Have we become too "matchy"?

[Craig Camp]

I think this is 100% a question of focus.  I know wine people -- people who pick the wine first and then find food to match it -- who will discuss these subtlties endlessly.  On the other hand, food people -- who pick the food first and then find a wine to match -- find it a bit too much.

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That hypothesis doesn't stand up to cross-cultural comparison, though, does it? Because if we accept that top restaurants in Europe rarely if ever do course-by-course pairings, then we have a large body of "wine people" who don't fit the hypothesis.

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I didn't realize that Europe was our standard in this regard. If it is, it's not a very good one as few Europeans know much about their own best wines, which are often mostly exported. For example, more than 80% of Barolo is consumed outside of Italy.

[Sneakeater]

I think maybe there are a couple of different questions at play here.

I think, in general, it's true we've gotten too "matchy". There's no one perfect pairing for every food, but rather a range of different wines that work in different ways (and, to be sure, to different extents). When we go so far as to start talking about matching different wines to different parts of a piece of meat, I do think we're taking things beyond where they need to be.

But, as for extended multi-course tasting menus, I think that's a different matter. I have to say that when I first caught on to the idea of per-course pairings with extended tasting menus a few years ago, it was a relief. Because I always found it a chore to try to think of a single white and a single red that would go adequately with all the various, and often highly disparate, meat and fish and vegetable courses in extended tasting menus. It's one thing with a standard three-course meal, but with a seven or eight or nine-course meal, to me it just takes too much thought. (And frankly, I found that a problem in Europe, where I had my first experiences with multi-course tasting menus, as much as I did in America, where the problem has now been alleviated by virtue of the availability of per-course pairings. I'd welcome per-course pairings in European restaurants that feature extended degustation menus.)

Edited January 1, 2007 by Sneakeater (log)

[Sneakeater]

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the same is true of Australia, and of course it happens plenty in Canada -- the phenomenon could easily be something that runs as a thread through the Anglo world (in this instance I wasn't considering the UK to be European). But I wonder why.

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My guess would be that the Anglo countries don't have indigenous wine cultures. (Even the ones, like here and Australia, that have significant wine industries.) On the whole, European wine countries tend to take their wines much more casually -- much more as just a beverage, and less a fetish object -- than we do.

[pedro]

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few Europeans know much about their own best wines, which are often mostly exported. .....

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You're not being serious, are you? Are you taking into account that UK, Switzerland and Germany, big importers of wine, are actually part of Europe? If we take Barolo, USA is the largest market with 14% of the share and UK the second with 13%. Even if your figure of 80% is right --according to Wine Business, it's 65%--, that hardly makes Barolo a wine that it's more consumed outside of Europe. It's like saying that few Californians know much about their own best wines because they're consumed outside California.

That, without entering on the subject of whether the best barolos have the same export pattern, since your point was about Europe's best wines.

Edited January 2, 2007 by pedro (log)

[Fat Guy]

Nor are we talking about the best wines here. It's extraordinarily rare to see a great Barolo as part of a course-by-course by-the-glass pairing, or if you do see a wine of that caliber it's likely to be the only one out of six or more wines. The occasional full-on high-end pairing does come about -- Joseph Nase used to offer some super-premium pairings at Lespinasse, and Andy gave an example of a special £295 per person pairing at Fat Duck -- but it's not the norm. Usually with these pairings the wines themselves are just okay and it's the pairings themselves that are relied upon to provide synergy. So no, we're not talking about the best wines of Europe.

[Fat Guy]

What I guess I don't understand is if you figure out you need more bottles of wine, what the rationale is for ever getting 2 of the same bottle. If you need 6 bottles of wine, why not get 6 different ones and match them to courses?

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In my initial post I mentioned two reasons: first, it's interesting to see how the same wine tastes with different foods; second, it's a great pleasure to live with a wine throughout a long meal and to watch it develop over the course of two or three hours of drinking.

[docsconz]

What I guess I don't understand is if you figure out you need more bottles of wine, what the rationale is for ever getting 2 of the same bottle. If you need 6 bottles of wine, why not get 6 different ones and match them to courses?

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In my initial post I mentioned two reasons: first, it's interesting to see how the same wine tastes with different foods; second, it's a great pleasure to live with a wine throughout a long meal and to watch it develop over the course of two or three hours of drinking.

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For the bulk of my restaurant experiences I agree with you, however, for certain restaurants, of which Alinea represents a prime example, I personally prefer the course by course synergism rather than experiencing an off pairing that does no good to either the wine or the food. It is also a particularly good device when all the diners are having very disparate food experiences and the restaurant is willing to tailor pairings individually.

