Champagne, Wine or Beer?

Many of us are not too concerned or simply ignorant about picking the right beverage to go along with the right food. It is said that having the right beverage or drink does enhance the taste of the food. The article below on "Choosing Bottles to Face the Heat" is enlightening.

By ERIC ASIMOV
Published: August 17, 2005
The NY Times

WHAT do Thai, Japanese and Chinese food have in common? Not to mention Indian and Mexican food, Middle Eastern andHaitian, and, as long as we're at it, barbecue?
When deciding what to drink with any of these cuisines, the reflex is usually to grab a beer. Or a Coke. Or water - lots ofwater.

I have no problem with any of those choices. Beer in particular is especially appealing with all of these cuisines, although mostrestaurants serving these foods have been the absolute last to discover the world of great craft beers.

Wine - the right wine - can go beautifully with any of these foods. It's not necessarily better than beer, but if you love wine whyshouldn't you be able to enjoy it with Thai, Haitian and anything else? The key is choosing the right wine, because when you aredealing with foods that are forcefully spiced, and often with lots of chili heat, many wines can easily be overwhelmed.
It's understandable that people rarely select wine with any of these cuisines. These foods do not come from wine-making regions. They are made for beer or even whiskey.

Cultural attitudes can also play a role. As Americans are in the habit of associating beverages with social aspirations, well, let'sjust say that you have a better chance of finding wine at a Nascar race than you do at a barbecue pit.

So what is the right wine to go along with these foods? More often than not, it's Champagne. No wine, believe it or not, is asversatile with so wide a range of food as Champagne, and that especially includes foods that are assertively spiced. Chickenchaat with chili, cilantro and that icy feeling in the top of your mouth that comes from coarsely ground Indian black salt?Champagne is your baby. Griot, the Haitian dish of pork chunks that are marinated in vinegar, chili and lemon juice, then fried?You won't go wrong with Champagne. Sichuan twice-cooked pork? Champagne, definitely.

Champagne is a great choice with sushi. And if you go to Blue Smoke in Manhattan, a barbecue pit mutated into an urban NewYork restaurant, where you will actually find a wine list, go directly to the Billecart-Salmon. It's the perfect, and perfectly ironic,choice with the smoky pulled pork. Can it be mere affectation that R.U.B., the barbecue joint on West 23rd Street, offers DomPérignon with its Taste of the Baron, a big sampler special for two, all for $275? Well, maybe it can, but if money's no object,you would not be sorry.

On first glance, it's obvious why Champagne would go so well with beer cuisines. It's the bubbles. But that doesn't explain all ofit. Cava and prosecco have bubbles, but they don't have the intensity of Champagne. California sparkling wine has bubbles, butit often is a little too heavy to refresh. I recently tried a sparkling shiraz from Australia with falafel and hummus with hot sauce,and frankly, I wish I had used more hot sauce to drown out the thick, sweet yet bitter flavor of the shiraz. No, the bubbles areimportant, but Champagne also has a crucial element that the other sparkling wines too often lack: high acidity.

Acidity gives wine snap and zest. It gives it a sense of freshness and helps to stimulate the palate. Even sweet wines, like aGerman riesling auslese, when balanced by acidity, can be thoroughly refreshing. Good acidity in a wine is essential if it is toaccompany foods that aren't typically thought of as good with wine.

Thai food is generally ceded to the beer camp. It's hard to beat a great pilsner with a spicy Thai curry, but you know what? Agood Bourgueil comes awfully close. Bourgueil, a village in Touraine on the Loire, produces reds from the cabernet franc grapethat can be raspy with acidity, but when the acidity is balanced by sufficient fruit you have a delicious wine. Are Bourgueils,along with similar wines from the neighboring villages of Chinon and Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil, great wines? No, but they aregreat food wines.

If you don't believe me, have a meal at Holy Basil, a Thai restaurant in the East Village. Pimnapa Suntatkolkarn, the chef and anowner, has constructed a wine list that I wish could be a model for every moderately priced restaurant, and she always offers agood Loire red. At a meal there I tried a 2002 Bourgueil "Les Galichets" from Catherine and Pierre Breton, as well as a 1995 Rioja Reserva from López de Heredia. The Rioja is wonderful, and about twice the price of the Bourgueil, but with a pungent,tart yet balanced dish like crisp duck with panang curry and kaffir lime? The Rioja had no business on the table. The Bourgueil,though, was perfect - refreshing and stimulating. The Rioja no doubt would receive a higher score in a blind tasting, but at aThai dinner, the Bourgueil blew it away.