White Wine with Steak: Is it a Do or a Don't?
I don't often abide by wine-pairing rules. Some pairings make sense to me, but mostly I just go with what I like and what I think works. The one rule I do tend to follow is red wine with red meat, but recently I had a meal that made me reconsider this notion.
Last Tuesday evening, I was lucky enough to go to the James Beard House for dinner. The visiting chef was Jason Robinson of The Inn at Dos Brisas, a Relais & Châteaux property in Washington , Texas . The meal was quite good (especially all the spring veggies brought up from Dos Brisas's own 300 acres) but what really struck me were the wines, which were all Rieslings from the Mosel Valley in Germany . The pairings all seemed quite natural at first (I particularly enjoyed the Weingut Christoph von Nell Eleonora Halbtrocken Riesling paired with the hors d'oeuvres and house-made cheeses) but then I noticed that the meat course, slow-roasted Texas Akaushi loin (similar to wagyu) with Dos Brisas spring vegetables and Riesling jus was also being paired with Riesling. Having never been served a white wine with red meat, I was intrigued and kind of excited. And, once I gave the pairing a try, I have to admit I was convinced that white wine can indeed work with red meat. The wine itself was rather intense. It had a definite though not unbearable sweetness and a thickness that stood up to the food.
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Eager to discover the motivation behind this unconventional pairing, I spoke to Christopher Bates, the sommelier and innkeeper at Dos Brisas. He explained that for a winemaker's dinner at Dos Brisas, they tried serving both an Austrian Riesling and an Austrian red with the meat course and found that guests overwhelmingly preferred the Riesling. Bates also turns out to be a major Riesling fan and hopes to convince others of it's virtues: "I want people to understand the true complexity of these wines and their versatility . . . from sparkling to still, fruity to bone dry, light and elegant to powerful and brooding, and enjoyable fresh from the barrel or with 40 or 50 years bottle age.
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His love of Riesling aside, when it comes to pairing, Bates insists "the protein is the least important part of the equation, it is usually the sauce and its accompaniments that choose the pairing." (Sommelier Daniel Johnnes offered similar advice when we interviewed him.) So for this particular pairing, Bates points to the spring vegetables, which he thinks work better with whites rather than reds, and the Riesling jus, which has a sweetness that matches the wine. He added that the meat has some fat so it needs a powerful, weighty wine. All this led him to the Clemens Busch, Riesling, Spätlese, "Fass 32", Pündericher Marienburg, a late harvest Riesling that's complex with strong mineral notes and balanced sugar levels.
Have you ever enjoyed Riesling (or another white) with red meat? What about other unusual pairings?
by Lauren Salkeld
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