GSM pairings?

[phoebe]

I just got your new book, What to Drink with What you Eat and am loving it! We cook so many dishes with multiple, seemingly conflicting tastes, that it sometimes makes wine pairing quite difficult for us to do. But we've been able to use your book to look up the dominant ingredients and see which wines might match the majority of them. So far it's worked brilliantly!

My question is this: We've been playing around with Australian GSMs lately (Grenache/Shiraz/Mourvedre blends) and wanted to know what your matches (and misses) might be for them.

Thanks so much for being here!

[Andrew Dornenburg]

Hi Emily (aka Phoebe -- we're not quite sure how that works!),

Many thanks for your post. We're delighted to know that you're already enjoying WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT -- which puts you on the cutting-edge of early adapters of this new resource for chefs!

As you know, the book allows you to look up any popular dish (from aioli to Pad Thai to zabaglione) or cuisine (Indian to Polish), and to find ideas for what wines and other beverages will best harmonize with them.

Where most books fall short is that they're of no use if you're looking for a pairing for a dish that you or another chef just created! However, WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT also allows you to look up any dominant ingredient -- meat, cheese, vegetable, fruit, herb, spice, etc. -- so that you can extrapolate a winning beverage pairing.

It's possible to do the same with a wine -- given the rise in wine blends. While we don't have GSMs listed in the beverage section of the book, you can find each of the component grapes. Once you know the blend (e.g. is it an equal proportion of each, or Grenache- or Shiraz-dominant?), you can extrapolate some likely food pairings.

For example:

Grenache: BBQ, beef, lamb, meat, pork, sausage, veal

Shiraz: BBQ, aged or hard cheese, duck, lamb, meats (esp. grilled), mushrooms, sausage, steak, tuna, venison

Mourvedre: calf's liver, red meat, sausage, wild boar

You can be pretty confident that any dish in the realm of barbecued or grilled red meats is going to be a fabulous pairing. Earthier dishes such as grilled sausages or duck risotto would be a natural.

You want to think about moderate to heavy dishes to accompany this wine -- forget about oysters, salads, scallops, and sushi, which it would likely overpower.

We'll look forward to hearing more about your successes in using WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT to discover great matches!

Cheers to you,
Karen & Andrew

Andrew Dornenburg & Karen Page
Co-Authors, WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT: The Definitive Guide to Pairing Food with Wine, Beer, Spirits, Coffee, Tea -- Even Water -- Based on Expert Advice from America's Best Sommeliers
Winner of the 2006 Georges Duboeuf Wine Book of the Year Award
becomingachef.com