Food & Wine Pros

What makes a vino da meditazione?

Posted by Peter Pharos on January 7 2022 at 08:04

You may have a fixed idea of what constitutes a vino da meditazione but, as Peter Pharos argues, many wines are well suited to sipping thoughtfully on one's own.

Wine is for sharing: it’s the drink of conviviality and the table, food and company, the elixir of good times.

There is, however, another aspect to Dionysus’ gift. It calls for low light and solitude, quiet and reflection. If there is music, it is unobtrusive. If there is food, it is in modest quantity, there not to lead, but to support. Called vini da meditazione by the great Italian writer and connoisseur Luigi Veronelli, these wines were meant to be one-on-one affairs between the oenophile and his or her wine.

The qualities that make a “meditation” wine are not strictly defined, but typically it has to be complex and very well made. It is usually suitable for ageing and has gone at least some way towards maturity. Sometimes it is said, erroneously, that it also needs to be sweet and/or over-alcoholic. In reality, the most important quality of a vino da meditazione is to be intellectually stimulating. You wouldn’t want a boring partner in a one-to-one conversation, would you?

Six Vini da Meditazione

1. Champagne

I will understand if you think that I’m just trying to wind you up. After all, champagne looks like the complete inverse of a vino da meditazione. It is drunk at the beginning, not the end, of a meal. It’s the drink of weddings and graduations, sport victories and business deals, not of solitude, but of big groups toasting to life.

Even if one wanted to drink it alone, it doesn’t lend itself to a single pour, the fleeting nature of bubbles being notoriously tricky to preserve, above even the technological might of a Coravin.

In a way though, Champagne is a victim of its own marketing success. True, some of the non-vintage supermarket cuvées, or even some of the lower-end grandes marques, might be better suited to spraying on your fellow F1 drivers on the podium. But aim a bit further up and you are rewarded with powerful, elaborate wines with multiple layers of aromas and flavour. At the top end, as in the case of the Holy Trinity of Dom Perignon, Krug, and Cristal, you have wines of remarkable complexity, gripping intensity, and at times astounding creativity. For the oenophile, they provide an intellectual stimulation that demands full attention. You might be surrounded by people, but the affair becomes strictly one-on-one.

2. Oaked white Rioja

Like Bordeaux and Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Rioja is an area where the fame of the reds outshines some excellent, and occasionally outstanding, whites. Young or unoaked white Rioja is a food wine, needing some seafood or grilled vegetables to accompany. It is the oaked, aged takes that are of interest here though.

The traditionalists of López de Heredia produce what just might be the best value-for-money white in Europe in Tondonia Blanco Reserva. Released well over a decade after the vintage, including six years in oak, it can easily take a further decade or two in the bottle. Elegant, aromatic, and very dry, it is a wine that rewards thoughtfulness. It can accompany a carefully curated meal, but it is also happy with a small snack: some green olives, a plate of pimientos de padron, maybe a bit of manchego. And when you are ready, invest on the magnificent peculiarity that is the Gran Reserva: it is not the easiest of wines, but it is one of the most interesting. A few slivers of jamón ibérico and a couple of thin slices of good bread are enough to see you through a glass.

3. Côte-Rôtie

Autumn is prime time for the elite of the northern Rhône to grace your table. If you are lucky enough to have suitably long aged Cornas or, even better, Hermitage (and if you do, brother, can you spare a glass?), now is the time to open them; these dark and earthy marvels need gamey and ferrous flavours to be tamed. It is, however, the gentler, occasionally viognier-tempered, Syrah of the “roasted slope” that makes a meditation wine for me. Prices at the higher end can match Hermitage for silliness, but I am happy with something as relatively reasonable as Chapoutier’s Les Bécasses. You need to start early though: I am waiting at least two more years before I start diving into on my 2010s. Alternatively, look at the Wine Society, which conveniently stocks the 2006. Pour just one glass. Put a bit of pâté on grilled bread. Ponder.

4. Barolo

Pinot Noir, the great prima donna of the French vineyard, makes for a natural meditation wine when at its best. Or so I hear, as the stratospheric prices put the great crus far beyond my reach and there is only so much thinking one can do with a glass of a village-level Fixin.

Instead, I look a couple of hundred miles to the southwest, at pinot noir’s transalpine opposite number. In Barolo and environs, Nebbiolo starts too muscular and virile to imbibe solo: it needs to dance with steak in its youth and argue with truffle in its middle age. But some time around the 15-year mark, when the sharp edges have mellowed away and the nose has finally attained perfect poise, the intellectual side of The Foggy One finally comes out.

