Wine Hack by Jeffrey Schiller

Author:Jeffrey Schiller
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781630476328
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing

CHAPTER 4

FINDING GOD: FOOD AND WINE PAIRING

I don’t stop eating when I’m full. The meal is not over when I’m full. The meal is over when I hate myself.

—Louis C.K., from Chewed Up, 2008

For me, wine is a cover. My true love is food. Quite a few folks in the wine business are foodies disguised as wine geeks. For me, a wine hasn’t unlocked its potential until it is matched with the right food. The right meal with the right wine isn’t just a trivial, gluttonous, and fleeting moment for people lacking real-life problems; it is also a journey through space and time to connect with peoples, cultures, and foods that have grown up together over the centuries.

Is it a coincidence that Albariño from Rías Baixas goes famously with the seafood found off the nearby coasts? Can it be that the acorn-fed, salty, and savory jamón ibérico of Spain just happens to match spectacularly with the silky, fruity, oaky wines of Rioja? Humans might have cultivated the grapes of these regions because they were well suited to the climate and soil of the Iberian peninsula, but you can’t deny the possibility that these wines thrive in these regions today at least in part because of the remarkable union the wine achieves with the local food culture. Having simply prepared fish with Portuguese Alvarinho is not only a tried-and-true pairing for your dinner tonight; it is an experience perfected by a culture and community of fishermen, wineries, and hardworking human beings who have lived their lives a certain way for decades or centuries. Think of your meal tonight as a communal ritual that has transpired millions of times, over thousands of years, across myriad cultures, families, traditions, and life events. What a rare, shared human connection.

And why has this ritual repeated itself so many times? ’Cause it tastes good. Even if you don’t geek out on the transcendent, cultural, time-travel experience, I imagine you can get onboard with the simple, tasty pleasure of pairing food and wine. Putting a great wine with great cuisine changes the entire meal. Even paired poorly, wine will always elevate your meal. Paired well, food will reveal nuances of the wine that will fire new synapses in your brain, animate previously dormant taste buds, and probably cure cancer.

But be warned: while food can, in a brilliant way, show you a version of your wine that you never knew existed, it can also, in a troublesome way, corrupt your perception of a wine. Food and wine pairing then, simply, is about avoiding the latter and creating an opportunity for the former.

As you will read in another chapter, much of my love of wine stems from the love of the people who make it. The many people who labor 365 days a year, and the many people who have labored over the course of a few thousand years, make wine what it is today. Similarly, this chapter wouldn’t be possible without one brilliant man who taught me much about enjoying food and wine.

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