Wine first, or food first?

Some time ago, Tita Meneses Trillo of Titania Wine Cellars Inc. hosted a Chinese gourmet dinner and wine degustation at the Library of Li Li Restaurant at the Hyatt Casino on Pedro Gil St., Manila.

It was an invite hard to resist, and it was harder to imagine that it would be a success: French and Chilean wines, Baron Philippe de Rothschild at that, to be paired with Chinese food! Somehow, I always find wine going well with Western than Oriental dishes, and many around the table that night agreed with me. From experience, Chinese food is best with just jasmine or chrysanthemum tea; beer is fine, but I find it too filling. It washes down the grease instantly and clears the palate for the next dish. Isn’t that the secret, too, why there are very few obese Chinese? And the more sophisticated crowd who dine on Chinese food do order the wine of their choice or preference, like: "Do we get a red or white?" Meaning, any bottle of wine will do. But to specifically choose the bottle one by one and match it with every Chinese dish seems like a daunting task reserved only for the brave.

Mary Ann was as curious as I at this wine pairing dinner. During cocktails, she had the chance to meet Hong Kong native William Yuen, Hyatt F&B manager, and asked: "This black vinegar sauce you serve with the dim sum (a wonderfully golden fried yet light bean curd sheet roll with shrimp), will it not affect the taste of the wine?" William, naturally more concerned about his food than the wine, had a clever answer. "Just remember, if food is good, wine will be good. It will just follow."

Over the eight-course dinner, one Filipino wine aficionado declared: "Vinegar or anything with acidity will negatively affect the wine." By now, my Darleng was getting more confused than when we started. Seated to her right was the hotel’s GM Gottfried Bogensperger.

"How do you reckon with matching Chinese food with wine?" she asked.

The youthful manager from Germany replied: "Easy. With the wide variety of wines now available, especially white wines, it’s not a problem."

"Wine first or food first?" I butted in.

"It does not matter. When wine choice is limited, wine first and then match the food. But if wine choice is unlimited, choose the food you like and find the wine," he said.

He must have seen Mary Ann perplexed, and continued. "Here is your guide. Sweet and sour is okay; bitter and bitter (tannin), no. Sweet and sour, good; salty and salty, no."

Mary Ann scratched her head and wondered how wine could be salty. She was about to ask another question but decided it was best to drop the topic. She was not sure if it was the wine or the topic that was giving her head a nice light feeling of spinning (to think we were just on our third sip.)

The good GM wanted to say more, but sensing my Darleng’s confusion, he suggested we buy an educational wine kit (like Le Nez du Vin; look it up at wine.com) that will help train our noses to identify the common aromas found in different wines and learn to spot faulty ones. It costs $150 and consists of a set of 12 varietals of red or white wine. That will be a good start, he promised.

Tita, our lovely hostess (blushing like a sparkling rosé, I wonder why) that night, talked passionately about wine. Every time a new bottle was brought to the table, she would gracefully rise to the occasion and share with us details about the particular wine. Of the seven wines she made us try that evening, two are Mouton Cadet (a rouge and a blanc), which are the flagship of Philippe de Rothschild branded wines. From over three million bottles sold back in 1975, a staggering 15 millions are sold at present, 75 percent of them outside France. One of the key factors behind the company’s undisputed success is the art of blending, which it practices with exceptional skill. Baroness Philippine de Rothschild, the majority shareholder of Baron Philippe de Rothschild SA, works closely with the executive directors to maintain, modernize, and develop the family business.

Since 1933, Baron Philippe de Rothschild SA, located at Pauillac in the Médoc region in southwestern France near Bordeaux, has been motivated by a constant ambition: to make the world’s finest wines, each in its own category, whether the chateaux wines for which it is responsible – the renowned Chateau Mouton Rothschild, a First Growth, and its distinguished lieutenants, Chateau Clerc Milon and Chateau d’Armailhac – or branded wines, like the famous Mouton Cadet.

Baron Philippe de Rothschild SA has also exported its know-how beyond Bordeaux: to the Pays d’Oc, with a range of varietal wines and, more recently, Domaine de Baron’arques; to California, with Opus One; and to Chile, with Almaviva.

Oh yes, going back to the lesson plan: the wine and food pairing. I’ll jump ahead of the story. The degustation went very well without much of a hitch. All the whites (Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc Chile, Mouton Cadet Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc France) went very well with the seafood dishes they were paired with (chef’s dim sum specials, shark’s fin dumplings with crabmeat soup, wok-fried live garoupa, and wok-baked baked lobster, respectively).

Then came the reds (Mouton Cadet Rouge, Chateau d’Armailhac and Baron ’Arques) that complemented quite well Li Li’s specialties (imperial Peking duck, wok-fried beef with glazed walnuts in XO chili sauce, and braised spinach noodle in abalone sauce, respectively). All one could hear from the 18 guests were the same oohs and aahs. Even Makati Rep. Teddyboy Locsin was smiling and awfully quiet all throughout the dinner, and to think there was no rice in sight.

Was it the wine, the food, the service, and the company that made the evening a most memorable one? All of the above, I must say. And thanks to Tita for an impeccable choice of wines and William Yuen for a well-planned menu and well-orchestrated service. It should make a good model for Entertainment 101.