The Perfect Pair

above illustration: © Berry Bros.

December 22, 2015 / by Anne McHale / Illustration: Billy Wong

Food and wine matching is a fascinating subject – especially when it comes to the research. But there are as many strongly held opinions on this topic as there are pairings. Some will argue that it is a science, and by knowing the rules and following them to the letter you are much more likely to achieve a harmonious match. Those at the other end of the spectrum may say that it is more of an art form. In other words, trust your instincts and get creative.

But which is it? As a wine educator at Berry Bros & Rudd, I have been privileged to spend many years exploring this intriguing subject. My views tend to fall somewhere in the middle. However, there is indeed a certain set of rules that, if followed, will help you avoid clashes and will increase the chances of finding a harmonious match. These can be summarised as follows:

PAIRINGS THAT WORK

• Full-bodied wines with rich food
• Light-bodied wines with delicate food
• Tannic red wines with high-protein food Aged wines with savoury (umami) food
• Complementary flavours

PAIRINGS TO AVOID

• Very dry wines with sweet food
• Low-acidity wines with high-acidity food
• Tannic red wines with low-protein food Full-bodied wines with a light, subtle dish
• Light-bodied wines with a full, rich dish

However, this doesn’t take into account our individual preferences. Anyone who has been on a wine course will know that every student in the room has a different take on each wine tasted. And it’s certainly no wonder – we all have different palates, different sensory experiences, and different likes and dislikes. The same applies to food and wine matching. The above points will guide you, but there is also an entire dimension beyond – and this is where the artistic side comes in. 

The final point above is perhaps the most flexible of the “rules” – and the one where you can really get creative. Pair a sauvignon blanc with asparagus, try an oaky chardonnay with an oak-smoked salmon, or match barbecued meat with a smoky, rich shiraz. 

If you prefer, you can also let the food’s flavours take the lead and shine through by pairing it with a more neutral wine, such as a crisp, minerally Gavi from northwest Italy.

Pies in the Sky

December 22, 2015

Cathay Pacific catering manager Aaron Claxton discusses the advancements in airline cuisine.

What have been the greatest changes over the last 20 years when it comes to airline food? 

From a technical aspect, things haven’t evolved that much in the onboard kitchens and the way food is delivered to passengers.
But with many people adopting more healthy dining habits nowadays, we are trying to use more herbs for a natural flavour, cutting down on the use of sugar and salt, and using more vegetables in our in-flight meals.

We seem to have reached a point where the only way to enhance the food experience in the air is to have a top chef making it in the cabin. 

Having a chef aboard an aircraft sounds like a nice touch, but the ability to cook food in the air is extremely limited due to space and equipment limitations, and the safety requirements of regulators. 

In essence, a flying chef would be able to plate up a dish to restaurant standards, but this would be limited to premium passengers. There is significant value in working with talented chefs at the cutting edge of trends and the use of new ingredients, though, and this is a direction we are taking to develop and enhance the food experience. 

In-flight food is always subject to the restrictions of altitude. What can you do to further improve things?

For one, Cathay Pacific is using state-of-the-art equipment such as automatic braising machines to streamline the production of congee, stews and rice dishes. 

What’s the hardest dish to do well in the air? 

Among the cooking that doesn’t work well is fried food. High-fat dishes such as battered fish tend to go soggy once heat is applied and aren’t suitable for serving in-flight. Some foods are highly suited, though, such as stews and curries.

Growing Up

above illustration: © Berry Bros.

November 20, 2015 / by Simon Field / Illustration: Billy Wong

The world of Champagne is changing – slowly, gradually and discretely, I grant you, – but definitely for the better, very much like many of its wines. A glorious fizzy paradox dictates that the hegemony hitherto enjoyed by the big houses has persisted in Champagne for far longer than in other regions – Burgundy being the most obvious and nearest example, mainly because the quality of its wines has been so good. As a consequence, the growers themselves have, for a variety of reasons, been happy to sell their grapes to the Moëts and Laurent-Perriers of this world, gleaning a degree of vicarious satisfaction from the fact that the end product will be well presented, well marketed and, in general, very pleasant to drink. The premium in pricing that 

champagne has had over its global sparkling competitors for so long means two things: first, a very agreeable living and second, land prices that ensure a more than satisfactory retirement for those lucky enough to own properties in the designated region.

