On my recent trip to Europe we took an afternoon/evening off to spend some time in Strasbourg. Lovely city. We got there on a Sunday, so the restaurant choices were slim pickings. We finally got to one and ordered. Lots of white wine food. Choucroute garnier, kidneys, potato and pork terrine, etc. You get the picture. The list was middling at best but did have some gems on it, but the one gem I wanted did not go with the food. It was 2008 Bruno Clair Savigny-Les-Beaune 1er Cru "La Dominode." It was like 50 euro too. A great deal. But in this lies the dilemma. Order this or go with the absolute dreck that passed as their Alsace list. After a heated debate with my dining companion I gave in and ordered the crappy Riesling because it went with the food. Well, this was about the most commercial, yeasted excuse for an Alsatian Riesling I have ever tasted. Flat, metallic and anonymous. This did not even taste like Riesling. Far from it. I had half a glass and drank beer the rest of the time, but in classic me form, would not stop complaining as this was putrid. The food was tremendous. So now, the question is, should have we ordered the Clair, as it was the better wine, and at a fair price, but clashed with the food. My conclusion was that I would not mind, even if I had to wash my mouth out with water, between bites. What do you all think?
Friday, October 12, 2012
Order the best wine on the list or the one that goes with the food?
On my recent trip to Europe we took an afternoon/evening off to spend some time in Strasbourg. Lovely city. We got there on a Sunday, so the restaurant choices were slim pickings. We finally got to one and ordered. Lots of white wine food. Choucroute garnier, kidneys, potato and pork terrine, etc. You get the picture. The list was middling at best but did have some gems on it, but the one gem I wanted did not go with the food. It was 2008 Bruno Clair Savigny-Les-Beaune 1er Cru "La Dominode." It was like 50 euro too. A great deal. But in this lies the dilemma. Order this or go with the absolute dreck that passed as their Alsace list. After a heated debate with my dining companion I gave in and ordered the crappy Riesling because it went with the food. Well, this was about the most commercial, yeasted excuse for an Alsatian Riesling I have ever tasted. Flat, metallic and anonymous. This did not even taste like Riesling. Far from it. I had half a glass and drank beer the rest of the time, but in classic me form, would not stop complaining as this was putrid. The food was tremendous. So now, the question is, should have we ordered the Clair, as it was the better wine, and at a fair price, but clashed with the food. My conclusion was that I would not mind, even if I had to wash my mouth out with water, between bites. What do you all think?
normally go with the wine that goes with the food but this sounds like an especially bad situation.... for sure a tremendous amount of restaurants with very good to excellent vittles make it clear that they don't care much about the wine they make you buy when you eat said vittles, especially in this country. One thing I'll give to the Italians, I've never had this problem in Italy but I haven't been everywhere in Italy.
ReplyDelete- Bendelow