[wine] Zins at Sapor on Thursday

Updates as I know them. Also an article on pairing wine w/ spicy food. Liq. Depot Sale tasting is this Thursday at 5:00. We're going to Sapor at 6:30 on Thursday. Style du jour is Zinfandel. $5 per person in leu of corkage. Probably going to Bobino, tasting menu, on 9/8/08. Ruth is going to the fair several times. Not sure who's coming on Thursday. Will guess. ----- Forwarded message from "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu> ----- Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 14:16:44 -0500 From: "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu> To: wine(a)thebarn.com Greetings, Muffuletta was wonderful. Very relaxing in the back room. Sapor, 6:30 p.m. on Thursday $5 per person in lieu of corkage. Recall that we got into some hot water when someone inadvertantly brought something that they claim was on their list. I belive it was a Zin from Seghesio and/or Ch. Souvreign.... Never mind that it was a different vintage and blah-blah-blah... Anyway, part of their wine list is on their web site. If you happen to bring something that's on the list (easier than you might think. Ask Russ about a split of something obscure he'd bought at a winery that was on their shelf as well.... ) We'll just save it for another week. We're never short of wine. http://www.saporcafe.com/ 428 N. Washington, Mpls 612 375 1971 Yes/Guess: Warren/Ruth (if it's raining. Being on a stick is no excuse for being soggy) Betsy Bob Nicolai Jim More guesses.... Lori Russ Roger LeClair Annette S Dave Karin Sapor is very close to Sam's Wine Shop (closes at 8:00 M-Th). August 17, 2005 Choosing Bottles to Face the Heat By ERIC ASIMOV WHAT do Thai, Japanese and Chinese food have in common? Not to mention Indian and Mexican food, Middle Eastern and Haitian, and, as long as we're at it, barbecue? When deciding what to drink with any of these cuisines, the reflex is usually to grab a beer. Or a Coke. Or water - lots of water. I have no problem with any of those choices. Beer in particular is especially appealing with all of these cuisines, although most restaurants serving these foods have been the absolute last to discover the world of great craft beers. Wine - the right wine - can go beautifully with any of these foods. It's not necessarily better than beer, but if you love wine why shouldn't you be able to enjoy it with Thai, Haitian and anything else? The key is choosing the right wine, because when you are dealing with foods that are forcefully spiced, and often with lots of chili heat, many wines can easily be overwhelmed. It's understandable that people rarely select wine with any of these cuisines. These foods do not come from wine-making regions. They are made for beer or even whiskey. Cultural attitudes can also play a role. As Americans are in the habit of associating beverages with social aspirations, well, let's just say that you have a better chance of finding wine at a Nascar race than you do at a barbecue pit. So what is the right wine to go along with these foods? More often than not, it's Champagne. No wine, believe it or not, is as versatile with so wide a range of food as Champagne, and that especially includes foods that are assertively spiced. Chicken chaat with chili, cilantro and that icy feeling in the top of your mouth that comes from coarsely ground Indian black salt? Champagne is your baby. Griot, the Haitian dish of pork chunks that are marinated in vinegar, chili and lemon juice, then fried? You won't go wrong with Champagne. Sichuan twice-cooked pork? Champagne, definitely. Champagne is a great choice with sushi. And if you go to Blue Smoke in Manhattan, a barbecue pit mutated into an urban New York restaurant, where you will actually find a wine list, go directly to the Billecart-Salmon. It's the perfect, and perfectly ironic, choice with the smoky pulled pork. Can it be mere affectation that R.U.B., the barbecue joint on West 23rd Street, offers Dom P�rignon with its Taste of the Baron, a big sampler special for two, all for $275? Well, maybe it can, but if money's no object, you would not be sorry. On first glance, it's obvious why Champagne would go so well with beer cuisines. It's the bubbles. But that doesn't explain all of it. Cava and prosecco have bubbles, but they don't have the intensity of Champagne. California sparkling wine has bubbles, but it often is a little too heavy to refresh. I recently tried a sparkling shiraz from Australia with falafel and hummus with hot sauce, and frankly, I wish I had used more hot sauce to drown out the thick, sweet yet bitter flavor of the shiraz. No, the bubbles are important, but Champagne also has a crucial element that