Pairings | Ginger
The best food pairings for Gewurztraminer
Often compared to rose petals, lychees and Turkish delight, gewurztraminer is the wine world’s most exotic grape variety so what on earth do you pair with it?
Drier wines, which are the most common, are frequently matched with Asian - particularly Chinese, Indian and Thai - food but can sometimes be overwhelming with lighter dishes. Gewürztraminer generally benefits from dishes with more than a touch of sweetness and heat.
The gewürztraminers you find in Alsace, particularly the grand crus, also tend to be more intense than the wines you find in countries such as Chile and New Zealand. They also have sweeter wines there, labelled vendange tardive which are best served with a dessert.
Here are my favourite pairings for gewurztraminer:
Thai red duck curry
Not all Thai food works with gewürztraminer but it’s ace with a red duck curry or a yellow curry (better than with a green curry with which I’d rather have a lighter wine like a pinot gris but curries with coconut milk generally work)
Sichuanese food
Of all the styles of Chinese food I think Sichuan pairs best with gewürz, as it’s known for short. It also works really well with dishes that include ginger (including lobster with ginger as I once discovered). It can be a bit overwhelming with dim sum and lighter seafood dishes though
Other hot and spicy dishes like Singapore noodles work well and, although I haven’t tried it myself, I’m betting it would be a good match for many Korean dishes too.
Indian food
Again, there are exceptions, but gewürztraminer generally works well with an Indian meal where - as is common - several dishes are served at the same time. I like it best myself with meaty curries and biryanis but if it works for you with seafood or veggie curries go for it! (Basically if you love gewürztraminer you’ll love it with anything. It's a bit of a Marmite wine!)
Stinky cheese
There’s a classic local pairing in Alsace with Munster cheese - often with a sprinkling of cumin seeds - but gewürztraminer (particularly from Alsace) goes with most stinky cheeses including Epoisses, Maroilles and Stinking Bishop: cheeses that are a challenge to most reds.
Foie gras
Another popular pairing in Alsace. Or, if you don’t eat foie gras, with a rich duck liver paté
Roast goose
A special occasion meal that would work really well with a grand cru gewürztraminer, particularly one with a bit of bottle age.
Sweet-tasting vegetables like pumpkin and squash
A relatively recent discovery after finding how well a Tasmanian gewürztraminer went with pumpkin gnocchi. That would obviously apply to ravioli too and - I don’t see why not - sweet potatoes.
Sweeter gewürztraminers pair surprisingly well with apple-based desserts such as apple crumble or streusel cakes with cinnamon (they even match with off-dry gewürz. They don’t necessarily have to be late-harvest)
Also try mango-based desserts especially if they include ginger.
image ©HLPhoto at fotolia.com
My favourite food pairings with Viognier
Viognier (pronounced vee-on-yee-ay) is a rich, exotically fruity white wine, sometimes achieving quite high levels of alcohol so what are the ideal foods to pair with it?
It generally goes well with the sort of ingredients and dishes that match well with chardonnay and oaked chenin blancs but with a spicier twist.
Viognier food pairings
* Top of my list would be mild creamy curries like kormas or spicy south-east Asian curries. Even curries made with curry powder work well as do spicy dishes with a hint of peach or apricot, echoing the flavours in the wine
* mild spicy noodle dishes like Pad Thai
* chicken salads with apricot, peach or mango like coronation chicken
* fruity chicken - and even lamb - tagines with apricot
* dishes with ginger, saffron and coconut
* chicken, pork or rabbit with creamy sauces, especially if the dish includes a dash of viognier itself like this springlike dish. More intensely flavoured viogniers can stand up to roast pork, chicken and turkey
* Rich shellfish dishes such as seared scallops, grilled lobster and baked crab, especially with a hint of spice
* creamy and buttery cheeses
* sweet root vegetables especially carrots, parsnips and sweet potatoes and spicy butternut squash
Note: Viognier’s original home is in the Rhône though oddly I don’t think it’s a great pairing for Mediterranean food. You also find great viogniers in California and Australia whose most noted specialist is Yalumba.
Viognier is also incorporated into rich white blends that would match similar dishes to the above (see this match of the week for example) - and also blended with Syrah/Shiraz though those would call for quite a different pairing
Image copyright BBA Photography at shutterstock.com
Which foods pair best with tawny port?
We rarely think of tawny port as a flexible pairing for food. We serve it with stilton, obviously and with hard cheeses like cheddar, with nuts and dried fruits and over Christmas with fruit cake and mince pies but that’s usually as far as it goes.
True, its sweetness suggests desserts and cakes rather than savoury dishes but like other strong dessert wines it can do sterling service at the start of a meal, particularly if it’s - as is increasingly fashionable - lightly chilled. And even with sweet things you should ensure - as is the case with other dessert wines - that your dessert is not far sweeter than your port.
On the spot
A Portuguese favourite with tawny port are the rich eggy pastries that you find in the pastelerias (patisseries) and creamy desserts such as crème caramel. Figs and (elvas) plums are also considered good matches. (According to Christian Seely of Quinta do Noval tawny is superb with fig tart) My own star match, improbable as it might sound, is bread pudding, a brilliant combination I came across on a visit to Lisbon a few years ago.
Sheep's cheeses also work well especially what is by common consent one of Portugal’s finest, the rich creamy Queijo Serra - highly prized by cheese connoisseurs
Why not try:
10 year old tawnies with:
- sherry-style with salted roast almonds
- chicken or duck liver parfait or other meaty pâtés and terrines
- presunto (Portuguese air dried ham) or Spanish jamon iberico
- pecan, almond or walnut tart or cakes
- apple, pear or banana tatin
- a compote of dried fruits
- crème brûlée
- cheesecake (without red fruits)
- ginger-flavoured cakes and puddings
See also my post on caramel-flavoured desserts and tawny port
20 year old tawnies with:
- foie gras - a rich, nutty alternative to Sauternes, it will pick up on a sweet accompaniment such as balsamic vinegar or prunes
- roast lobster (according to Calem)
- feathered game such as pheasant and partridge
- hard sheep's milk cheeses such as Ossau Iraty and Manchego, mature Gouda, parmesan
- dark, bitter chocolate and chocolate truffles (Valrhona’s Caraibe and Choua are recommended by the Chocolate Society)
- biscotti
- panforte di Siena
- roasted chestnuts (a great suggestion from Jose Carneiro of Wiese & Krohn)
In the kitchen
Tawny port is a useful ingredient for any cook to have to hand, especially for deglazing pans. It works particularly well with chicken livers, lambs liver and kidneys and will also add richness to slow-braised meat sauces.You can also use it as a base for a sabayon or zabaglione
A version of this article was first published in Decanter magazine
Image ©anna_shepulova at Adobe Stock.
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