Oct 02 2011
Can You Help With Wine Matching?
Question by Ak23566: Can You Help With Wine Matching?
We are hosting a New Year’s Eve dinner party for eight guests, two of whom are vegetarian. I have developed the following menu:
French Onion Soup
Tian of Smoked Salmon and Avocado
Sauteed Field Mushrooms and Brie En Croute – with Port and Redcurrant Jus
Chocolate Torte and/or Traditional Trifle
Stilton and Home Made Walnut Bread with Grapes
I am confident with the food, but less so with the wines, but my plan is as follows:
Champagne (Vintage Pol Roger) with the Canapes and keep the Champagne flowing through the soup and smoked salmon
Pinot Grigio with the Mushrooms and Brie En Croute – I am less happy with this, I think it is a safe, but dull, choice. Any better suggestions?
Muscat de Beaumes de Venice with the Torte
Finally I have a good bottle of Dows for the Stilton.
What do our resident wine experts think of the wine pairing? I am genuinly happy to take advice and recommendations. Thank you.
Best answer:
Answer by Selina Kyle
i would go for a pinotage with the salmon. its pretty much a red meat; you want something heavier than a champagne. pinotage has great smokiness and tobacco elements that will compliment the flavor of your smoked salmon. Try a gewurtz with your mushrooms and canapes.
Add your own answer in the comments!
Smoked Salmon is not vegetarian.
French onion soup is tradtionally made with beef stock, which is not vegetarian.
The bubbly with the two non-vegetarian first courses should be fine. Because vintage brut Pol Roger is a blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, it should hold up to both courses.
Pinot gris is not a great choice with the mushroom dish. Personally, I’d do a nice red burgundy, premiere or grand cru.
The Muscat could go either way. If it’s super light or super sweet, you could have a problem. Sweet wine/sweet dessert can be very difficult to work with. And if it’s really a light wine like all the descriptions I’v found, it may not stand up to dense chocolate or a trifle. I’d tend to serve the chocolate and serve port during both final courses. Or, I’d look for a really nice Sauternes to serve with the Trifle. Myrat is reasonably priced if you can find it and the splits of Rieussec and Lafaurie-Peyraguey are usually excellent.
Port and the Stilton should be wonderful.
As far as I’m concerned, the best part of having 8 people for dinner is that you can have a different wine for each course. I’m not going to recommend specific wines since I have no idea what you have access to.
Onion soup – if you could get your hands on an older white Burgundy, that would be spectacular. If not, a current release would still be really good.
Your champagne is absolutely perfect with smoked salmon (you could swap the order of the soup and salmon to keep going with the Champagne from your canapes).
Interestingly enough, you could almost serve the Champagne with the brie/mushrooms, but I’d head into Pinot Noir (mushrooms and Pinot are a perfect pairing and it also goes great with brie)! Consider a red Burgundy or something from Oregon (if available).
Dessert – I recently served a Banyuls with a warm chocolate cake. To die for. But I’ve had and really enjoyed Muscat de Beaumes de Venice with chocolate. Personally I’d pick chocolate over a trifle any day, so I’ll skip a trifle suggestion ;D
And, as you said, the port and stilton is a no-brainer. Though Banyuls is also a fortified wine, I think you’ll find them different enough to make this work.
- Try a Pinot Noir or Bordeaux with the Mushroom-Brie dish.
Other than that everything looks fine to me. But are you sure the vegetarians will eat the salmon? Are they vegetarians or pescatarians?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pescetarianism
Here you can find a great choice of wine!
Anyway the Pinot grigio that you mentioned is really a good one!
http://www.italytaste.eu/italian/en/italian-wine.asp
Sounds great.
Instead of the common Pinot, try a Semillon as this is silky smooth to the palate, and also try an un oaked Chardonnay.
Happy New Year!