Champagne and Venison
"Challenge your notions about food and wine!" said the e-mail from bacar, a snazzy wine bar in San Francisco's SOMA district. Their first-ever wine & food pairing for the general public was going to feature Terry Theise, German and Austrian wines and promised to make us question all that we thought we knew. Well, my notions about food and wine are still in their infancy, so there wasn't much to fight against, but this sounded like a stellar event.Terry Theise is the premier importer of German and Austrian wines and artisanal Champagne. If he imports it, it's a safe bet that it's a good or even great wine. So it wasn't just that bacar was doing a pairing of these wines with some of their yummy food. It wasn't just that I had begun to appreciate white wines with a vengeance, compensating for the years I had spent ignorantly poo-pooing them. Terry would actually be there, and would share his thoughts and observations about them. I was on the phone in minutes.
The evening started with a last-minute surprise. Debbie Zachareas, bacar's wine director, sent out an e-mail suggesting everyone get there early. Terry had donated another dozen wines for us to try before dinner actually started. The wines in this initial tasting were an equal mix of German and Austrian, 5 whites and 1 red of each.
My runaway favorite was Salomon's 1997 Gruner Veltliner Wieden. Gruner Veltliner is Austria's signature grape, and this was a stunning example. Strong pepper notes (GV is often described as having white pepper in the bouquet), great acidity, and a nice long finish. The whole list had some pretty good wines, but that one I'll seek out.
So when the food came, was I challenged? Shocked? Granted an epiphany? All of the above.
Terry has helped teach the world a number of things, but one of the most famous is his insistence that Gruner Veltliner goes well with vegetables. To prove his point, he worked with bacar to come up with our first course--a medley of market vegetables. No, no, not your typical platter of crudites. Breaded and baked asparagus. Pickled broccoli. Roasted peppers. Fried lettuce leaves. These are veggies that I would refrain from putting on one of my dinner menus if I was serving wine. You can't match these strongly-flavored vegetables with anything.
In fact, you can. Spectacularly. Erich Salomon's Gruner Veltliner 'Wieden Reserver' Kremstal, Austria, 1998 and Hiedler's Gruner Veltliner 'Thal-Novemberlese' Kamptal, Austria, 2000 are two very different wines. But they both complemented the dish shockingly well. Next time my vegetarian friends come over, I'm pulling out a Gruner Veltliner. Perhaps we'll have artichokes.
The chilled oven-roasted heirloom tomato soup had mixed results in my mind. I was okay with the Muller-Catoir 2000 'Gimmeldinger Mandelgarten' (Kabinett Riesling), but the soup didn't seem quite capable of standing up to the 1996 Strub 'Niersteiner Orbel' (Riesling Spatlese). Terry thought they both worked really well, but the two women to my left didn't like either of them with the soup.
Then came the second big shock. A nice, perfectly cooked, rare piece of venison. Accompanied by a Vilmart Rose Champagne ('Cuvee Rubis' Premier Cru a Rilly, France, multi-vintage). "Riesling is the most versatile white wine," said Terry. "Champagne comes in second." Astonishing. Who would've thunk.
As we enjoyed the rest of our meal, lobster pot pie with a blanc de blanc (100% Chardonnay) Champagne and Austrian Riesling followed by a cheese course accompanied by an Auslese (semi-sweet) Riesling, Terry talked to us about the people who make these wines. He visits them every year, he knows their kids. These are not mega-vintners. These are small farmers with small lots. Winemaking is a family enterprise. Their philosophy, overall, is the less you do to the juice, the better the wine. They don't want a contrived, carefully sculpted wine--they want the purest expression the grape can give.
And if this is what the grape gives naturally, they're right. You can rarely improve excellence.
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