One Soup Four Wines - Part 2 Recipe
Recipe Ingredients
1 no ingredients
Recipe Preparation
: An Experiment Illustrating the Logic Behind Matching Food and Wine
by Josh Eisen
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 sauted
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.
Servings: 1
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One Soup Four Wines - Part 2 Recipe from the Recipes 4U Collection
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