Note: This is a guest blog post describing some great ideas for pairing wine with food. Enjoy!
A lot of home cooks know that pairing Petit Chablis with a Chilean Sea Bass is good, but not many people know a good bottle that can be matched with shark meat. There are many sites that offer wine pairing suggestions such as the Wine Folly, but there aren’t a lot of ideas when it comes to eating unusual meat. Pairing wine with food that isn’t readily available in the market is fun and will take one’s palate to new levels of taste. So, after mastering the basics of wine pairing with normal meat, here are 3 odd suggestions that will definitely surprise one’s taste buds.
Pairing Wine with Shark
Shark shouldn’t be treated as fish meat when pairing with wine. Many restaurant chefs treat this as meat similar to pork and beef, so it should definitely be paired with a wine that’s both acidic and fruity. A bottle of M&S Crow’s Fountain Chenin Blanc is a good wine for shark since it has just the right amount of acidity and fruitiness. It has a distinct taste of apple, citrus, guava, and its fresh, dry finish compliments the shark’s dense and meaty texture.
Pairing Wine with Dove
Dove meat has a gamey texture and pairing wine with it can be tricky. However, it does have a very rich flavor when cooked right so using wine that has strong, acidic flavors like rum should be the rule of thumb. Perhaps one of the best wines to pair it with is the Palataia Pinot Noir, since it has very strong and distinct flavors of black-currant and red berry. Its smooth texture also gives a nice contrast to the chewy texture of doves.
Pairing Wine with Chinese Food
Now, Chinese food is not unusual. However, pairing wine with them would be unusual since they’re usually eaten with tea or Tsingtao beer. While Chinese food is cooked without thinking about pairing fine wine, there are actually a lot of varieties that go well with them. For example, oily Chinese food such as Peking Duck and Sweet and Sour Pork can be paired with Pinot Noir, since its strong flavors can cancel out the grease. On the other hand, a bottle of Vin D’Alsace Gewurztraminer is good for Steamed Grouper in Soy Sauce since the wine’s gingery and sweet taste compliments the fish’s distinct Asian flavor.
In reality, there are no strict rules in pairing wine with food. A person can always mix and match different varieties of food and wine, and what’s important is that they’re satisfied with the results. These are just suggestions on pairing and one can use them as starting points when trying to figure out the best food and wine combinations.
I’ve been lucky to have gone to Australia and though I hate to say this, I really enjoyed eating kangaroo! It’s very meaty like beef and not gamey at all. I paired it with a good Shiraz or Cab. I’ve been tempted to order kangaroo online and give it a try at home but it is a bit expensive! I would hate to waste money and good kangaroo meat if I don’t cook it correctly!
Pat, very interesting. I’ve never had kangaroo…I think the most exotic meat I’ve had is elk and that’s not even all that exotic. I would be interested in trying kangaroo sometime, I’ve heard a few other folks mention it in the past. 🙂
Great topic! How about bear, elk, deer, quail, goose, buffalo, boar and more? This local wine company is doing it all. http://www.wildgamewine.com
Fun stuff!
Scott, very cool. I’ve done the elk thing but not much else. Kind of an endless amount of food and wine pairings if you’re willing to get creative.
You hit the nail on the head in your final paragraph. I recently launched Grapeful, an app that helps you pair wine with food, but I strongly believe that wine and food pairing is very personal. You can follow the theories which are likely to lead to better pairings, but at the end of the day if you don’t enjoy the style of wine you’re drinking, it won’t be enjoyable anyway. Power to the people!
Cheers Shakira. You’re right…much of it is about what you like. If you enjoy it how can it be wrong. 🙂