Is Pinot Noir the ultimate food wine?
From the chapter: Cooking up storms
Once, in a rare fit of culinary inclusion, the International Pinot Noir Conference in McMinnville, OR invited our Hawaii based restaurant to prepare their "grand" dinner. I'd say that nearly half of the 600 or so attendees hated it.
It was the mid-'90s, after all, and Pinot Noir enthusiasts⏤particularly vintners visiting from Burgundy, France⏤were still not quite ready for the way we took liberties with the grape, steeped as it is in long and noble traditions. Not that I was perturbed. We did what we were supposed to do, couching Oregon, California and French reds crafted from Pinot noir in exotic, fusionist, Asian and Pacific Rim influenced food contexts.
As it is now often said, Pinot Noir is an ultimate “food wine” precisely because of its flexibility. Not that it goes with “everything,” or that it is a wine that everybody loves. But it does have a higher percentage chance of matching more variety of dishes than almost any other wine type. I would argue that a typical Zinfandel handles a wider range of taste sensations, but Pinot Noirs have the upper hand when it comes to variations of seafood.
So let’s talk Pinot. Not all Pinot Noirs are alike (thank goodness); but generally speaking, they come with a light to medium sized body, moderate or relatively soft tannin, mild yet perceptible acidity, and are marked by textural qualities (“velvet” or “silk”) and sachet-like bundles of flower, spice, berry and herb perfumes wrapped in (preferably) subtle yet luxuriously vanillin and smoky qualities of the French oak in which virtually all serious Pinots are finished. These sensory factors almost always apply to the varietal category, wherever the grape is grown.
It is the moderate tannin of typical Pinot in particular that gives it a flexibility to match both red and white meats with almost any degree of fattiness; and its mild acidity is usually just edgy enough to broaden its range of white meats from pork, veal and chicken to fish and even briny shellfish. In the latter sense (in our experience), it is very similar to Zinfandel.
Then there’s the factor of umami. Let’s not get mystical or mysterious about this taste sensation, which basically occurs in foodstuffs with slightly elevated amino acids or the neurotransmitter known as glutamates. But the fact of the matter is, although the presence of amino acids in red wine is barely negligible (nonetheless there), the umami connection is probably the only explanation for why naturally balanced, buoyant, soft tannin, phenol flavorful reds such as Pinot Noir often make such delicious matches with the most unlikely (but umami intense) foods; including raw or seared-rare tuna in mustards and spices, oysters both raw and roasted, combinations of seafood in bourrides, cioppino or bouillabaisse, and even preparations of mussels, squid, eel and salt cod.
Hence, a summary of classic food applications when matching or cooking for Pinot Noir:
Leaner meats (veal, chicken, turkey, rabbit, any game bird, and filets of beef or pork, and a well drained duck).
Smoked, wood roasted, braised or sausage meats (with the use of beef, lamb and pork).
Earthy, high umami flavors (such as truffles, wild mushrooms, mustards, peppercorns, coriander, alliums, and horseradish).
Resiny or scented green herbs (rosemary, thyme, tarragon, oregano, summer and winter savory, chervil, mints and basils).
Aromatic sweet spices (clove, cinnamon, mace, allspice and nutmeg).
Sweet vegetables (such as tomatoes, beets, carrots, caramelized onions and bell peppers).
Autumnal fruits (figs, plums, blackberry, raspberry, blueberry, currants, black and dried cherries, etc.).
Natural stocks and sauces rounded with butter or oils and Pinot Noir.
Slow cooking processes (braises, pot a feu, etc.).
Soft, creamy cheeses, some with zest (especially herbed crèmes like Boursin, chèvre, brie, camembert, Havarti and jacks).
Soft, rounded wine vinegars (especially balsamics and well aged rice vinegars).
The aforementioned are predictable contexts for Pinot Noir; but lately consumers of more contemporary styles of foods and wines have been discovering just how far, and effortlessly, Pinot Noir will go beyond soft ripened cheese, boef bourguignonne, coq a vin, fig stuffed game birds and other classic settings.