All well and good, but maybe not very exciting. Champagne may only cover 34,000 hectares, but within this there are three clearly defined regions and extraordinary differences in terrain, aspect and terroir, not to mention winemaking techniques. The big houses, which we are no longer officially supposed to call Grandes Marques, benefit from economies of scale, most significantly to facilitate sourcing fruit from across the region in an effort to mitigate the marginal climate and sometimes quite localised weather conditions. The consequence of this, of course, has been that consistency has won over diversity. It’s only in the past few years that the growers have developed a self-belief and commercial awareness to start up on their own, to take a road that is far more challenging than merely selling grapes to that persuasive gentleman from Lanson. 

Burgundy Rising

above illustration: © Berry Bros.

September 25, 2015 / by Jasper Morris / Illustration: Billy Wong

In a world with so many exciting wine options, from myriad grape varieties and a host of countries across almost every continent, Bordeaux and Burgundy still reign supreme in both column inches and marketability. I spent the first 20 years of my working life trying to convince wine lovers that Burgundy was a truly exciting option, but most were either focused almost entirely on Bordeaux or demanded cheerful, inexpensive wines. Then, around the millennium, it all began to change.

Burgundy and its charismatic if quixotic grape, pinot noir, began to gain ground. The cult American film Sideways (2004) was more an early symptom of the renewed interest in pinot noir than a cause, but it certainly helped focus interest. Pinot producers all round the world speak of pursuing the Holy Grail. They often say that they make their pinot “in the Burgundy style”, the wretches, which is nonsense as there are nearly as many styles in Burgundy as there are winemakers.

The other cliche you'll often hear is that “Burgundy is a minefield”, which used to be true when there were so few professionally trained winemakers there. You could count on one or two top producers in each village, but nowadays there could be a dozen or more, and probably their cousins too.

I suspect there has been a cultural change in our attitude to good bottles of wine. Previously we wanted certainty, something Bordeaux delivers admirably. If you discover that Château Pontet-Canet 2000 is the wine for you, then there’s a very good chance that pretty much every bottle will deliver what you are expecting. Burgundy has never managed that, which in the past prompted caution among prospective buyers. But the other side of the coin is that every new bottle is a fresh excitement, a chance to continue the voyage of discovery – it is, as ever, the journey that counts.

Meanwhile Bordeaux began to lose friends with over-ambitious pricing for the 2009 and 2010 vintages, another incentive to look elsewhere, throwing Burgundy into the spotlight. Here too prices have been rising for the very top wines as an increasing number of enthusiasts worldwide chase very small production. After 20 years of trying to enthuse consumers about the joys of Burgundy, suddenly demand cannot be met by supply, which could make it a less attractive option.

A Matter of Taste

above illustration: © Berry Bros.

August 28, 2015 / by Anne McHale / Illustration: Billy Wong

What is quality in wine? Does it refer to how much you like it, or to a wine’s price, origin or classification? You could argue that since our perceptions of taste are inherently subjective, it is impossible to define.

Break it down, however, and you’ll discover that it's possible to establish a fairly objective assessment of the quality of a wine. To do so, it is important to set aside personal preferences and focus on some of the wine's key components.

Terms often used include complexity, flavour concentration, length and balance. A high-quality wine should boast impressive levels of some or all of these. With practice, it is possible to agree with other wine-lovers on the extent to which each is present. 

Complexity refers to how many types of aroma or flavour are present. A complex wine has many different layers; in a red wine, as well as a primary fruit these would be elements such as earth, leather, tobacco and spice, whereas in a white wine they would be honey, nuts and minerals.