[jsmeeker]

I never thought my simple thread would spur such an interesting topic.

Are we too "matchy" I dunno. Maybe sometimes we over think it. I think I may be guilty of this my self. I DO like tasting menus and I typically go for a wine pairing In most cases, they HAVE been a one-to-one relationship to course. I enjoy this a great deal. Why? Because I get to taste lots of wines. I agree with others that say a place like Aliniea would be an entire experience.. It's like going to a show (movie or theater or concert or whatever). You go, show up, and your senses are exposed to certain things in a certain way (the way the performers/directors, etc. want you to experience them). That restaurant is the same way. You show up and put yourself in the care of the whole team at Aliniea to give you a unique experience. So, no, in a special case like that, I don't think it's too over the top.

Now, when it comes to more causal dining (or even holiday meals with family that aren't really true. hard core food and wine people), being really "matchy" can become a bit much. Steven's idea of picking a nice wine for the whole meal makes a whole lot of sense.. And really, it's something I"m trying to learn more about myself. It''s just the way most people eat at home for family meals. Everything at once. (except dessert)..

For me, I was seeking a wine to go with a prime rid Christmas dinner. I asked for a nice red and possibly a white.. Not much was discussed about the white, but I got some varying suggestions on the reds. I never really thought too much about the comments about WHY one wine was better than the other. (the end cut vs. a middle piece) But Steven dug deeper into some of those comments and came up with this interesting topic we have now.

Why not in Europe? I dunno. Never been there. What are grocery stores like there? Can you buy 20 kinds of coffee in even the most common suburban mega-mart? I think Americans (and maybe other "new worlders") are used to having lots of choices at their disposal. Of course, that may not explain MATCHING. Maybe it is more of the way wine is viewed. If Europeans view wine the way a lot of people in the USA view iced tea or Diet Coke, then I can see why they would largely stick to one wine all the time.

anyway.. really interesting. It's educational to read the various responses.

[Craig Camp]

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few Europeans know much about their own best wines, which are often mostly exported. .....

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You're not being serious, are you? Are you taking into account that UK, Switzerland and Germany, big importers of wine, are actually part of Europe? If we take Barolo, USA is the largest market with 14% of the share and UK the second with 13%. Even if your figure of 80% is right --according to Wine Business, it's 65%--, that hardly makes Barolo a wine that it's more consumed outside of Europe. It's like saying that few Californians know much about their own best wines because they're consumed outside California.

That, without entering on the subject of whether the best barolos have the same export pattern, since your point was about Europe's best wines.

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"You're not being serious" is a fine way to continue a debate.

Compliments on your fine statistics, but I think you miss the point. As far as I can tell while the UK, Switzerland and Germany are clearly part of Europe, they are, as far I know, not part of Italy. The point I was trying to make is that the Italians don't drink much of their best wines, nor do the French.

Edited January 2, 2007 by Craig Camp (log)

[Craig Camp]

I guess I'm just surprised by this topic. Steven has dedicated much of his life to finding the best foods and the best ingredients to make those foods. He goes out of his way to analyze in minute detail the food at restaurants and from food vendors, but then finds the same intensity to match wine with food somehow too demanding. I think that just shows his personal interest is in food far more than wine. Not that there is anything wrong with that. For me, as someone who is dedicating my life to finding a way to make great pinot noir, I don't understand the difference. How is the quest of a chef different from that of a winemaker? Why should the results of a chefs efforts demand more respect than a winemaker?

[Fat Guy]

I just don't think it would be credible to claim that Americans gourmets are more sophisticated about wine than French and Italian gourmets. Only a tiny percentage of the population of any country is going to have access to the finest wines (not that the finest wines are offered in most course-by-course pairing situations). The question is what level of knowledge does that subset of the population possess?

The food-and-wine knowledgeable subset of the European population is super-knowledgeable. We're talking about the people who create much of the world's greatest food and wine, and the people who dine at the finest restaurants in the land. And when you look at those people -- that super-knowledgeable, sophisticated subset of the population that has intimate familiarity with the great wines -- you find that they don't go in for hyper-matching. They prefer to order bottles.

[Craig Camp]

I never thought my simple thread would spur such an interesting topic.

