Asian grapevine
Twenty-two years ago, a good friend who is a food writer based in New York, David Rosengarten, published a book called Red Wine with Fish. The book, which was written together with wine consultant Joshua Wesson, never became an international best-seller, but it raised a few eyebrows with its unorthodox approach to food-and-wine pairing.
My copy of the book, now frayed at the edges with dog-eared corners and scribbled handwriting on the pages, still makes me smile. I love the idea that the book was all about breaking 'The Rules'. The authors wrote: 'The Rules were the frightened reaction of an earlier age to the possibility of great uncertainty.'
More than two decades later in Asia, that statement still counts. Serious foodies who are into wine seem to fall largely into two camps: the first believes in 'The Rules' with an expanded vocabulary such as the colour coding of food-and-wine pairings. Some go so far as to simplify pairings by focusing mostly on colour - white or light-coloured food with white wines and dark-coloured dishes with darker-coloured wines.
This slightly simplistic approach easily allows all Asian dishes that are new to the food and wine pairing scene to be slotted into categories and creates 'The Newly Expanded Rules'.
The second camp is more comfortable with uncertainty. This camp believes in dismantling 'The Rules' and discussing pairings in terms of identifiable guiding principles rather than using an authoritarian approach.
I have always been part of this camp and I have written at length about why I feel a new outlook is necessary, especially when it comes to Asian food-and-wine pairing.
Our dining culture - how we eat, how we enjoy food and what is defined as delicious - is different from the traditional European approach and necessitates a new perspective.
While there are no rules for pairing red wine with fish, there are guiding principles: choose less tannic reds with lively acidity - these work better than very tannic, full-bodied reds with low acidity; avoid fish with strong fishy notes such as mackerel, sardines or anchovies, which will bring out the metallic, astringent notes in red wine; add soy-sauce-based seasoning or gravies that enable the dish to pair better with red wine; add a touch of meat such as minced pork or bacon to the dish for an enhanced pairing.
When I am cooking at home and we are having red wine, I will often throw in some mushrooms or small bits of chopped meat, almost as garnish, to a fish dish to enable it to pair better with the wine. Adding some of the red wine as a sauce or seasoning when cooking the fish is another easy way to ensure that the pairing will work well.
Consider the age of the wine, the level of tannins and acidity, and the fruit character. The older the wine, the easier it will pair with fish dishes; the higher the tannin level, whether from the grape variety itself or from oak barrel tannins, the more it will detract from the texture and flavours of the fish; the higher the acidity, the better the match - look at how well lemon, vinegar and other acidic ingredients work with fish; the fruit character and intensity of flavours of the wine work best when it echoes the intensity and texture of the fish.
Taking us beyond the idea of white wine with fish - that is if we ever really believed in this tenet - we know from first-hand experience that red wine can and does match well with fish.
Some fantastic pairings include toro (fatty tuna) sashimi dipped in soy sauce with a touch of wasabi, which is sublime with a 20-year-old red Burgundy from a good domaine; Malaysian fish head curry is delicious with a slightly chilled Cote du Rhone.
A surprisingly good match is steamed grouper with soy sauce and spring onion and mature Bordeaux or Northern Rhone. A high quality Bordeaux red from the 1970s or older has a completely different texture to a young Bordeaux, and the softer tannins, silky texture and mellow flavours marry very well with fish. Northern Rhone wines, such as the tannic, meaty Hermitage, can be a good partner with delicate fish. I had a miso-glazed, pan-fried cod with a 1982 Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle several weeks ago and it was superb.
But after all of this pontificating, the reality of our dining culture is that we would never just have one fish dish with red wine as an entire meal. We don't repeat the same flavour combinations throughout the meal and that is the challenging and fun part of how we enjoy our food. Just remember, you don't have to take a sip of wine with each mouthful, you can pick and choose the combinations and discover for yourself what works and what doesn't.
