German Catalog 2006 USE THIS ONE.qxp - Michael Skurnik Wines

SOMMELIER ALERT!
I’m highlighting the wines I think are the best candidates for restaurant use. That’s bound to
be arbitrary to some extent, but I care a lot about how these wines are used, and I pay close attention
to flavor synergies. That plus my wife is a chef and I’ve had my consciousness raised. You’ll
see all the wines listed here along with the page number where you’ll find it in the general text.
Also, those wines will say SOMMELIER ALERT!
I don’t really have scholarly criteria; it’s more intuitive. I do look for bold, forthright flavor. I
also look less for specific associations than for general flexibility. If I have, say, a dry wine that I
know would be great with, I don’t know, conch tempura, I won’t put SOMMELIER ALERT there.
I’m looking for wines that will dance with persons of varying heights and body types, if you catch
my drift.
I get the intuitive yes-sound when the wine’s packed with taste, and when it’s got a whisper of
sweetness but not too much, and when the range of nuance is wide enough that the wine has potential
to sing with a lot of different flavors. I’m firmly on the match-by-structure bandwagon, as I see
how reliably it works. And that’s why I think we need white wines to be a little bit sweet, because
most of your food is also a little bit sweet. And bone-dry wines can end up tasting mean and ornery
at such times. Nor have I ever considered a wine-food tandem and wanted the wine to have more
alcohol. So all things being equal I opt for lower-alcohol wines, as they don’t tire the palate, and
besides, low-alcohol wines are usually high in other desirable thingies like aroma and acidity.
Finally I do prefer wines that taste like food. I mean, grapes are food, and yeast is food, and food
goes with food. Oak, to my knowledge, is not food, unless one is a termite, and so I tend to avoid
it. Unless I have saffron or mustard in my food, both of which seem to cozy up to casks.
Briefly put, if you don’t already know, I think you’d be surprised how well German white wine
will work with your food. It’s actually, dare I say it, the best available white wine you could use. Or
as Richard Betts writes in Betts and Scholl’s Spring 2005 newsletter, “Riesling is an excellent partner
to whatever you want to eat (ask any great sommelier what to pair with the most crazy food
you can think of, and 10 out of 10 will say Riesling).” When chefs create preps they are usually
looking for flavor synergies, sometimes harmonies and sometimes telling disharmonies. Nobody
deliberately combines discordant flavors in a prep. Why stop there? The idea that “anything goes;
you should drink what you like” is dangerous, because it isn’t true. Why, you start letting people
drink what they like and the next thing you know they’re wearing white before Memorial Day! I
don’t care about what’s Correct, but I do know what tastes good and I have a small idea why.
A bold new concept in wine & food pairings: order the wrong wine, your food attacks you.
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