One of my star wines of last year was a Pio Cesare Barolo 2000. At 17 years of age, it had started showing hints of caramel on the nose, was gentle enough not to harm a bit of Toma di Balme, yet robust enough to take on a bit of Crudo di Cuneo.

5. Sherry

I would understand if you thought that the way I have been compiling this list makes vinous meditation sound like an extremely expensive sport, if not an outright vice. Lamentably, it is probably a bit both. If, however, you want to stay on a budget, you can hardly do better than sherry.

Wine people have been saying that it is due for a major comeback ever since I can remember, yet even in these more adventurous years, it remains an underperformer.

While this state of affairs is very unfair to the good people and excellent winemakers of Jerez, it does have the advantage of allowing the rest of us to buy wine that is complex, interesting, and different, at remarkably low prices. Marks and Spencer stocks a range of Lustau-made sherries, the more interesting of which, such as the oloroso and the palo cortado, would still be bargains at one-and-a-half times the price.

And if you do want to invest in a more extravagant sherry, wonders await. Tradición’s VORS 30 year old Oloroso is only the latest to blow me away, a multi-layered marvel that needs only a biscuit and a thin slice of Gruyère – or maybe a handful of hazelnuts.

6. Nectar

It’s not just sherry: fortified wines are natural vini da meditazione. Complexity and intensity come easy to them, while the high alcohol suggests sipping as opposed to quaffing. In many ways, vintage port is the quintessential meditation wine and one of the two I considered a bit too obvious to include here (the other being Amarone).

Sweet wines come close behind, and one could make a case for many, from Sauternes, to trockenbeerenauslese, to Passito di Pantelleria. Allow me a left-field suggestion though and a bit of a cheer for the home team. The island of Samos in Greece makes sweet wines from the local Muscat variant, which are beautifully honeyed and elegantly moreish, yet somehow still remain very under-priced.

Waitrose stocks the classic Anthemis, a great match for many traditional Greek and Middle Eastern desserts, for just above £10 for 500ml. It is, however, the odd bottling of decades-old Nectar, a naturally sweet wine of sun-dried, overripe grapes, that achieves the truly profound. In recent years, the local co-operative has released limited quantities of the 1975 and 1980 vintages, both outstanding vinous experiences that demand one’s complete and unwavering attention.

You don’t have to take my biased word for it; Jancis Robinson gave the 1980 a very rare 19/20, above venerable ports costing many times the price - and you don’t have to remember if you need to pass it left or right.

So what is your perfect vino da meditazione? Do you agree with Peter or have another favourite?

Peter Pharos likes drinking, talking and writing about the wines of Greece and Italy. He also writes a bimonthly column for timatkin.com. (That's not him in the picture by the way but a stock photo ©tverdohlib @fotolia.com!)

Tags: white rioja côte rôtie sherry barolo champagne dessert wine port drink:sweet & fortified wine
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The effect of temperature on food and wine pairing

Posted on August 19 2021 at 11:55

Does the temperature at which you serve a dish affect the wine pairing? Matt Walls investigates: (This article was first published in 2012)

Ice cold plate of curry, anyone? How about a nice hot trifle? No. Didn’t think so. We all know that the serving temperature of food has a big impact on the enjoyment of the dish. As foods become hotter, their texture often changes; liquids become thinner, solids soften or melt. Additionally, as they heat up, foods release volatile (i.e. easy to evaporate) molecules more readily, which affects their aroma. So a plate of food served at a different temperature becomes in effect a different dish. And a different dish might require a different wine match.

Last week I went to an ambitious tasting organised by Champagnes Mumm and Perrier-Jouët to investigate this often neglected dimension in food and wine matching. It was led by Peter Barham, Honorary Professor of Molecular Gastronomy at Copenhagen University (his day job is Professor of Physics at Bristol University). He explained that it isn’t just the aroma and texture of foods that can be manipulated by temperature; our sense of taste can also be affected.

Cool a food or drink down, and any sensation of bitterness and sweetness will be reduced. Ice cream mix tastes overwhelmingly sweet before being churned and frozen; once it is set, it tastes less so. Warm up a can of cheap lager and it will begin to taste overpoweringly bitter. Surprisingly though, when it comes to our sense of taste, it is not the temperature of the food that is making the difference – it is the temperature of your tongue.

To demonstrate this, we were given two pots of identical foie gras parfait with sweet peach jelly. All the dishes throughout the tasting were designed to match specific Champagnes by Jonray and Peter Sanchez-Iglesias, owners of the Michelin-starred Casamia restaurant in Bristol. This pairing was to complement a glass of sweet Champagne – G.H. Mumm Demi-Sec NV. The pots were served at the same temperature, but with two sets of cutlery: one hot and one cold. When using the cold cutlery, the dish and the wine did seem to taste less sweet than when using the hot cutlery – the cold spoon did seem to numb my tongue to the sweetness of the dish.

Then we tried a dish of prawn consommé, sweet corn puree and toasted pine nut. This was well paired with a glass of G.H. Mumm Cordon Rouge NV. We were given two versions of the dish; one cold, one hot. The dish itself was more successful hot; the texture was smoother, more balanced and the flavours more integrated.

Did it match the Champagne better? Due to the heat, the flavour of the dish was a touch more pronounced, and this may have helped meet the intensity of flavour of the Champagne. But as the Champagne gradually warmed in the glass, and the dish cooled down, this fleeting impression diminished.

Lastly, we were presented with two toasted brioche sandwiches of Tunworth cheese with marmite butter and a glass of G.H. Mumm Cuvée R. Lalou 1999. One sandwich was at room temperature, one straight from the grill. This Champagne is rich, toasty and full-bodied, and it worked well with both versions of the sandwich, but particularly the hotter one; the melted cheese had richer, more farmyardy flavours which paired well with the truffle, hay and other mature characteristics in the wine, thanks to its eight years ageing on the lees. The smoother texture of the melted cheese also worked better with the Champagne than the firmer, more rubbery texture of the room-temperature Tunworth.

Technically speaking, this was a difficult tasting to pull off. With the temperatures of the food, wines and cutlery constantly pulling towards room temperature, timing was all important. This element was hard for the kitchen and waiting staff to achieve with precision, even in this dedicated experimental tasting. But although this exact type of tasting is challenging to replicate, there are some more general insights that are useful to bear in mind.

Though there were disagreements in the room about which combinations of foods and wines worked the best, the temperature of the food (and indeed the mouth) does actually make for a subtly different dish.

One thing that many tasters did seem to agree on was that it was more often warmer dishes that made for better matches with Champagne; if you are throwing a party and intend on serving Champagne and canapés, instead of the more typical cold canapés, it would be well worth experimenting with warm ones instead.

The inclusion or omission of an ingredient in a dish will have a greater overall effect on any food and wine match, but considering temperature of serving can perhaps add a little fine-tuning to make a good match that little bit better.

Matt Walls is a contributing editor to Decanter magazine. His latest book is Wines of the Rhône and you can find him on Twitter @mattwallswine.

Jonray Sanchez sadly died in 2015 at the age of 32.

Vector by Zanna Pesnina at shutterstock.com

Is there a scientific basis for wine and food pairing?

Posted by Fiona Beckett on November 18 2010 at 08:19

I went to a really interesting seminar last week on matching champagne with food. It was based on the chemical compounds flavourist Danny Hodrien of F & F projects had identified in Mumm champagnes using gas chromatography, solid phase micro-extraction and mass spectrometry (No, I don’t know what they are either). Based on those findings Iain Graham, the executive chef at the Caprice had devised a range of canapes that incorporated the flavours rather than seeking to complement them

The technical side I found slightly difficult to follow - we were encouraged to sniff a series of phials on the table which contained the different compounds then taste the champagnes then try them with food. Given the session was packed out it all got a bit chaotic but it threw up some fascinating combinations which I’ve now had the chance to analyse in a bit more detail:

THE FOOD PAIRINGS:

G.H. Mumm de Cramant
Style: Blanc de Blancs
Flavour compounds: Ethyl-2-Methyl Butyrate (apple, tropical fruits), Ethyl Isobutyrate (fruity, light, strawberry, tropical fruits) and delta-Decalactone (creamy, butter, coconut, peach)
Match: seared Orkney scallop served with cauliflower cream on a taro crisp
My verdict: A terrific match for this champagne which accentuated its freshness though one which oddly didn’t mirror the highlighted tropical fruit flavours.

G.H. Mumm Cordon Rouge
Style: non-vintage
Flavour compounds: Dimethyl Sulphide (vegetable, crab, seafood, sweetcorn, tomato) Hexyl Acetate (pear, sweet, fruity) Caproic acid (sweaty, cheese-like, strawberry)
Match: steamed Atlantic prawns served with grilled corn.
My verdict: A match I suspect you wouldn’t have arrived at without the flavour analysis. Apparently grilling the corn was key - according to Iain it didn’t work as well with steamed corn. I found it slightly accentuated the dosage in the champagne though not unpleasantly

G.H. Mumm Rosé
Style: light, elegant, tasted of wild strawberries
Flavour compounds: Ethyl-2-Methyl Butyrate (apple, tropical fruits), Ethyl Isobutyrate (fruity, light, strawberry, tropical fruits)
Match: The shell fish and tropical fruit flavoured molecules of the ros were paired with yellow fin tuna sashimi and served with green mango and papaya salad seasoned with chilli, sugar and soy
My verdict: Another combination I wouldn’t have instinctively gone for but which worked very well. Interesting though that these components were also found in the Mumm de Cramant which I don’t think would have worked quite as well with the canap. Apparently Iain tried it with seared tuna but that didn’t work as well.

G.H. Mumm 2002
Style: mature vintage champagne
Flavour compounds: Diethyl Succinate (apple, tropical, star fruit, Cognac), Penyl Ethyl alcohol (rose, fermented, yeast, bread), Ethyl Crotonate (rum, sweet meat, pork, licorice) 2-Nonanone (blue cheese, yeast)
Match: Pork belly, dolcelatte and pain d‘epice: the yeasty, blue cheese and liquorice-like Mumm 2002 were paired with roasted pork belly served with macerated blue cheese and spiced bread crisp
My verdict: Like Iain I would never have put these ingredients together but they were surprisingly delicious. Would you serve them at a dinner party though, or, as a chef, in a restaurant? Can imagine them making a good burger . . .

G.H. Mumm R. Lalou 1998
Style: mature prestige cuve
Flavour compounds: Dimethyl Sulphide (vegetable, crab, seafood, sweetcorn, tomato), Furfural (almond, sweet macaroon), Furfuryl Alcohol (Sweet, grilled fish, Mushroom)
Match: Iain paired the R. Lalou’s mushroom and caramelised sugar flavours with roasted black cod served on crisp lotus with sweet miso marinade
My verdict: a bold but successful match which accentuated the richness of the champagne. (Can imagine it being good with something like lobster and vanilla too)

G.H. Mumm Demi-Sec
Style: off-dry
Flavour compounds: Ethyl-2-Methyl Butyrate (apple, tropical fruits), Ethyl Caprylate (cognac) Diethyl Succinate (apple, tropical, star fruit, Cognac), 5-Methyl-Furfural Caramel, sweet
Match: Apple and caramel millefeuille with cognac poached apple and crisp burnt sugar
My verdict: a stunning match. Interesting that there’s a scientific basis for the champagne cocktail!

Interestingly six molecules were found in all the champagnes: Ethyl Acetate which contains fruity, ethereal, sweet tastes and flavours, Isoamyl alcohol (fermented, whisky, harsh), Ethyl Caproate (pineapple and strawberry), Ethyl Lactate (rum), Ethly Caprylate (Cognac) and Ethyl Caprate (waxy fruity, apple, grape)

“There’s no one molecule that smells of ‘champagne’,” said Hodrien. “They are each like instruments in an orchestra. And orchestras containin the same instruments sound different depending on the music being played, or even the conductor”

A few thoughts:

All the pairings worked which is unusual in an exercise of this kind though there was a bit of a ‘you could but why would you?’ aspect to a couple of the pairings such as the pork belly and blue cheese. A bit like Heston’s white chocolate and oyster pairing which was similarly scientifically based.

Subjecting a wine to this kind of analysis certainly throws up combinations that you might not arrive it otherwise. And suggests that working with three or more flavours may be more successful than trying to match just one.

It’s possible this exercise worked as well as it did because champagne - like beer - is a good carrier of flavour. I’ve found in the past that if you mimic the flavour of an ingredien with a still wine it tends to mask the flavour in the wine - like orange muscat with an orange-flavoured dessert.

It still needs the skill of a chef. Not all the pairings Iain tried worked to start with.

But even if you aren't a chef there are still some interesting ideas to take away - for example that rose champagne might match sashimi and a fruity salsa and that vintage champagne might be a good match for blue cheese.