Thursday, March 13, 2008

Is Food and Wine Pairing Just a Big Scam?

Alder Yarrow, of Vinography, seems quite convinced that it is. On one level I’m sort of surprised that Alder didn’t receive a flood of criticism about this stance; the majority of comments actually support his view. Now to be fair to Alder I have to note that he is not totally against wine and food pairing. He is more concerned with the idea that one individual’s wine/food pairing is not necessarily going to be universally acceptable. Its not an easy task to convince folks that differences in sensory perception between individuals is a significant argument against finding universally appealing wine and/or food. Pairing the two only compounds the problem. It all comes back to that basic tenet of wine appreciation - drink what YOU like. Or in the case of food eat what you like with whatever wine YOU feel is appropriate.

On a lighter note. As is always the situation in discussions on wine and food, the food friendliness of wines with higher alcohol was raised in several of the comments to Alder’s post. I liked his response

This may be the subject of a future rant, but the only people who seem to really
dislike high alcohol wines are some super high-end wine geeks, some winemakers,
and the wine journalism establishment (many of whom I think secretly like those
wines but are now being pressured into saying they don't).

I’ll be interested to see what he writes on this.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A good story

GK Chesterton: “The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”

Voila: www.tastingtoeternity.com. This book is a poetic view of 30 of the best loved French cheeses with an additional two odes to cheese. Recipes, wine pairing, three short stories and an educational section complete the book.

From a hectic life in New York City to the peace and glories of the French countryside lead me to be the co-founder of www.fromages.com. Ten years later with the words of Pierre Androuet hammering on my brain:

“Cheese is the soul of the soil. It is the purest and most romantic link between humans and the earth.”

I took pen and paper; many reams later with the midnight oil burning Tasting to Eternity was born and self published.

I believe cheese and wine lovers should be told about this publication.

Enjoy.