When you sear scallops with powerfully aromatic truffles or truffle oil, for instance, all of the sudden it’s a dish for Pinot Noir rather than for anything white. Oregonians like to serve their Pinot Noir with Northwest Native American style plank, open fire-smoky salmon. In Hawaii, it’s all about the finest tuna, albacore or hamachi in the world, in brothy, earthy ponzus or straight, in various states of rawness.
In my world, Pinot Noir is also license to drink red wine with sweet/spicy, earth toned or mildly bitter Asian flavors such as star anise, wasabi, hoisin, Japanese radishes, seaweeds, lotus root, fennel, toasted sesame seeds, sesame oil, mizuna, chiso, shiitakes, and even mild teriyaki marinades and glazes. All of which can actually bring out the mildly sweet, zippy, toasty, earthy, and wonderfully beefy qualities of Pinot Noir, and vice versa (Pinot Noirs bringing out savory, meaty quality in foods).
No question, the taste of Pinot Noir becomes altered in untraditional, exotic food contexts. Traditionalist aficionados of classic red Burgundy may get a little squeamish about this, but who cares? This is a grape where, if the cap fits, you wear it.
CASE STUDY: MATCHING FOODS WITH OREGON’S BEST PINOT NOIRS
One of the places in the world where tradition repeatedly meets innovation—insofar as winemaking as well as food and wine matching—is in Oregon. In early 1999 I put together an interesting multi-chef/winemaker dinner in Honolulu, matching the Pinot Noirs of eight Oregon winemakers with eight Hawaiian regional chefs with eight distinctive culinary styles, for some 300 Pinot lovers in attendance. Events like this are often the most inspiring not so much because all the matches work to perfection (which rarely happen when chefs take chances), but because they’re bound to bring out many new and novel approaches to the grape, and lots of great ideas for future reference.
The fact that not everything worked in this event is exactly why I still ponder it. The wines, their winemakers, the chefs and their food matches:
Lynn Penner-Ash’s 1996 Rex Hill Maresch Vineyard Pinot Noir (pan seared scallops)—This firm, snappy, yet fluid, sensuously textured red with fragrances of autumn spice and smoky leaves acted as an example of just how easily Pinot fits with seafood—soft and fleshy pan seared scallops—even when served with a slightly acidic Asian green papaya salad, conceived by Philippe Padovani. Traditional thinking says that vinegary ingredients flatten out mildly tannic reds. But in this case, a sweet/spicy fruit balance in the dish seemed to underscore the bright, lively aspects of the Rex Hill.
On another occasion that year (1999), we enjoyed the exact same Pinot Noir with wasabi cured, pan crisped salmon, finished with a sea vegetable mignonette touched with rayu (chili oil); and the match worked like a charm. It’s amazing how many food barriers a more subdued, finely textured, yet multi-spiced Pinot Noir really can cross.
Harry Peterson Nedry’s 1996 Chehalem Ridgecrest Vineyard Pinot Noir (tuna and lumpia salad)—While slightly beefier and more aggressively oaked than the Rex Hill, the Chehalem style also proved finely poised with both dense and soft qualities on the palate; all of which were ideally matched with a very novel dish by Alan Wong—smoky, meaty tuna served on bitter edged Big Island grown greens (balancing out the wine’s tannins) and a pan crisped lumpia (Filipino style dumpling) filled with, of all things, warm cambazola cheese. It was almost shocking how the warm and earthy blue triple crème cheese made a remarkable umami braced bridge, only increasing the round, smoky qualities of the wine.
We’ve also tried this wine with roasted quail stuffed with star anise scented Chinese black rice—food components that enrich the Chehalem’s aggressively smoky style, while making an exotic match.
Laurent Montalieu’s 1996 WillaKenzie Pierre Leon Pinot Noir (peppercorn salmon)—It’s rare to find a red wine—such as this super smooth yet tightly balanced, vanilla bean and peppermint spiced Pinot—that is actually overwhelmed by a fish dish, but that’s just what Russell Siu’s three peppercorn crusted salmon (further revved up by a sauce infused with red wine and veal juices) did.
While imperfect, this was at least a match illustrating the delicacy of Oregon grown Pinot Noir, and the veracity of placing “white wine” foods (i.e., fish) in classic red wine contexts to make it work; as in another occasion when we enjoyed the WillaKenzie Pinot Noir with wood grilled mackerel, of all things, pulled together with a Pinot infusion and shiitake mushroomed sticky rice.
