Every now and then, the time comes for food writers to engage in a bicoastal throwdown to see who can “break” a wine pairing. We get all clever about how much residual sugar it takes to ruin a nice piece of salmon or we see who can put the most sulphurous vegetables into a ragout and still boldly slap a cabernet on the table without alienating a dinner party. Accords between food and wine are more subtle and personal than sommeliers would like you to think. If you realized it, you’d stop asking their opinions, and then where would they be? So, once in a while, we have to push.
The summer-fall transition moment proved one of those times for us. The wine in question was a French blend called Premieres Grives, from Domaine Du Tariquet. The main actor in this wine is Gros Manseng, a heavy-bodied thick-skinned grape from Gascony. Like pinot gris, Gros Manseng is actually a “gray” grape, meaning—well, neither exactly black nor exactly white. Even with minimal skin contact, the wines produced from Gros Manseng have a heavy golden tint (Marsanne can look like this too) and, if grapes aren’t handled carefully, a roughneck, heavily tannic and phenolic ass-whupping kind of wine. Premieres Grives (It means “first thrushes” in honor of the autumn flocks who bat cleanup in French vineyards, as starlings do in Napa) is not such a wine. It’s lush, a little off-dry, and quite elegant.
Tasting notes suggested it was a relatively lusty character suitable for a blind date with a big fatty duck breast, a piece of foie gras, or any number of stick-to-your ribs dishes that don’t normally call to mind a white wine at all for many of us, to say nothing of one that flaunts its residual sugar like Broadway soprano. It’s October. In California, it’s still hitting the 90s during the day, which drove one of us to the Smokey Joe because there was no way red meat was going to get cooked indoors. In Ohio, class warfare erupted in the offal aisle. That’s a lot of smolder for a heavy white. What happened?
Amy: A suggested pairing with this wine is foie gras, but since I am one of those people who was perfectly fine with foie being made illegal in California, I decided to go in a different direction: East. My pairing was a grilled leg of lamb and Persian sour cherry rice. Because, go big or go home.
The lamb was butterflied and introduced to some hot coals. The rice dish involved saffron and onions, butter and cinnamon, pistachios and almonds, and dried sour cherries (I used Stoneridge Orchards dried Montmorency cherries, which worked great; Trader Joe’s also has decent ones). So, big flavors, not lightweight.
Upshot—loved it. This wine is a great pick for someone who’d like a white win to surprise them. It’s still crisp, but somehow it is riper and richer than you’re expecting. I wouldn’t use the word “tropical” (although the tasting notes do). Just… luscious. Intense florality on the nose (jasmine and honeysuckle predominating), an apricot note that hit a great unexpected chord with the cherries, good mineral backbone, and a kind of rich quality I would normally associate with a Marsanne or a Tokaji Friulano. There were faint suggestions of nut tones that went really nicely with the rice recipe, and a faint honeyed character that set off the tart cherries wonderfully. Even the strong flavor of lamb was not a problem for this stuff. It harmonized beautifully.