Chef Chuck returns to discuss the often misunderstood world of wine pairing. He addresses the reasons why some individuals shy away from wine, including bad experiences and misconceptions about alcohol. Chef Chuck emphasizes the importance of exploring wine with food to fully appreciate the nuances and flavors that come alive through proper pairings.
Chef Chuck also shares his experiences with clients who prefer sweet wines and the challenges he faces in introducing them to drier options that complement their meals. He highlights the significance of understanding the context of wine pairing, particularly in tasting menus, and encourages listeners to expand their palates. Tune in for valuable insights and practical tips that could change the way you enjoy wine with your meals!
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Welcome. Welcome to the best five-minute wine podcast with Forrest Kelly.
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What's your pushback when you say that you've seen these people not drinking alcohol in
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general and specifically not drinking wine for whatever reason they are? What's your
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pushback in saying, Hey, hold on a second here. You don't need to completely knock wine
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off of your list. Yeah. I mean, uh, the first, the first way I try to approach it is I'll
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always ask the client, you know, what's your reasoning behind this? And, um, sometimes
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they won't open up about it. They'll say, Hey, this is personal. And I'll say, okay,
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that's fine. Uh, why don't we switch over to, uh, some type of, some type of non-alcoholic
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option. And that's where I start getting into mocktails and, and other types of, of
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fermented beverages, such as kombucha and others that, you know, are fermented similar
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to wine, but are not wine, but they, they have a lot of the same characteristics, same
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flavor aspects. So that's one option. But most of the time, when I push back a little
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bit more, they will tell me they've had a bad experience with wine. Maybe they've had
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the wrong type of pairing in a restaurant. Maybe they have never experienced multiple
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courses with wines, which is what I offer at the resort chef.com. You can see more of
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that. And, and so then we get into details of what, what was the wine that you had? What
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can you recall about your experience with wine that soured your experience and you don't
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ever want to have wine again, or you don't want to have wine again. So getting down to
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why that individual doesn't want to, sometimes people are misled and they think that all
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alcohol is bad for them. We know about the studies that show that red wine and your cardiovascular
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system is phenomenal. Resveratrol in the grapes actually helps your cardiovascular system
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when consumed in limited quantities. But Hey, I don't know anybody that's going to drink
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a tremendous amount of wine, especially at my tasting events. We do small pourings at
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my tasting events, four ounces or less, depending when we get down to the dessert course and
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we start pouring ports and, and various dessert wines, it's even a smaller ounce, like a two
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and a half ounce pour. What I want people to be able to experience with our food and
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wine tastings is really how the wine accents and helps accent the food. That's the whole
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point of a sommelier in a restaurant, but it's also how people can really, who especially
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have been kind of resistant to trying wines with their food can really get the full picture
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is when you're tasting the food with the wine pairing, you get the full picture of why we
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pair the wine that we do with the food that we do.
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Has there come a time when a dinner guest got a wine pairing with the food so wrong
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and you said, Hey, time out here, buddy. You're not doing it right.
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Oh my goodness. Well, without sharing too much about the client, um, since I'm in the
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South and I'm based in the South, I do get a lot of clients that they want nothing but
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sweet wines with their dinners. Um, they're not willing to try anything, even, even a
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Chambourcin or, or something on the lighter side, like a Pinot Noir or even a dry Oaky
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Chardonnay, let alone Sauvignon Blanc that has all those tropical characteristics, but
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is also dry, uh, in characteristic most of the time, depending on what region you're
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in. So we get the aspect where I've been really challenged going, okay, all right, we can
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try, you know, several different sweet wines, but how open would you be to trying something
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like a Chardonnay with a, with a piece of fish that's been neatly seared or maybe, uh,
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how open would you be with this, um, steak, this filet mignon to trying something like
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a Chambourcin or a lighter Pinot Noir that would pair really well with the pepperiness
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in the, in the steak. And there's been pushback on that. And so that's been a real challenge
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is trying to get people out of their comfort zone and into the aspect of the food and beverage
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pairing that is something that we in the industry and 30 years in the industry have been trying
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to do, which is to get people to turn back to the beverage of choice and away from their
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comfort zone and kind of go along with what the sommelier and the chef have paired on
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the menu, uh, especially tasting menus. There's a real challenge with that because they're
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wanting to swap out different wines and do different things. And I just say, okay, listen,
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this is a fixed menu, prefixed menu, and this is a prefixed wine menu. And I assure you
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that these have been paired well, and that if you're, if you're willing to expand your
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palate a little bit, we're willing to show this, but here in North Carolina, especially
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in the Eastern part of North Carolina, the closer I get to the coast, more people are
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accustomed to sweeter wines, you know, the muscadine varieties and Moscato varieties
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and things like that. And so there are aspects that we can, we can use a blueberry or strawberry
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wine for in a dessert course, a cheese pairing, for example, other things like that. Thus
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far, we've had great success this spring and in kind of transitioning, especially when
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people know they're getting the full tasting experience from the farm to table experience
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here in North Carolina.
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