David Adelsheim’s 1996 Adelsheim Elizabeth Vineyard Pinot Noir (crab and portobello in truffle vinaigrette)—During the 1990s Adelsheim’s Pinots often came, as in this wine, with a gamey, almost leathery edge (i.e., flourishes of brettynomyces), while still managing to finish soft and seductively sweet with wild berryish fruit on the palate; and quite fortuitously, Eberhard Kintscher’s crab and portobello mushroom “sandwich,” laced with a pungent truffle vinaigrette (screaming umami), served to keenly match and balance out the wine’s distinctly earthy and mildly tart edges. Definitely a case of dish taking the microbial quality of a wine and running wild through the hallways with it!
Dick Erath’s 1996 Erath Vineyards Vintage Select Pinot Noir (rillette of Peking duck)—In this course—a soft, lovely style of Oregon Pinot showing the full spectrum of black, red and blue colored berry qualities so common to the region—the wine's somewhat delicate varietal profile and nuances of terroir were slightly overpowered by Amy Ferguson-Ota’s intense, lush, succulent Peking duck rillette. If anything, a more strongly tannic Pinot Noir, or even Syrah, would have made a more perfect union⏤despite the fact that duck in nearly all its iterations is always a great notion for Pinot. Ergo: Not every match that is planned and executed may click, but the only real way to learn the sensory ramifications is to try things out.
Mark Vlossak’s 1996 St. Innocent Seven Springs Vineyard Pinot Noir (veal cheeks)—This would qualify as a more voluminous style of Oregon Pinot, firmed up by muscular tannin and generous, aromatic qualities of blueberry, pepper spice, and even suggestions of earthy soy; proving to be a terrific match with Jean-Marie Josselin’s French and backyard Hawaiian inspired veal cheeks served in a Pinot Noir sage reduction over a root vegetable purée. Not as complex a dish as it sounds; but rather, something earthy and elemental, which are perfectly Pinot-friendly qualities.
Ken Wright’s 1997 Ken Wright Cellars Guadalupe Vineyard Pinot Noir (licorice smoked squab)—Wright’s fame is based on his unerring ability to coax out the purest possible soft, tender, fresh berry flavor of Oregon grown Pinot Noir, and this bottling was textbook. In this course, George Mavrothalassitis’ licorice smoked squab with sesame oil and gingery accents seemed to intensify both the meaty and hidden Asian spice elements in the wine—an unexpected, and blessedly rare, occurrence of wine and dish bringing out the best in each other.
But the pure, penetrating quality of Ken Wright Pinots also make them extremely food-versatile; as we’ve discovered in other dinners, serving them with lighter variations of truffled poke (Hawaiian style raw fish chopped with sweet onions, soy and sesame oil) made with tuna or hamachi (yellowtail fish).
Mike Etzel’s 1996 Beaux Frères Pinot Noir (pork stuffed with wild boar, porcini and chanterelles)—In the late ‘90s, this winery was still producing bigger, riper renderings of the grape. It’s what got them on the map; but thank goodness, they have long since departed from that stylistic choice in favor of truer terroir expression. While certainly not “big” by, say, California Cabernet standards, the 1996 Beaux Frères was dense, concentrated and full throttled; brimming with luscious, almost sweet, smoky, spicy, beef brothy fruit, almost primordial in its forcefulness. For these reasons, Roy’s Gordon Hopkins shrewdly fashioned a tenderloin of pork stuffed with spicy wild boar, porcini and chanterelles, underlain by a velvety natural sauce. Any Pinot other than Beaux Frères might have been blasted off the table; but as it turned out, the viscous, sweet and earth toned quality of the dish simply merged with the roaring fruit and smoke-of-oak of the wine.
In other events, we also “handled” the early vintages of the blustery yet typically Oregonian (in terms of their wild berry perfumes and forest floor earthiness) Beaux Frères Pinots with dishes like slow cooked, umami intensified beef (such as Yankee pot roast with juniper berries), braised lamb shanks, and stewed venison: All examples of complex, caramelized, highly savory meats better served by concentrated reds dominated by sweet, fragrant spices rather than brutally hard, drying tannin⏤demonstrating why Pinot Noir is a supreme "food wine."