Recommendation Sought: Wine w/Lobster

[bushey]

We're getting together with two other couples for our third annual New Year's Eve dinner and this year we're ordering lobsters in from Maine. I'd like to try preparing butter poached lobster, though one or two sticklers may insist on having theirs steamed with drawn butter on the side. What would be a good wine match?

I usually opt for Muscadet or Chablis with lobster, but I know many folks like a big buttery chardonnay, and I'd like to try one. Any suggestions for a chardonnay that's buttery but without tropical or caramely flavors? Alternatively, would a Meursault work?

[Carolyn Tillie]

I would not pair buttery lobster with buttery Chardonnay - I tend to work pairings as opposites (spicy, peppery Zin with salty cheese, for example).

A Meursault would work but you might also consider a Sauvignon Blanc, a Vouvray, or even a Brut Champagne.

Then again, I'm not a Chardonnay fan and don't really like it with anything (so what the hell do I know!).

[KatieLoeb]

Bushey:

Try a Viognier or a slightly sweet vouvray and you'll be very happy. I had a Poniatowski 1989 Clos Baudoin Vin de Tris Vouvray with butter poached lobster and I nearly wept with joy. Nothing could possibly have been better!

[Scott]

try a nice white bordeaux,

they have a nice oaky richness with a fine acid balance.

think something like a smith-haut-laffite, or really push the boat out with domaine chevalier.

should have 4 years or so on it, say 1997 - 1999.

could be too much if served without gobs of butter.

[Andy Lynes]

Oz Clarkes Wine Guide CD ROM lists 567 possible matches for lobster including "Meursault les Luchets, Roulot" "Puligny-Montrachet les Demoiselles, Guy Amiot" and "Sonoma-Cutrer Chardonnay Cutrer Vineyard".

[winebill]

Another idea is a German wine from the Mosel. The sweetness of the Lobster meat pairs well Riesling. Something at the Spatlese or Auslese level would be good. The 2001 And 2002 vintages are outstanding.

A few producers to look for are........

Kerpen

Selbach-Oster

Willi Haag

Dr Loosen

J.J. Prüm

Fritz Haag

von Hövel

Pass the lemon please.

[bushey]

Thanks for all of the suggestions! Looks like we might be able to try several options from our own cellar. No white bordeaux, but we do have a bottle of St Supery Meritage, which may fit the bill. I tend to agree about buttery with a big, new world Chardonnay, but having had butter poached lobster before I found it not so much buttery (as, for example, steamed lobster dipped in melted butter) as sweet.

winebill -- I love spatlese, especially the Selbach Oster and Kerpen. We'll probably open a bottle to go with some of the appetizers, and a Sauvignon Blanc for the salad course, and naturally we'll be opening some Champagne as well so most bases will be covered.

[Brad Ballinger]

Looks like we might be able to try several options from our own cellar.

Absolutely. It's freakin' lobster. It'll be harder to pick a bad pairing than a good one. I last had lobster a few weeks ago, and paired it with a 1996 J.M. Boillor Rully La Pucelle, which worked very well. My only caution if you are considering a Mosel wine is that you pick one from a fatter vintage (like 1999). The richness of the lobster and the butter will tend to make highly acidic wines seem even moreso, I'd also go spatlese or riper.

[bushey]

Brad, LOL! Let's hope it's really good freakin' lobster, considering the Fedex charges to have it shipped down to western Mass......But it's partly a sentimental thing -- our friends spend a couple of weeks every summer in Old Orchard, ME and they want to get the lobsters from their "local" place, Bailey's.

[budrichard]

First, ANYTHING goes with lobster flown in from Maine! You can't make a bad decision.

Second, For lobster of this caliber, the butter will disguise the naturql sea flavor and sweetness of the lobster. The use of butter came about with the proliferation of frozen lobster tails which needed something that would take the edge off the dryness. People have now become habituated to lobster with butter. Steam or boil until just slightly rare in the tail and eat. Sublime, maybe a little lemon. -Dick

[hollywood]

If not a Muscadet, how about a Sancerre? Or perhaps a Cakebread Sauvignon Blanc?