Are we too "matchy"  I dunno.  Maybe sometimes we over think it. I think I may be guilty of this my self.  I DO like tasting menus and I typically go for a wine pairing In most cases, they HAVE been a one-to-one relationship to course. I enjoy this a great deal. Why? Because I get to taste lots of wines.  I agree with others that say a place like Aliniea would be an entire experience.. It's like going to a show (movie or theater or concert or whatever).  You go, show up, and your senses are exposed to certain things in a certain way (the way the performers/directors, etc. want you to experience them).  That  restaurant is the same way.  You show up and put yourself in the care of the whole team at Aliniea to give you a unique experience. So, no, in a special case like that, I don't think it's too over the top.

Now, when it comes to more causal dining (or even holiday meals with family that aren't really true. hard core food and wine people), being really "matchy" can become a bit much.  Steven's idea of picking a nice wine for the whole meal makes a whole lot of sense.. And really, it's something I"m trying to learn more about myself.  It''s just the way most people eat at home for family meals.  Everything at once. (except dessert)..

For me, I was seeking a wine to go with a prime rid Christmas dinner.  I asked for a nice red and possibly a white..  Not much was discussed about the white, but I got some varying suggestions on the reds.  I never really thought too much about the comments about WHY one wine was better than the other. (the end cut vs. a middle piece)  But Steven dug deeper into some of those comments and came up with this interesting topic we have now.

Why not in Europe? I dunno.  Never been there.  What are grocery stores like there? Can you buy 20 kinds of coffee in even the most common suburban mega-mart?  I think Americans (and maybe other "new worlders") are used to having lots of choices at their disposal.  Of course, that may not explain MATCHING.  Maybe it is more of the way wine is viewed.  If Europeans view wine the way a lot of people in the USA view iced tea or Diet Coke, then I can see why they would largely stick to one wine all the time.

anyway.. really interesting. It's educational to read the various responses.

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I think you've it right on the head and certainly you clearly understood everyone's comments on your Christmas dinner thread. We were just talking, not demanding that you drink what we recommended. It should be fun and enjoyable most of all, but going to restaurants like Alinea means that we are seeking a higher level of appreciation of both food and wine.

[Fat Guy]

Craig, I'm equally surprised by your position. I was anticipating that you'd be the first to ring in with an endorsement of a more casual, Italianate approach to wine with food, and to join me in railing against anal retentive Americanized wine overmatching, which is probably somehow symptomatically connected to the 100 point scale, Vinovation and other innovations that treat wine as consumer electronics. I love great wine, and I love great food. I probably love great food more than I love great wine, but love them both I do. And I love them together. I just don't think it's necessary to get all crazy about matching a dozen different wines to a dozen different courses. And I think a lot of people who are much more knowledgeable about wine than I am agree, because I'm sure if you study the behavior of the top-spending percentile of wine aficionados you'll find that they almost never order the pairings. Heck they prefer to bring bottles from their own cellars.

[Craig Camp]

I just don't think it would be credible to claim that Americans gourmets are more sophisticated about wine than French and Italian gourmets. Only a tiny percentage of the population of any country is going to have access to the finest wines (not that the finest wines are offered in most course-by-course pairing situations). The question is what level of knowledge does that subset of the population possess?

The food-and-wine knowledgeable subset of the European population is super-knowledgeable. We're talking about the people who create much of the world's greatest food and wine, and the people who dine at the finest restaurants in the land. And when you look at those people -- that super-knowledgeable, sophisticated subset of the population that has intimate familiarity with the great wines -- you find that they don't go in for hyper-matching. They prefer to order bottles.

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I dare you to find a wine shop in Europe, outside of England, that offers the range of wines offered by top wine shops the USA. When it comes to "food-and-wine knowledgeable subsets" of European consumers, I think you can find some in Northern Europe, but in producing countries like France, Italy and Spain you don't. It's not that they not interested, but you just can't buy the wines. I have a far better and more diverse range of wines available to me in Portland Oregon than I did in Milano. You live in NYC, the easiest place in the world to buy great wine, but your experience does not reflect the rest fo the world.

[Craig Camp]

Craig, I'm equally surprised by your position. I was anticipating that you'd be the first to ring in with an endorsement of a more casual, Italianate approach to wine with food, and to join me in railing against anal retentive Americanized wine overmatching, which is probably somehow symptomatically connected to the 100 point scale, Vinovation and other innovations that treat wine as consumer electronics. I love great wine, and I love great food. I probably love great food more than I love great wine, but love them both I do. And I love them together. I just don't think it's necessary to get all crazy about matching a dozen different wines to a dozen different courses. And I think a lot of people who are much more knowledgeable about wine than I am agree, because I'm sure if you study the behavior of the top-spending percentile of wine aficionados you'll find that they almost never order the pairings. Heck they prefer to bring bottles from their own cellars.

