By Gina Trippi
Fall is wine dinner season. If you are like me, you have been to some good ones and some forgettable ones. Sometimes, the wine pairing with the food is just off. So, how does a chef make it work seamlessly? What’s the secret ingredient to the successful wine dinner recipe?
I asked Chef Sam Etheridge at Quench!, a collaboration with Metro Wines, in Reynolds Village, to spill the beans.
The top priority for Etheridge, like so many things, is location, location, location. The winery usually has a set of four to six wines to feature. “I try to always bear in mind where the wine is produced—simply said, a sense of place,” he says.
A recent dinner with Materra from California provides a good example of his approach to pairing. “You cannot lose sight of the fact that what grows together goes together,” says Etheridge. “California cuisine is heavily influenced by Mexican flavors, so I decided to add a puréed salami to bring some Mexican spice to the dish and better work with the California full-bodied red, Midnight, to be featured.”
The 2021 Midnight has an inky purple hue and fruit-forward aromatics. Proper pairing should bring up notes of black currant and blueberry, white pepper and blackberries and a spot of black pepper on the finish. The weight and lush palate allow a wide range of wine-pairing potential. Etheridge also added spicy kimchi to the dish to contribute the umami flavor to the pairing.
At any wine dinner, Etheridge likes to put two similar wines side by side with the same dish, asking diners to note the different flavors that come forth from each wine. “The goal is to highlight the best qualities of the wine,” says Etheridge. “It’s also a good time to stretch the limits of the usual pairings.”
To demonstrate this point, the final two Materra red wines were Bordeaux Blends: Materra Right Bank and Materra Hidden Block, essentially Left Bank. Simply put, Right Bank Bordeaux is Merlot-based and Left Bank is founded on Cabernet Sauvignon.
The last course was beef tenderloin with black garlic mole. “The idea here is for diners to differentiate how the sweet and spicy flavors, together with the richness of meat, pairs with the wines,” Etheridge says. “Diners preferred the Right Bank Merlot, which is not the usual choice.”
The black garlic mole was intended to bring focus to the black cherry, ripe plums, black tea and hints of spicy oak and vanilla in the wine. And while both wines emphasized black fruit, dried herbs and spice, the Right Bank, perhaps due to the addition of Cabernet Franc in the blend, also brought forth hints of spicy oak and vanilla.
The dinner was so successful that Materra invited Etheridge to California to cook at the winery! Join Metro Wines for the Thanksgiving Dinner with Ken Wright Wines on Thursday, November 14, at Quench! in Woodfin.
Gina Trippi is the co-owner of Metro Wines, 169 Charlotte Street in Asheville. Committed to the community, Metro Wines offers big-shop selection with small-shop service. Gina can be reached at gina@metrowinesasheville.com or 828.575.9525. Quench! is located at 60 Merrimon Avenue, #105, Woodfin.
