was going to be speaking at this past week, the chef was very deferential to my thinking and took the offered direction quite well. I was personally delighted that he was so accommodating because the wines, in my opinion, had very idiosyncratic personalities and required a food think that would allow them to shine in context but would also not stifle the creativity of the chef and not make him feel as if his own opinions on matching wine and food together hadn’t been given ample consideration. He came through with a mutually agreed menu and we went to print.

Dinner was great. The participants, about 50, were very complimentary about the pairings and many pulled me aside to discuss their personal favorites. While the opinions varied between which duets worked best, there was a consensus among several that the match of the evening was a bottling of 2004 Merlot, Wild Oak by St. Francis, with a velvety risotto with a mushroom jus, a touch of dairy for texture and of course, a medley of brown mushrooms and fresh herbs. Mushrooms and Merlot, despite the accusations of the umami police, tend be very good together and, in my opinion, are generally a ‘safe and predictable’ match. Merlot has an inherent earthiness to it which pairs nicely with the naturally ‘foresty’ flavors of so many brown mushrooms and the lightly herbal nature of the varietal echoes well with the fresh herbs that often, as they did in this case, accompany the culinary preparation. Add rich texture from the risotto, velveted up with the addition of a little cream, match the weight and texture of the wine and you have an easy and comfortable partnering at table. Plus the Merlot’s naturally sharper acidity cut the dish’s richness while the softer tannins did not confuse nor stand out.

I was frankly surprised when so many, including the chef himself, confessed that they were very skeptical that the match would work and were so pleasantly surprised that it did and that it had been their preferred pairing of the meal. Was it the best match of the evening? That’s of course subjective from person to person but I truly believe that when something you don’t expect or anticipate surprises you, from a food and wine matching standpoint, it gets ‘extra points’ for clearing the ‘edginess’ hurdle of your mouth, heart and intellect. And for me it was so obvious that I was more concerned about ensuring that the gorgeously ripe peaches in the dessert didn’t overshadow the dessert bubbly we were serving with it. Go figure.

Sometimes our brain tries to override our mouth. That’s to be expected as we have built in prejudices that stem from a myriad of sources. It’s when those preconceived ideas get challenged and overridden that the truly unexpected takes over.

Any food and wine pairings that you didn’t anticipate challenge YOUR conventional thinking?