INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

:  An Experiment Illustrating the Logic Behind Matching Food and Wine
The Wines: 1. A dry, young Riesling that's fresh and delicate. If you can't
find a Riesling, substitute a Pinot Blanc or Pinot Gris instead.
2. A California Chardonnay or a Burgundy such as Puligny-Montrachet.
3. A Cabernet/Merlot blend or an inexpensive, simple young red wine made
without using new oak barrels.
4. A good Cabernet Sauvignon where the oak is not a dominant flavor.
The Wine Tasting:
Start the tasting with a small bowl of the basic bean soup flavored with 1
tbs of the infused oil. The first wine you'll try is a dry Riesling This
wine is aromatic, fruity and delicate. The soup is silky, full-bodied, and
subtly flavored, and the olive oil gives it a complex and pungent aroma.
The Riesling and soup enhance, but don't overpower each other.
Try the next wine ÄÄ a buttery chardonnay that has spent time in new oak.
Compared to the Riesling, the Chardonnay has a heavy, rich, almost fat
feeling in the mouth. Taste the Chardonnay with the soup and the soup's
flavor seems to shrink in size. The soup's delicate aroma and silky texture
are still there, but you have to look for them. The combination isn't
unpleasant, but the wine is the dominant flavor. In conjunction with the
Riesling, the soup was perfectly balanced. With the Chardonnay, the soup
seems lackluster because the full body of the wine is out of balance with
the delicacy of the soup.
Follow the Chardonnay with the Cabernet/Merlot blend at room temperature.
The wine and soup makes a passable combination, but the wine obscures the
beans's silkiness and subtlety ÄÄ qualities that had been exciting and
delicious with the Riesling. The red wine obscures the soup, but not in the
same way as the Chardonnay. The Cabernet/Merlot has too much fruit and not
enough acid, and the soft fruitiness of the wine overpowers the simple
soup.
Now grate about a tablespoon of Parmesan cheese into each bowl of soup and
the scenario changes completely. Suddenly, the Chardonnay comes into
balance and is a stunning partner for the soup. This apparent change of
heart happens because the cheese makes the soup taste richer and fuller,
and the Parmesan's milk fat absorbs the wine's tannins. The sweet richness
of the Parmesan is a good balance for the Chardonnay's rich, vanilla fruit.
If you taste the Riesling with this version of the soup, you'll find that
the wine somehow has become weak and flat.
Now try this incarnation of the soup with the Cabernet/Merlot blend. You'll
find the combination has no special dimension; in fact the soup tastes
rather flat. Again, the problem is the wine's fruitiness, which still
overpowers the dish. Even the strong flavor of the Parmesan doesn't give
the soup enough strength to stand up to the wine.
The final version of the soup incorporates a blend of slowly saut.ed
tomatoes, onions, and herbs. When you add a couple of spoonfuls of this
mixture to the soup, the dish changes altogether, Now there;s a lush,
succulent feel to the soup, with a full range of flavors. The tomatoes make
the soup both sweeter and more acidic, and these qualities give the
Cabernet/Merlot a springboard. The same qualities that made this wine a
poor choice in other versions of the soup now can be enhanced. In fact, at
this point it's best to serve this wine just cooler than room temperature
to bring out its fruit flavors and make the acidity more prominent.
Together, the soup and wine taste balanced and alive, and they're a
pleasure to eat together. The wine seems bright and lively without
dominating your taste buds or the soup.
If you were to try this version of the soup with a white wine, the
combination would be underwhelming. White wines seem to wither and lose
almost all their flavor in the face of acidic tomatoes.
The final wine is another red ÄÄ this time a Cabernet Sauvignon that's
rich, concentrated, and aged in new oak. Taste this pairing and you'll find
the wine dominates. The Cabernet is just too heavy, earthy, and intense for
the soup, even with the tomato, onion, and herbal flavors of the sofregit.
The Parmesan helps, but the combination is still merely fair, not dazzling.
the lighter red wine more closely matches the soup's level of richness and
intensity. Save the Cabernet for a lamb shank or veal chop which could
follow the soup.
From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini

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