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I agree with you totally that most of the time a casual approach to matching food and wine is the best. However, when you reach the level of certain wine and food experiences, like Alinea, it's another situation.

Don't get crazy about getting it right, but also not everything is good with anything and following some broad, general guidelines will enhance your experience.

[Schneier]

I think this is 100% a question of focus.  I know wine people -- people who pick the wine first and then find food to match it -- who will discuss these subtlties endlessly.  On the other hand, food people -- who pick the food first and then find a wine to match -- find it a bit too much.

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What happens when you get a wine and food person?

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They become completely paralyzed, and starve because they can never eat.

[Schneier]

I think this is 100% a question of focus.  I know wine people -- people who pick the wine first and then find food to match it -- who will discuss these subtlties endlessly.  On the other hand, food people -- who pick the food first and then find a wine to match -- find it a bit too much.

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That hypothesis doesn't stand up to cross-cultural comparison, though, does it? Because if we accept that top restaurants in Europe rarely if ever do course-by-course pairings, then we have a large body of "wine people" who don't fit the hypothesis.

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I don't think European restaurant traditions matter in this regard. I've seen wine people in European restaurants read the wine list first and then do their best to match the food with their choices, and I've seen food people do the opposite. People simply do the best they can given the constraints of what is allowable, either because of restaurant rules or social convention.

[Craig Camp]

I think this is 100% a question of focus.  I know wine people -- people who pick the wine first and then find food to match it -- who will discuss these subtlties endlessly.  On the other hand, food people -- who pick the food first and then find a wine to match -- find it a bit too much.

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What happens when you get a wine and food person?

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They become completely paralyzed, and starve because they can never eat.

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Funny, I've never had that trouble.

[Shalmanese]

From the restaurant perspective, I think another reason is that it requires a certain amount of critical mass before it becomes economic to do full wine pairings. Assuming you're pairing 8 - 10 wines with a meal, you can only really do half glasses of any wine or the customer is going to get unpleasantly drunk. Which means at the end of the day, if you only get 2 or 3 people opting for the wine pairing, you're going to be throwing away a lot of expensive bottles of wine. Even if you get a lot of customers, you're still going to be on average throwing away half a bottle per wine which only becomes worthwhile if you're moving a lot of bottles.

Maybe it's just a cultural thing where it's just not a custom in Europe which makes it difficult to start one.

[pedro]

Compliments on your fine statistics, but I think you miss the point. As far as I can tell while the UK, Switzerland and Germany are clearly part of Europe, they are, as far I know, not part of Italy. The point I was trying to make is that the Italians don't drink much of their best wines, nor do the French.

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Sorry, Craig, your sentence:

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few Europeans know much about their own best wines, which are often mostly exported. .....

made me somehow believe that you were talking about Europe.

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I dare you to find a wine shop in Europe, outside of England, that offers the range of wines offered by top wine shops the USA. When it comes to "food-and-wine knowledgeable subsets" of European consumers, I think you can find some in Northern Europe, but in producing countries like France, Italy and Spain you don't. It's not that they not interested, but you just can't buy the wines. I have a far better and more diverse range of wines available to me in Portland Oregon than I did in Milano. You live in NYC, the easiest place in the world to buy great wine, but your experience does not reflect the rest fo the world.

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Craig, you certainly have a point regarding physical stores, but I can guarantee you that wine geeks in any country will go out of their way to access their desired wines. After all, from a Spanish perspective, we're talking of getting wine from three different countries mainly --emphasis on 'mainly': France, Italy and Germany. More often than not, going out of the way simply means accessing to an online retailer or wholesaler. Your point would be stronger would it have referred to wine lists in restaurants where clearly, being a producer country, the selection of wines tends to be focused on the wines from the country.

But we're getting close to be off-topic, since we were discussing matching. My question about whether chef Achatz is actively involved in the pairing design process remains unanswered.

On a broader perspective, I'd argue that avant-garde cooking is less wine friendly than more traditional cuisines styles. The challenge they present to the way we used to eat extends to what/how we used to drink. Most of these chefs don't think of wine when they create their dishes --though the Roca brothers have initiated a series of dishes featuring wine on them-- and even one of them, Aduriz from Mugaritz, is thinking of getting rid of beverages in the long term, getting the liquid you need directly from the dishes. This is clearly opposite to the model in which chefs like Santi Santamaría believe, that start from what he calls 'the Occidental way of eating' where wine is a key element of the meal. In this model, however, the dinner pivots around a main dish and so does wine: you try to get the best wine you can for that main dish --a roasted becasse, for instance--.

