Pick a wine for dinner then decide on the meal, or decide on a meal then pick a wine?

Question

Do you always decide one way or the other?
Depends on what you've got?
However the spirit moves you!

Maybe because I work in a wine shop, I frequently decide on the wine then stop on the way home buy groceries and decide my meal that way.

Answer 1

Usually, the wine is part of the meal. And maybe it's because the wine department is the last place we stop when we're in the grocery store, but we typically tend to buy wine for the next few days after buying what we know we're going to cook.

Sometimes, though, you get a really special wine, or there'll be a wine that we haven't had in a while, and we'll build a meal around that.

The best experience I have had recently around this question, though, came last June when my wife and I were invited to dinner with the winemaker at Argyle Winery in Dundee, Oregon. We're members of their wine club, and boy was this a worthwhile year to belong! The winemaker worked with a first-rate restaurateur out of Portland, and the two of them put together a meal specifically designed to highlight several of the winery's older, rarer wines.

We started on the patio with sparkling whites, including a super-late disgorged blanc de noirs that still had the yeast plug in the bottle -- just to show us why they blend even their brut wines. It was stunning, but a little too tart after the initial shock and the blush of yeasty goodness had worn off. The food paired with this consisted of different kinds of appetizers, including marinated fresh anchovies (not like the brown things in the can, these were more like tiny slices of pickled herring), a salt-cod and basil tart on coriander cracker crust, and liver pate topped with fresh local morels.

We started with a salad course of lamb prosciutto slices (that's right, leg of lamb brined and cured like an Italian prosciutto) on fresh pea tips, served opposite a mid-Nineties Johannisberg riesling. To be fair, the Riesling was probably past its prime, but it was remarkable -- the aroma was like smelling a honeycomb in an orange orchard, but the wine itself was bone dry, a little over-aged but as shadows of its former self go, this was a good one.

We moved on to a soup course, cream of cucumber soup (chilled) with prawns, drizzled with a very green extra-virgin olive oil. The wine paired with this was a Nut House chardonnay -- no, it's named that because the winery house and barn used to be the drying room for a hazelnut orchard. Argyle, like most Oregon winemakers, uses the Dijon clone for its chardonnays, and this one works exceptionally well, having the acidity and crispness of a French chablis like Le Montrachet, and a hint of the truffle-like earthiness that the Oregon soil lends to its best wines.

My favorite pairing was the next course -- cedar-planked sockeye salmon and a '96 Reserve pinot noir. The '96 Reserve was soft, delicate, and ancient, but had such depth from the classic "red hills" volcanic soil of Dundee. Every time I breathe a great Oregon pinot, I smell black truffles and Italian wild cherries; I mentioned this to the winemaker and his eyes opened wide, and he agreed that's exactly it. The salmon was incredible: cooking on the cedar plank lets it take on the character of salmon cooked over a wood fire, and this one had been garnished with a classic gremolata of Italian parsley, garlic and lemon rind, and then dotted with trout roe -- tiny coral-colored spheres bursting with juicy, sweet-salty goodness.

The last course was a pork roast on a bed of broad beans cooked with roasted beets and caramelized onions; this was served with a newer, much deeper pinot noir from the Spirit House label. (This label refers to the legend that says the winery house is haunted...) The Spirit House pinot was much darker, more full-bodied, but retained the balance and subtlety of the varietal while standing up to the roast pork and buttery, rich beans.

But the BEST thing was the way the wines and the food went together. It was clear that a really first-rate chef and a very talented winemaker had put a great deal of thought into the combinations. With each course, we were invited to sip the wine first, then take a bite, then sip the wine again. In each case, the wine-food combination was a revelation, making each one play to the other's strengths.

From the sublime to... I need to go spice my take-and-bake pizza and open a bottle of La Vieille Ferme rose to go with it. So no, we don't live like wine snobs ALL the time... :-)

Answer 2

I head to my wine shop about once a week on the same day I'm doing must of my grocery shopping. It helps that they are right next door to each other. Usually, I know ahead of time what I will be preparing that coming week and then I will go to the wine shop, pick out some fav's, and then ask them for some new recommendations on pairings with certain meals. They've almost never let me down.

Answer 3

Which would be easier to do first? Buying a bottle of wine or getting all the other items to cook a meal? Only you should know. That is why most restaurants would ask you, what would like to eat first and to match that with a good wine and not the other way round.

Answer 4

In my mind I decide on the meal and then Pick up the wine on the way to the Restaurant.

Answer 5

I would say that picking a meal is the first step. Once you have the meal picked, then pick your wine. You will want to compliment the meal with the wine, not the other way around. Unless ofcourse, you want to get wasted. The meal then is irrelevant. Cheers.

Answer 6

Decide on the meal first, then pick the wine.

Answer 7

I always decide on the meal first then pick the wine and I let the spirit and alcohol gods move me when it comes to picking which merlot or which pinot to buy!

Answer 8

decide on the meal and then pick the wine. Certain wines go with certain types of meat, so it depends on what you are serving.

Answer 9

Hello, SP. How are you ? (for some reason you decided not to reply to my last email reply to yours)...90% of the time I decide on the meal first and then choose the wine to match it.

Answer 10

Sometimes the meal determines the wine i.g., Pinot Noir goes best with my specialty meal consisting of lamb chops, twice baked potatoes stuffed with minced onion, sauteed mushrooms, and Boudin's sourdough bread. Then there are other times when it really doesn't matter.