Have you ever wondered why the wine lists in your average Chinese restaurants are so limited or non-existent? One would think that with a cuisine so wide-ranging and creative, there would be a sophisticated wine culture accompanying Chinese food. Well, there is. It’s just not the same wine we know of. When mentioning “wine” to a Chinese you need to differentiate between the indigenous “grain-based wine” made from rice, sorghum or barley and the imported European “grape-based wine.” But it doesn’t mean grape wine is not fitting for Chinese food.
Seen as a novel foreign introduction, the Chinese are at a loss as to what to make of “grape” wine. Local wines produced by newly established vineyards are sold in the market bundled with a bottle of Coca Cola or Sprite. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “mixed drink”. I heard a story of a Red Army general who opened two cases of champagne half an hour before a banquet because he had heard that wine needed to breath. The place where Chinese food meets wine can be hazardous.
Nevertheless pairing wine with Chinese food can be both challenging and rewarding. I decided to challenge my friends in the wine business a few months ago and arranged a 10-course banquet for them to come up with wine pairing. I asked each of them to pair wines to four courses of their choosing. The menu included items typical of a Chinese banquet with seafood, fowl, meats, vegetables, soup and starch. I also explained the spices and cooking methods used for each dish. The result of this exercise was quite remarkable. In addition to the usual suspects of the grape wine varieties, one guest brought three bottles of sake as well. In all there were twenty bottles of wine. Here is the menu along with the suggested wines brought by my guests.
Needless to say the banquet was full of discussions, friendly debates and discoveries. In the next few posts I will be sharing with you some of the reactions from the experts. So stay tuned. In the meantime tell me what you think of the pairings?
This is pretty damn cool. I’m loving the unusual pairings.
I’d like to see more reds, and more wines in general, but the choice of wine is so varied and austere and really fantastic!
The choice of wines with the Conch and Lees sauce is really something. I guess you’d have to be a little far out with your wine choice- mainly oxidized wines- since the Chinese wine sauce might be hard to pair with, as it already has it’s own prominent wine flavor.
Red Cook, would you consider doing a joint blog post with me sometime, where you come up with a three dishes and I pair them with wine on my blog, vindelatable.blogspot.com. I’ve been wondering this for a bit, because I’d like to learn more about pairing wine with Chinese food, and a practical spree like that would be educational, and delicious…… But the dishes might have to be catered to a much less experienced Chinese cook!
Kirstin, I’d love to do a joint post with you. Let’s discuss. Maybe we can end this series (when I get to it) by our joint post.
Yes, we did not have too many reds with our pairings. In our discussion we did feel that reds are very difficult to match with Chinese food. The strong flavor and spiciness of Chinese cooking often clashes with reds.
I’ve seen the red wine/coke bundle when travelling in Shanghai last year. hehe. There was lots and lots of luxurious Bordeaux available in stores too, i was surprised.
It’s fascinating to see what experts have to say about matching wines with chinese food.Great idea, I can’t wait to read more! Love the scarbolo tocai friulano.
I almost always go with light, crisp whites when drinking wine with Chinese food at all. Because of the strong spicy, sour, salty flavors all present in the same meal, I would just go with beer or a mixed drink. A lot of people here eat Peking duck with Chinese red wines, which seems like such a waste because local wines taste like sludge 98% of the time.
Kian,
Dont forget we also had the Cabernet Franc from Pierre Breton, an organic wne from the Loire Valley which paired very well because of its full bodied flavors balanced with fruit that helped it stand up to the spice.
Hey Kian:
My friend Lia just issued a call to her Asian food blogger friends about Asian food and wine pairings. I shared my short list and pointed her in your direction. She has a great following, hope you enjoy it and share with her readers your knowledge!
Jackie
Jackie, thanks for pointing me to Kian . . . Kian, what fun to find your blog! I love this entry . . . I just wish I’d been there for the banquet!