I've dined twice at The Fat Duck. The first, I chose the wine pairing option. Only the pairing of the wine served with the salmon coated in liquorice was remarkable. What we paid for the wines by the glass, for the two of us, was around 225€, that is, near $300. The second time, would have we gone the same way, we would have paid 270€, that is, over $300. Instead, we had some champagne by the glass, a nice wine from Roulot --sorry, don't have the menu with me right now and it was in Aug 05--, perhaps a couple of glasses of red to finish the meal and some excellent Armagnac and Cognac to finish with. The bill was perhaps not much lower than what we would have paid if we had chosen the pairing, but I very much doubt that the experience would have been vastly improved.

Edited January 2, 2007 by pedro (log)

[docsconz]

Pedro, as for Grant Achatz: I very much doubt that he is selecting the wines. That would be Joe Catterson's job. However, I would be equally surprised if he didn't have a say in ok'ing them.

[slkinsey]

The point I was trying to make is that the Italians don't drink much of their best wines, nor do the French.

I don't quite see the point of this. Part of this reason, I have to assume, is that the average Italian simply doesn't understand the concept of laying out 200 Euro for a bottle of wine. It's not the done thing in Italy and I daresay it's not the done thing in most any wine-drinking culture (which the United States by and large is not). If, indeed, it is the case that more Barolo is consumed in America than it is in Italy, it is because we have more people here with the interest and the means to shell out big bucks on a bottle of wine and therefore Barolo is being produced and priced for export. You might just as well say that the English don't drive many of their very best cars. This is probably true, but hardly demonstates anything other than the fact that the English don't have as many people with the interest and means to spend a quarter-million on a car.

Part of what I think must drive the "micro-matching" in American restaurants is the prevalence of (genuine or would-be) oenophiles here at a certain price point. Although it may happen every so often, I don't think it's particularly common for Europeans to read the wine list first and then match the food with their choices. The only people I know who do that sort of thing are Americans. Quite to the contrary, most of the time in Italy, France, Spain, etc. wine is just something that is consumed with food. Yes, one cares about the quality of the wine and how it pairs with the food, but no more than one cares about the quality of the food and the food is driving (of course, many Europeans are far more invested and involved in their culinary culture than most Americans). The times I have enjoyed several different bottles of wine over the course of a European meal or outing, it has not been to make specific "this wine pairs so well with the hint of rosemary in the duck jus" kind of pairings, but rather just to enjoy a different and interesting bottle of wine.

The other thing that has perhaps driven micro-pairing of wines is the growing popularity of tasting menus. In a regular three-course meal, it doesn't strike me as unreasonable or over-the-top to have a different wine with each course. It's when the meal grows to ten courses that the progression of paired wines can become a little overwhelming and occasionally a little silly. I wonder if and to what extent this practice has led to the point where two friends don't feel like they can share a single bottle if one is having pork and the other is having chicken, because a single wine can't possibly "match" both dishes optimally.

[hathor]

Do they even offer course-by-course pairings? I'm not sure I recall ever seeing such pairings offered in a top European restaurant. Is it an American thing?

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Wine pairings are certainly an option in top Italian restaurants. As far as Italians consuming Barolo...they are too regional. A Sicilian is not going to track down a Barolo when he already knows he has the best wine in the world at his doorstep. Sorry...off topic in regards to pairing.

Edited January 2, 2007 by hathor (log)

[slkinsey]

Do they even offer course-by-course pairings? I'm not sure I recall ever seeing such pairings offered in a top European restaurant. Is it an American thing?

Wine pairings are frequently an option in top Italian restaurants.

Isn't it also the case that the most common criticism of "top" Italian restaurants is that they're not all that Italian? And that their typical customers aren't Italian?

[hathor]

Do they even offer course-by-course pairings? I'm not sure I recall ever seeing such pairings offered in a top European restaurant. Is it an American thing?

Wine pairings are frequently an option in top Italian restaurants.

Isn't it also the case that the most common criticism of "top" Italian restaurants is that they're not all that Italian? And that their typical customers aren't Italian?

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That's another debate, for another thread. Why Italians don't dine out regularly? I've pondered that question many times.