The Mentalist of the Menu

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

We live in a confessional era. And so, in the spirit of the age, I should tell you that I once loved pepperoni pizza with Asti Spumante. Granted, this was in my formative wine years, which, like my hair, are now long gone. But I thought you should know.

The reason I mention this is because I am frequently importuned for advice — and sometimes magazine articles — about matching food and wine.

Now, you’re probably thinking — quite reasonably — that a fellow who once thought that the frothy sweetness of Asti Spumante was splendid with pepperoni pizza is hardly an ideal arbiter in matters of food and wine.

So you might well choose to dismiss what I’m about to say: I don’t believe in spending much time or energy pondering the pairing of food and wine. I say this as a former food writer who’s banged out one cookbook (about Piedmontese cuisine) and six books about wine.

As best as I know, I am alone among my winewriting colleagues in my belief that this business about “marrying” — which is the preferred term — the just-so wine with the just-right dish is just so much eyewash.

So why do my colleagues persist in what is either an intimidating exercise in culinary pretension or a pursuit of wine geek persnicketyness — or both? For starters, there’s money in it.

Just last week I received a call from a man who took a wine tasting class I taught more than 20 years ago. I had not heard from him since. Yet he was so stricken with wine doubt that he felt compelled to call, reintroduce himself, and ask — I swear this is true — what he should serve with the Loire chenin blanc called Clos de la Coulée de Serrant.

Now, I already knew the answer. But our supplicant was in distress. After a suitable pause pretending to consider the illimitable possibilities, I declared, “You should serve smoked trout with a horseradish mayonnaise.”He blubbered his thanks, so gratifyingly exact was my prescription. He vowed to take more wine classes.

In the magic business, especially in the field of mentalism or mind-reading, this is known as “working strong.” The air of authority is everything.

For instance, if you said to me, “I’m serving Vietnamese spring rolls tonight. What’s the best wine for this dish?” you’d be disappointed — dismayed even — if I told you to serve a chardonnay.After all, you already know about chardonnay. Anybody could choose that.

So instead, I rummage around for something that you’ve probably never heard of or tasted.So I suggest — nay, insist — that grüner veltliner is the ideal dry white wine for Vietnamese spring rolls. Does the pairing work? Sure it does. So too does dry riesling, arneis, pinot grigio, and about two dozen other dry white wines.

But you’re impressed.Who knew from grüner veltliner? You look at me with respect. I’m a mentalist of the menu, a priest of the palate, a shaman of the senses. You feel the need to return for my services. In short, I’m golden.

This, I submit, is the calculation behind the mysterious synergy of food and wine. It’s the stock in trade of sommeliers in high-end restaurants.You’re presented with some wacko dish — halibut topped with cappuccino foam on a bed of huckleberry jus — and you’re baffled. What wine goes with this?

The sommelier-shaman is, of course, at the religious ready to confirm that yes, this is a serious business. After a contemplative frown, as if calling upon the gods for divine inspiration, the sommelier concludes that a Hautes Côtes de Nuits blanc would be ideal, adding, with a swirl of intellectual incense, that you want the 2003 vintage because its richness — “It was an unusually warm year” — will balance “the torrefaction of the cappuccino foam.”

So what do I really believe? It’s simple if unremunerative: Good wines can take care of themselves. They can work wonderfully with any food that is remotely plausible for the wine.

There are limits, of course. You don’t want to serve a so-called “steakhouse red” — one of those monster California cabs practically mit schlag with creamy oak — with your grilled sole. But you already knew that.

Lousy wine, however, needs all the help it can get — good food and a seductive ambience — to distract you from its inadequacy.(This is why, by the way, that charming little wine you had in that country French bistro or trattoria in the golden hills of Tuscany tastes so awful when you finally track it down here at home.)

Marrying food and wine is the mother of all misgivings. My advice? Elope with the first good wine you find. You’ll live happily ever after.


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