Julia, Food and Wine
In her 1961 opus Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julia Child was ahead of her time in that she recommended wines to go with her recipes, territory that few cookbooks of the era explored. Largely French, her suggestions were general in nature, typically referring to regions rather than to specific wines.
In matching wines to the recipes accompanying this story, we followed her guidelines but also cast a wider net to reflect the greater diversity available to today’s wine lovers.
For the coq au vin, Child recommended three red wines from France, each from a different region. We chose specific examples from Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Rhône Valley to reflect her approach. Tasting the wines without food, it was fascinating to see the differences in their weights and textures, and these factors were key when the food came into play. All worked fairly well, but it was the mid-weight wine, the Château Haut-Beauséjour St.-Estèphe 2006, that emerged as the winning combination with the coq au vin.
By itself, the claret boasted soft cherry and black currant fruit with a touch of herbs, ending with a coating of dusty tannins. The chicken, braised in red wine and onions, had an element of sweetness that was met nicely by the Bordeaux. The wine had the right weight and texture, and the pairing brought out an earthiness in it that we hadn’t detected when tasting it on its own. The match lifted the wine, enabling it to taste more complex and making those dusty tannins disappear.
Child recommended a diverse quartet of French reds with the boeuf bourguignonne. We decided to focus on just Syrah, the main grape of one of her suggested matches.
We chose versions from three different countries: A St.-Joseph from the Rhône Valley, a California Syrah and an Australian Shiraz. Of the three, the Rhône-grown wine proved the best match with the food.
The St.-Joseph Offerus 2006 from Jean-Louis Chave Sélection showed complexity and purity, with blackberry, violet, black pepper, licorice, smoke and iron aromas and flavors. Rich and dense, it was also vibrant and elegant.The wine’s texture and balance found harmony with the fork-tender beef and rich braising liquid. The beef’s flavor intensified, and the wine became even more elegant, emphasizing its purity of fruit.
For the dish of baked cucumbers with feta cheese and mint, we looked to the food-friendly whites of the Mediterranean to complement the texture and pungency of the cheese and bright flavor of the mint. Greece and Italy provided a trio of interesting options, but our favorite wine match with the dish came from Italy’s Campania region. On its own, the Feudi di San Gregorio Greco di Tufo 2007 featured an exotic nose of ripe grapefruit and apricot, full body and richness, and a long, mineral aftertaste. But sipped with the cucumber dish, the wine’s richness and texture matched that of the vegetables and cheese, and the pairing worked to coax more fruit from the wine. The salty mineral finish of this white worked in tandem with the saltiness of the feta, resulting in a pleasing synergy.
For the pavlovas, we turned to South Africa for a late-harvest Chenin Blanc and to upstate New York for an ice wine made from Vidal. The Standing Stone Vidal Finger Lakes Ice 2007 was the hands-down favorite. It had the sweetness to stand up to the pavlovas, and while the wine itself gave an impression of low acidity, when fused with the acidity in the lemon cream it became brighter and more alive.
