Food/Wine Pairing Tasting Notes
Here is a question I often ponder. If you are going to suggest a wine to go with a particular dish (or vice versa), why would you just write a regular tasting note and not reference the dish? That thought crept into my mind again as I noticed this post on Personal Wine Buyer, whose author will be suggesting wine pairings for Design*Sponge. (And I only single him out because I just read his tasting note; I can’t think of the number of times I’ve seen this.)
Here is his write-up of the wine he chose to go with Matt Armendariz’s Sautéed Beet Greens with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Pancetta:
Beautiful golden straw in color. Not extremely forward or exotic on the aromatics — a bit subdued on the nose. On the palate, this wine shows beautiful grapefruit and citrus, nice apple with some butter and almonds. Really nice minerality with great weight, balance and acidity with a nice crisp finish. This is a good value at about $18 a bottle — and just a really nice wine. Recommended.Sounds like a wine I would like. But why, exactly, did he choose it to go with Matt’s dish? It doesn’t matter if you agree with him: Why that wine?
In my wine writing, I try to also be a wine educator. I want people to finish my pieces and think, “Hmm. I learned a little something.” I can and do write adjective-heavy tasting notes, but I don’t kid myself about the number of people who actually read them: very few, I think.
To me, his tasting note and its siblings in the bulk of the wine press are wasted opportunities. The author could have talked about how structure, weight, acidity, and flavor led him down that road. He could have given readers something to think about: a better way to think about wine than as a bag of descriptions. He could have empowered them in the wine shop. What happens when the average reader goes to their local hooch supplier and can’t find the wine? He’s stranded them: They have no way to articulate what they want. Furthermore, he hasn’t given them a language they can use in the future. He has described a wine and failed to give it any context. I, too, have done this in my professional writing. That doesn’t make it right.
Give a man a fish, the saying goes, and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and feed him for a lifetime. As wine writers, we owe it to our readers to teach them to fish.
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