[hollywood]

Too late for this year, but I had some 99 White Rock Chardonnay last night that I think would play well with most lobster preparations.

[bushey]

The butter poached lobster was phenomenal. We had seven lobsters, and I prepared three that way and we shared the other four steamed -- everyone was in agreement that we wish we'd had more of the butter-poached. It was sweet and very tender. I had a bit of a problem, though, with a slight allergic reaction while shelling the lobsters (I had a really severe reaction to shrimp last month) so I only ate a small portion of the lobster. At that point I was drinking J. Schram 1990 sparkling wine and it was a pretty good match.

[pumpernickel]

This is a topic I have been interested in quite a bit during the last month. Here are my experiences:

First pairing was fresh Maine lobster (just steamed, no gimmicks) served with garlic butter. This is the traditional last day treat of a research conference held in the east coast. Quite luxurious you could say if you forget about the fact that you are supposed to pair the lobster with coke or orange juice (no alcoholic beverages allowed in the dining hall, puritan heritage obliging). Of course, we couldn’t allow that to happen and so I sneaked out with a colleague and we had a bottle of German Riesling Auslese to go with the lobster, which, surprisingly, worked wonders. I say surprisingly because the wine had quite a lot of residual sugar (in the 70 g/l range), which gave it enough fat to complement the lobster. The acidity and strong minerality (the wine was heavily botrytized) gave it enough backbone to freshen up the whole thing. The exotic spiciness of the Riesling and the rustic garlic flavours formed an interesting contrast. Rather an impromptu pairing but it was so magical I tried to repeat it at home. For whatever reason it didn’t work out – maybe it was because of the lobster (local Santa Barbara instead of Maine lobster), maybe the somewhat additional spices (I added orange peel, cinammon, lemon gras and cardamom to the broth to work with the spiciness of the Riesling), maybe the wine just didn’t shine as much. But then again, my experience is that impromptu successes alwys fail when you try to repeat them...

The wine: Think of an Alsatian VT/SDGN rather than a filigraneous Mosel Auslese. It needs to have a touch of noble bitterness. I could imagine a Schoenenbourg from Deiss, an old Geissberg SDGN from Kientzler (89…), or a Quart de Chaume from an “off-vintage” like 91-94.

I continued with the idea of a spicy broth to be worked into a risotto. This time, the lobster (Maine again, no experiments here) was preboiled and I started making the broth the classical way (sautee carcasses, deglaze and flame with cognac etc). The broth was concentrated strongly in the risotto and the lobster tail and claw were simply sauteed and served seperately. To add some of that bitter counterpoint which had worked so well with the Riesling, I also served some sauteed baby artichokes which were seasoned with Hawaian sea salt (which contains some iron clay and has a refreshing bitterness to it). This dish was prepaired with a Chardonnay in mind, the 2000 Talley from Au Bon Climat, and both the dish and the pairing were pure magic. The Talley has a slight mineral edge to it, but most of all, it is so balanced that the best word to describe it is seamless elegance. It may not be a great wine but it possessed all of the elements (spicy, rich, sweet) that were in the dish and combined the complexity of the dish into a mouthwatering unity (the wine itself is not very complex). I also tried this dish a second time with a 1998 Hermitage blanc from Tardieu-Laurent (certainly a wine that has more depth by itself), but that pairing didn’t work out quite as well.

The wine: ABC is widely distributed in the US, but if you want a substitute, rather think in terms of white Burgundy than Cali Chardonnay. To me, the generosity of an aged Meursault Charmes or Perrieres comes to mind. Needless to say that these alternatives come with a hefty price tag and even just for the sheer pleasure it provides, the ABC is a clear winner (25 $).