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S01E11 | Food & Wine Pairing at Meritage Philadelphia

Written By: ClassicWines.com Team on Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Brian Freedman:Welcome to The Classic Wines Minute, brought to you by classicwines.com, I’m Brian Freedman. We’re here again at Meritage restaurant on South 20th Street in Center City, Philadelphia. Now, a restaurant like Meritage gives us a great opportunity to experiment with some food and wine pairings. Now, the cuisine here is best described as wine centric European which is going to give us an opportunity for some of those classic wine pairings that everybody loves, but there's also this North African influence here, and what that's going to do because of some of those other cooking techniques and ingredients, some people might think that to throw wrench in the gears here when it comes time to trying to pair, but I think that actually gives us some opportunities for some wonderful and interesting pairings that we wouldn't have at a restaurant with a more classic, traditional European menu.

So, the first thing that we’re going to be talking about and thinking about when it comes time to pairing a food and the wine is the weight. All food has a weight; a Riba is certainly going to be a much heavier dish than Sautéed Shrimp. So, when we’re pairing a wine with this food, the first thing we want to look at is, are the weights going to be relatively similar, because if we were to have a nice, light piece of. Let's say, Tilapia and we pair that with heavy, juicy, fruity Australia Shriaz, we’re not going to taste anything we’re eating. So again, everything has to be in balance. Also, we want to make sure that the wine and the food don’t share too many characteristics that are the same, because let's say we have very acidic wine, like a very acidic white wine and a very acidic dish, well, they’re just going to cancel each other out, it's not going to be very pleasant. So, we want enough similar flavors that they'll compliment each other, but we don’t want them to be so exactly the same that they’re going to cancel each other out and just get muddled in our mouths. So, we’re really looking to compliment. Now, at a restaurant like this a lot of pairing opportunities present themselves and we'll talk about what we have in front of me in a second. For example, they have this wonderful entrée here, it's a Polish Brazed Pork Belly, and this is actually served with an Apple Compote and Sickle Pears and it's very, very rich in terms of the fat and the meat from the pork, as well as that fruity component from the Compote and the Sickle Pears. So, when it comes to a dish like that we have a couple of options and we have two bottles here that will help us out.

The first one, this is the Vina Real Crianza, 2003, Rioja. Now, this wine is going to be a bit more fruit forward, there's going to be some very nice acid to it and what that will do, that acid will help to cut through some of the richness and the fattiness of that Brazed Pork Belly, and it will actually help to make those flavors come alive a little bit more in our mouths.

The other option we have, this is my kind of wine right here, this is the Chapoutier Les Meysonniers Crozes Hermitage, 2004. Now, this wine is soiree like this that's the grape, the soiree this is going to be very meaty and very earthy, a bit peppery and what that will do is that will actually compliment those flavors in the Brazed Pork Belly and really make it taste that much deeper and richer. Now, on the other end of the flavor spectrum when it comes to both food and wine we have a dish like this. Now, this is absolutely gorgeous, it's a shame computers can't transmit smell yet, but it's unbelievable. We have shrimp and scallops and asparagus with just a gorgeous Bernaise Sauce here. Now, what we've decided to pair with this is actually Trinchero Chardonnay. We've decided to pair this because this dish, it is rather rich, but it's not overpowering so we still want a wine that's going to be able to stand up to that richness, but that's not going to completely kill all of those flavors and a classic California style Chardonnay like this, in fact it is from California it'll give us this lush tropical fruit flavors and aromas, but at the same time the backbone of the acidity that will help just bring those richer flavors of the Bernaise Sauce and the butter on here to life and they'll just explode and be incredibly exciting. So, with a wine like this and we all know the routine of how you are going to taste it, what I'd like to do first is take a bite of the food with the sauce in it, and this is going to prime your mouth and really provide the perfect canvas up on which the art work of the wine can express itself. It's buttery, it's rich, there is something almost slightly sweet in there, but it's not sugary sweet, it's just a beautiful compliment to the pepper. All those tropical fruits flavors just come to life against the canvas of this dish. So, again when you're pairing food and wine, you want to look at the weight, you want to look at constituent flavors of both the food and the wine and you want to go for something that's going to compliment the food and the wine at the same time. Well, thanks for joining us here on The Classic Wines Minute, brought to you by classicwines.com. I am Brian Freedman, thanks for watching.

Total Duration: 06 Minutes.

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Wines Featured In S01E11 | Food & Wine Pairing at Meritage Philadelphia

C.v.n.e. Compania Vinicola Norte De Espana 2003 Tempranillo Vina Real Crianza
Region: Europe > Spain > Rioja

  

Maison Chapoutier 2004 Les Meysonniers
Region: Crozes Hermitage

  

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