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I was at a really nice restaurant recently, my lovely wife of 21 years was talking to me and as a husband of 21 years I was bobble heading her conversation…….Guys you know this maneuver.
A man a few tables away did something interesting. He ordered a $200 dollar bottle of wine. I was intrigued. Did he know what he was ordering? Or did he just blow 200 clams because he could. Ah, the plot thickens.
On his first sip, he made the biggest bitter beer face I’ve ever seen. At this point I about fell out of my chair laughing, thinking he obviously hasn’t been to one of my wine classes….
BTW, my wife was still talking and had her back to our fine gentleman and thought I was laughing at her. After an explanation and some damage control with the Mrs.,
I saw Mr. $200 wine bottle try and pawn his wine off on his wife.
Surprise, she bitter beer faced it, too. Now here’s the good part of the story, you would think that since they didn’t like it they would have not had any more, right?
Well, I kid you not, they drank every bit of that bottle, taking a bite of food and grimacing on every sip.
Well, I say don’t be wine tools like our infamous couple, its too easy to pair wine and food and select wine that you like and in today I’m going to show you how.
Lets get started by learning how to order wine in a restaurant
The big day, the celebration, the promotion, the anniversary, the birthday, all big days, right? If you plan on going to a restaurant and ordering wine, you’re probably more nervous than a grape on crushing day.
Over the years, I have literally seen confident, self assured people break out in cold sweats at the prospect of going through the “wine ritual” of approving the cork and wine in front of the rest of the table. Well, I’m here to demystify this age old process for you. It’s actually pretty simple.
The first thing the waiter or waitress will do is present you the bottle of wine. Usually they will place it over their other arm, draped over a white cloth napkin. Besides verifying that this is the wine you ordered, the whole purpose of this is to make you feel good about your choice and to set you up as the big cheese in front of your table.
(Hey, they know your are paying the bill and they want you to look good, too.) They are thinking big tip here.
Smile and simply nod your approval. Not the bobble head nod, BTW.
Next they will methodically open the bottle as if it’s a gigantic stage production. This also has another significant purpose. It’s simply to verify in front of you that the wine you are receiving is from that bottle. Although today I don’t believe it goes on at all, in the past it was not been above the realm of possibilities for an unscrupulous person to refill an empty bottle of expensive wine with far lesser priced product.
Ah, then the cork sniff…this is where you see the unknowing, break down. You can see the fear in their face every time. They sniff, then nod and try not to look foolish. Then regardless of what they say or do, the waiter will say “very good sir or madam”.
So, OK, what are you sniffing for? All you are looking for is that the cork does not have some type of funky, swampy smell. Think burned match, think sulfur. If it smells like wine, you’re fine. The reason you smell the cork is that if the cork smells bad, the wine has probably gone bad. In times past this could be a problem and certainly happened to a fraction of bottles. But it’s now the 21st century, computerization and modern assembly lines fill and cork most bottles. This very rarely happens. Way less than 1% of the time.
So after you approve the cork the waiter will pour a tasting sample into your glass. All eyes are on you, the big moment…. If you’re a ham, this is your time! Enjoy the attention, let the momentum build, and then with authority, swirl and sniff you wine. The table waits. The world stops, you take a sip, the anticipation grows. Oh no, is the wine good? Is the wine bad? The waiter begins to sweat. The clock ticks. You can hear a pin drop. What will you do?
Sorry to be so anticlimactic…but you say its very good!
The waiter will then smile, say thank you, pour a glass for everyone and then you can put the pretense behind you and enjoy your wine and meal.
And people have anxiety over this? Go figure. Not so hard is it? You can do this and do it with confidence!
Gary Martin writes in,
Dear Mark: Is there a really easy way to learn about wine and food pairings?
Well, Gary…Certainly
Here’s the main thing you need to know. All there is to food and wine pairing is that similar wine goes with similar foods. Duh, OK, that’s overly simplistic but think of it this way. Light wines with light foods, heavy wines with heavier foods. For instance, we all know white wines go with chicken and fish and red wines go with red meat, right. That’s not an absolute, BTW. But is right in most cases. Here’s why that is. White wines are lighter than reds, like chicken is lighter than steak.
I think most people over think wine and food pairings and over complicate a really fun thing. So I’m going to do two things today to make it easy for you.
Instead of trying to memorize all the quote “perfect” matches, just do this. Find a red and white wine variety you like and in the beginning just pick those. I bet I’ve had 1000’s of glasses of ice tea in my life and I never stopped once to see if my tea went with my chicken or steak. When you stop overly worrying about your pairing, a funny thing will happen, you will start to enjoy both your wine and you food.
Next, I’m going to give you a copy of my wine and food pairing chart
Click here to get your FREE Wine and Food Pairing Chart
We’ll talk more in the future on this topic but this will get you started
Now its time for our wine of the week.
Sauvignon Blanc
Mouthful to say, huh. No, not cabernet sauvignon, that’s the red stuff. This wine is a white wine with wonderful flavors that are made for food. This is actually my favorite white food wine and here’s why. Sauvignon Blanc has aromas of herbs, and grasses with just the right amount of acidity. What, huh? OK, bare with me here. Ever have lighter foods like chicken or fish seasoned with oregano or basil or thyme or rosemary? OK, we all do. Since we know now know to match similar foods with similar wines this wine is perfect for these foods because of the herbaceous flavor. The acidity of the wine will also bring out even more flavors. So what’s not to love?
So here’s the wine skinny on Sauvignon Blanc
It acidity brings our flavors in foods
Best from New Zealand
Great with lighter foods
Herbaceous flavors
OK, it makes U sound so-fist-to-cated when you say it
So break out of the Chardonnay rut and try this wine, you’ll be glad you did.
That concludes our show for this week and thanks for watching. In our next show we will learn how the region affects the flavor and we discuss a really fun wine and tongue twister, Gewürztraminer. So see you next time, same bat time, same bat channel. Cheers!