A California Winery Blog

With all of the stress of holiday entertaining, why add choosing the right wines for your meal to the list? Chances are your guests are not going to pay much attention to whether you chose to serve a 2004 Oregonian Pinot or a 2002 Russian River Valley Pinot. That being said, wine and food pairing is a challenging, yet satisfying task for which there are no right or wrong answers. Who is to say that you cannot drink Chardonnay with steak? Or Syrah with salmon?

Until I became interested in wine I probably would not have even thought twice about it or noticed the difference. I barely even knew what tannins were let alone why they complemented certain foods and not others. But as my wine and food knowledge grows with every successful pairing I have encountered I now understand why some people become obsessed with finding the “perfect” matches.

There is just so much to think about in making the decision that it can be incredibly overwhelming. And every time I think that I am making progress in my wine education I open a restaurant’s wine list and am discouraged by the vast amount of information about wine that I don’t know.

This Thanksgiving was the first that I have paid any attention at all to the wine selection. The main lesson that I learned is that the rules are flexible. There is no perfect wine for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Hanukkah dinner. All that you can do is use the knowledge that you have about the food you are serving, follow some basic guidelines and do your best.

Here is where the “rules” get tricky… My Dad asked me to look at the wines he was trying to choose from to serve with our Thanksgiving dinner. I was expecting to be choosing from a selection of Pinots because that is THE Thanksgiving wine right. Well, I was not prepared to be choosing from a selection that included a Napa Merlot, a Sea Smoke Pinot, and a rustic Chateauneuf du Pape.

The Merlot and Chateauneuf wines were older vintages (2002) so the tannins had mellowed, making their earthy complexity a good match for our dinner. It is this type of thinking outside the box which makes rules so frivolous. The wines were excellent with the hearty meal and it was interesting to experiment with different varietals than I would have come up with off of the top of my head.

We also had a Virginia Chardonnay from Monticello that paired very nicely with our truffle butter mashed potatoes (though I wouldn’t know first hand because I cannot stand potatoes). My uncle brought a great Sonoma Pinot, which was interesting to taste side by side with the Sea Smoke Pinot, adding an additional element of terroir pairing experimentation to the mix. Why are they different? Which flavors in the dish are brought out by each of the wines?

So I guess what I’m trying to say is that food and wine pairing is a life long journey upon which you will discover successes and failures. But that perfect pairing will knock your socks off once you find it. Until then, my advice is to drink a lot of wine because tasting is the only way to learn.

This is not information that can be learned from a book, it is about your personal experience and sensory memory. Granted there are certain lessons that can be learned from outside sources, which is why I will share any great lessons or pairings I come across on our blog. Especially with Christmas right around the corner…

Joanie Hudson, Assistant Tasting Room Manager, Santa Barbara Winery