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The Joys of Local Pairings

Written By: Brian Freedman on Friday, March 28, 2008

The solution to complicated food and wine pairing may be easier

Pairing food and wine can be complicated; no person with a solid knowledge of food and wine would ever argue that. But it's important to also realize that it doesn't have to be bewilderingly difficult. In fact, depending on how you look at it, finding the perfect wine to pair with a meal--or vice-versa--does not have to be any harder than looking to the region in which each was produced.

This was driven home to me for the second time in the past six months--the first time was during a trip to Italy's Piedmont region last November--during a week's stay in Southern California. Sure I knew I'd eat well out there: If you know where to look and what to order, it's difficult not to. That part of the country, after all, is blessed with the kind of climate that is perfectly suited to eating seasonally: The days are warm, the nights cool down nicely, and the sun is plentiful. Compare that with where I live (Philadelphia), and it's a veritable fresh-food Shangri-La out there.

Not that you can't find fresh fruits and vegetables here; and not that you can't find farm-raised and locally-grown chicken and cattle and the like in these parts. But in Southern California, in general terms, it has always seemed to me that there is more of an ingrained understanding of the benefits of eating locally and seasonally.

Aside from all the obvious health benefits of eating seasonal, local foods, doing so tends to result in a more flavorful eating experience. Lately, for example, I have been taste-bud assaulted by way too many mealy, out-of-season, vaguely depressing tomatoes in the salads I've been eating when visiting local restaurants.

Now, at some point--say, soon after they were picked--those offending tomatoes were ostensibly fresh and appealing. But by the time they had made the long trip to Philly, they had, in a word, died. This has been happening since very early autumn, which begs the question: Why do so many chefs insist on continuing to serve them?

The answer is simple: Because their guests expect it. So rather than reimagine a salad this time of year to reflect the produce that can be sourced locally, they stick by the same old conventions, which reinforces their guests' notions, which perpetuates the viciously stale circle.

But back to Southern California: Because so much of what I ate was local and seasonal and therefore tasted like what it was supposed to, the flavors were easier to pair with wine. Even more importantly, they were easier to pair with the wines of the region.

Southern California may not be the first place most people think of when the subject of American wine comes up--more northerly Napa and Sonoma likely spring to mind--but three or four hours outside Los Angeles is Santa Barbara, which, for my money, is home to one of the most exciting wine revolutions in America today. And over the course of my stay, I had more unexpectedly wonderful local pairing than I ever imagined before getting on that cross-country flight.

Santa Barbara sauvignon blanc with impeccably composed local-green salads. Juicy cabernet sauvignon with beef obtained from farm-raised California cattle. Pinot noir with Pacific coast salmon (less local, but still close...)

This is exactly the same thing I experienced back in November, but with a totally different cuisine in Piedmont. There, the local flavors that paired so well were far darker: Barbera with sliced raw veal. Barbaresco with white truffles. Dolcetto with the endless variety of pizzas.

But where Southern California and Piedmont find common ground is in the affinity their local wines and foods show for one another. And that, I have found, is the case with the food and wine of every wine region I have ever visited. Whether this has something to do with the fact that the food and the grapes are raised on similar land and in similar climates, or because similar cultural considerations are brought to bear on the production of both, or for some other reason, I do not know.

What I do know is that it always seems to work out. So the next time you find yourself perplexed about what to pair with a particular dish, ask yourself where each comes from. The answer will, more often than not, provide a road-map of sorts leading you back to the region of production.

Goat cheese from the Loire Valley? Easy: Go with a Pouilly-Fumé or Sancerre from the same region. Egg-pasta with shaved white truffles? No problem: Barbaresco is the answer.

With a little common sense and a willingness to trust the geography of the food and wine world, your pairing possibilities are endless.

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