Flavour concentration refers to the intensity of the flavour. Average-quality wines often have pleasant flavours, but typically at dilute concentrations. A larger amount of more concentrated flavours indicates a higher-quality wine. 

Length refers to how long the flavours in a wine linger on the palate after the wine has been swallowed. The flavours of an average wine typically diminish rapidly, whereas you can expect those of a high-quality wine to linger pleasantly, sometimes for as long as several minutes.

Balance in wine can be imagined as a set of scales. On one side is the wine’s concentration of flavour and on the other its structural elements such as acidity, tannins and alcohol. In high-quality wines, the level of flavour concentration will be matched by the structure; neither will dominate.

Wines exhibiting all of the above are usually of high quality. But a wine doesn't necessarily need all of them to be of high quality: typicity – the ability of a wine to accurately display the specific characteristics of a particular grape or region – and longevity can also contribute. Consider a young gewürztraminer, likely to have aromas of lychee and rose and perhaps some minerality, but nowhere near the complexity of, say, a fine 

Gran Reserva Rioja. What it lacks in complexity, however, it makes up for in typicity, expressing the wonderfully floral perfumed notes for which the grape is famous.

Dine Like Xi

July 10, 2015

For the Love of Burgundy

above illustration: © Berry Bros.

July 10, 2015 / by Jasper Morris / Illustration: Billy Wong

Monsieur “Morin” should be a happy man. His traditional export markets of the US, UK and Japan are all still in love with Burgundy, where he is a respected producer. He’s doing all right in the rest of Europe, especially Scandinavia. And in the last few years he has been beset by requests from Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei and increasingly China. But he is already sold out and given that he only makes three barrels (900 bottles) of his top wine, how on earth can he divide up his allocations even further?

What’s more, he hasn’t made a full crop since 2009. The years of 2010 and 2011 were both naturally on the small side and several of his vineyards were damaged by hail in 2012, 2013 and 2014. The cost of managing his vineyards in these challenging conditions was higher than usual, the potential revenue from short crops much lower. As he stands at his winery window, gazing out over the main road in contemplative fashion, he wonders how to price his next releases. He has to put the price up to cover his costs, but he doesn’t want to upset his traditional customers either.

There’s a bit of traffic on the road. Monsieur “Perrin” has just flashed past in his latest Lexus. He’s from Vosne-Romanée with a healthy holding of grands crus. There hasn’t been any adverse weather, world demand is enormous, prices are riding high. No worries. Trundling the other way on his vineyard tractor is Morin’s friend André. He comes from Savigny-lès-Beaune where he lost almost his whole crop during the hailstorm of July 23, 2013, as well as suffering in several other recent vintages. He really doesn’t know which way to turn: his bank manager says he needs to double his prices from €8 to €16 a bottle but he will lose all his customers if he does.

Meanwhile China, having perhaps fallen out of love with Bordeaux after the excessive pricing of the 2009 and 2010 vintages, has begun to discover Burgundy. When I first visited Hong Kong (10 years ago) and Shanghai (five years ago) I came across very few sophisticated wine lovers, Domaine de la Romanée-Contiand one or two other producers were on the radar but otherwise awareness levels of this region were low. However the sophistication of understanding has advanced in leaps and bounds every year since then with the emergence of tasting groups and a desire to understand what’s really going on as opposed to what might be a good bet for speculative investment. 

At this year’s Varsity Blind Tasting match (an annual competition between Oxford and Cambridge dating back to 1953) the joint top individual tasters were the Oxford captain Swii Yii Lim and her (unrelated) colleague, Yeechuin Lim. Mind you, this is not an entirely recent phenomenon: in the 1970s Oxford and Cambridge were captained by Kingsley Liu and Raymond Liu respectively.

No Excuses Needed

July 10, 2015

The Mysterious Mrs Pound

May 29, 2015