the other sparkling wines too often lack: high acidity. Acidity gives wine snap and zest. It gives it a sense of freshness and helps to stimulate the palate. Even sweet wines, like a German riesling auslese, when balanced by acidity, can be thoroughly refreshing. Good acidity in a wine is essential if it is to accompany foods that aren't typically thought of as good with wine. Thai food is generally ceded to the beer camp. It's hard to beat a great pilsner with a spicy Thai curry, but you know what? A good Bourgueil comes awfully close. Bourgueil, a village in Touraine on the Loire, produces reds from the cabernet franc grape that can be raspy with acidity, but when the acidity is balanced by sufficient fruit you have a delicious wine. Are Bourgueils, along with similar wines from the neighboring villages of Chinon and Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil, great wines? No, but they are great food wines. If you don't believe me, have a meal at Holy Basil, a Thai restaurant in the East Village. Pimnapa Suntatkolkarn, the chef and an owner, has constructed a wine list that I wish could be a model for every moderately priced restaurant, and she always offers a good Loire red. At a meal there I tried a 2002 Bourgueil "Les Galichets" from Catherine and Pierre Breton, as well as a 1995 Rioja Reserva from L�pez de Heredia. The Rioja is wonderful, and about twice the price of the Bourgueil, but with a pungent, tart yet balanced dish like crisp duck with panang curry and kaffir lime? The Rioja had no business on the table. The Bourgueil, though, was perfect - refreshing and stimulating. The Rioja no doubt would receive a higher score in a blind tasting, but at a Thai dinner, the Bourgueil blew it away. Ms. Suntatkolkarn believes in choices, though, and she has wisely put on her list such versatile wines as a Mosel riesling from Selbach, a Saint-V�ran from Daniel Barraud, two whites that combine good acidity with fine mineral flavors, and a Brouilly, an easygoing yet intense Beaujolais from Ch�teau Thivin. These are wines that I would not hesitate to drink with most highly spiced cuisines. She might want to add a Champagne or two, and, alas, reconsider her beer selection. Other red wines can be versatile, too, like barbera from Piedmont in northwestern Italy, for one, and C�tes-du-Rh�nes, unless they are too oaky. Burgundy and mellow pinot noirs, of course. Sushi and pinot noir is a surprisingly excellent combination, though you need to be careful. Burgundies are generally good choices, because they have sufficient acidity, but American pinot noirs can often be too sweet. With one recent sushi dinner I tried an Oregon pinot noir that I have enjoyed, a 2002 from Francis Tannahill called the Hermit. Unless you pour on the wasabi and soy, sushi depends on a subtle interplay of quickly etched flavors, and the rich, intense Tannahill was overwhelming. A much better choice was a 2000 Carneros Heritage Reserve from Schug, a low-key pinot noir with good acidity. Like the Bourgueil, it was the kind of wine that doesn't necessarily win high marks in the ratings wars, but proves itself at the table. Cabernet, merlot and other Bordeaux varietal wines may be among the world's most popular, but when it comes to foods off the wine trail, they tend to be overbearing brutes. Tannins, which are generally plentiful in cabernet, and spicy foods are like rivals whom you don't want to invite to the same party. Inevitably, they'll butt heads. When cabernets age and the tannins soften, the roles reverse, and it's the spicy food that does the bullying. But like the best-intentioned matchmakers, evidence doesn't stop some Bordeaux and cabernet lovers from placing their favorite wines in ill-conceived pairings. Until he sold his restaurant, Henry's Evergreen, on the Upper East Side a few years ago, the owner, Henry Leung, offered an excellent list of powerful California cabernets with Cantonese food. With such bottles I found myself wishing for a steak. Fortunately, Mr. Leung offered some fine rieslings and other choices to go with the house specialties. Perhaps the most famous Vietnamese restaurant in Paris is Tan Dinh. It's not the food that has won it acclaim, although it's very good, but its list of Pomerols. I could not nearly afford one of the better Pomerols. But the bottle I tried was thought-provoking. I had two thoughts, actually: Bring on some roasted lamb, or bring on the Champagne. -- ------------------------------ * * Dr. James Lee Ellingson, Adjunct Professor jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * University of Minnesota, tel: 651/645-0753 fax 651 XXX XXXX * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *