Matching Alsace wines and food

The marriage of the aromatic wines of Alsace with spicy foods (Chinese and Thai cuisines leading the charge, with Indian usually not far behind) has become such an axiom of modern gastronomy that we might be forgiven for wondering what on earth anybody drank them with before.

In their native region, with its weighty Germanic influences – observable everywhere from the architecture to the wine nomenclature to the steeply terraced vineyards of certain of the grands crus – Alsace wines supremely complement a number of traditional dishes. These include chunky terrines and pts, quiches and savoury tarts, freshwater fish, and, of course, lots of pork and offal.

On a recent visit to Alsace, I was interested to see what kinds of dishes – both traditional and way-out-there – would be best served by juxtaposition with any of the seven varietals of the regional portfolio. These are: Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Riesling, Sylvaner, Muscat and Pinot Noir.

Part of the reason, I think, that Alsace wines go so well with east Asian food is that their aromatic complexity is well equipped to stand up to the avalanche of flavours and seasonings with which a Thai or Chinese dish presents us. Thus, any dish built up of an array of sharp, counterpointing flavours is better served by an Alsace wine than it might be by something more one-dimensional.

At La Marote in Keysersberg, a first course of raw scallops presented carpaccio-fashion in wafer-thin slices was dressed in olive oil, lime juice, smoked herring roe and pink peppercorns, and accompanied by chopped red pepper and avocado, all generously strewn with fleur de sel. Partnered by the Turckheim cooperative’s grand cru Brand Riesling 2002 (not theoretically the most opulent recent vintage), it made a stunning match, the stony-dry, compelling intensity of the wine buoyed up by the riot of flavours in the dish, the characteristic lime-zest note of the Riesling finding and greeting the lime element in the dish most expansively.

A serving of salmon two ways at Restaurant Baechel-Brunn at Merkwiller-Pechelbronn involved a mustardy gravad lax-style cure alongside pungently cold-smoked fish. These are treatments that can stop champagne, Sauvignon Blanc, even barrel-fermented Chardonnay in their tracks, but the weight, residual sweetness and commanding structure of the Cave de Cleebourg’s Brandhof Pinot Gris 2004 took them effortlessly in its stride.

Among main courses, I was impressed by the performance of Cleebourg’s 2003 Pinot Noir with a dish of quasi (rump steak) of veal with ratatouille and chanterelles. On its own, it had seemed rather waxy and astringent, but with the veal cut, it went obligingly round and silky – in a word (if I dare) Burgundian.

Pinot Noir reds are not, to be frank, Alsace’s best shot. Too many appear overly lean and stalky for the relatively generous climate in which they are grown. With a thyme-scented filet d’agneau, even a burlier, cask-aged Pinot suffered, although Hugel’s Jubile bottling of Pinot in 2004 (sourced from 40-year-old vines) did stand up improbably well at another dinner against saddle of lamb in a marsala sauce with caramelised lemon.

I wasn’t quite convinced by the match of Paul Zinck’s Gewurztraminer Prestige 2004 with veal kidneys that had been done in honey and spices, and served on a leek fondue, but only because the honey was just too much for the mango-scented, but relatively delicate Gewurz.

For the complete package, though, a lunch at Le Sarment d’Or in Eguisheim was nearly all utterly harmonious. Dopff and Irion were the hosts, their L’Exception Crmant d’Alsace (a 2002 Pinot Gris sparkler) sitting comfortably with a piece of tarte l’oignon to set the ball rolling. A marbled terrine of foie gras and chanterelles was ably supported by the Pinot Gris Les Marquisards 2003, the foie emphasising the exotic ripeness in the wine, while the grand cru Riesling Schoenenberg 2003 had all the steely, minerally class that a main course of sea bass with pomme pure and pesto could have hoped for.

Only the final mismatch of a Crmant Ros with pistachio crme brle fell short, but then the French predilection for dry wines with desserts is one of the great unexplained mysteries of Western gastronomy.

Stuart Walton is a long-serving food and wine writer, a contributor to the Good Food Guide, and author of The Right Food with the Right Wine. (He doesn't at all mind writing for a Liverpool-supporting website, as long as they remember their manners when they get to the Emirates Stadium.)

If you found this post helpful and would like to support the website which is free to use it would be great if you'd make a donation towards its running costs or sign up to my regular Substack newsletter Eat This, Drink That for extra benefits.

CONTRIBUTE HERE