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Beyond Beer: The Best Wines to Accompany Chinese Food

By Sharon Kapnick

 

Years ago, my friends and I would typically order beer with Chinese food, which was, and still is, a good partner with many Chinese dishes. That was, however, before we learned to love wine. Then everything changed, and we needed to discover what wines go best with Chinese food. Over the years, I’ve done some research and some experimenting, and I learned a thing or two. Because different people have different tastes, you’ll probably have to do some experimenting of your own. Here are some guidelines that should help.

General Principles

When matching food with wine, there are several basic rules to keep in mind.

1) Similar foods and wines pair well. A delicate dish, for example, demands a delicate, light-bodied wine, and a hearty, rib-warming meal needs a rich, powerful, full-bodied wine.

2) Contrasting foods and wines can also be good partners, although these matches are trickier.

3) Food and wine should complement, rather than overpower, each other. As wine importer Rudi Wiest likes to say, "Whatever’s on the plate is already dead. You don’t have to kill it again.” You don’t want a wine that will overwhelm a dish; you want one that will stand up to it.

4) Fiery dishes are best with wines that are low in tannins and alcohol, which fan the flames, and with off-dry (slightly sweet) and sweet wines, which tone them down.

5) In general, the lower the alcohol, the sweeter the wine.

6) If beer goes well with a dish, sparkling wine will too.

7) Here’s a rule of thumb: the milder the dish, the drier the wine; the spicier, the fruitier; the hotter, the sweeter.

But that’s not all. There are other things to take into account, like cooking methods. Fried foods, for example, are great with sparkling wines because the bubbles cut through the richness. And then there’s seasonality: The wine you choose to accompany roast duck served on a cold winter’s day shouldn’t be the wine you pour with roast duck on a patio. Sauces, too, play a crucial role in deciding what wine to select, which is especially important in a cuisine like Chinese. In fact, as wine importer Terry Theise advises, you should "match the wine to the sauce, not to the meat. Orange-flavored beef calls for sweet Riesling, not Châteauneuf-du-Pape.”

Tao of Chinese Meals

It’s also important to keep in mind two other distinctive things about Chinese food:

1) the frequent combinations of sweet, salty, sour and spicy flavors, which play a great part in determining which wines are appropriate, and

2) the wide array of vegetable, bean curd, seafood, poultry, pork and beef dishes served at the same meal. Given all these factors, it may be tempting to raise your hands in surrender and say, “I’ll have a Tsing Tao.” But, in a way, these considerations make the choice of wine easy: The best thing to do is to serve the most food-friendly wines.

Sparkling Wines

And there are no more versatile wines than sparkling wines. One of their many virtues is that they can be served throughout the meal. While sparkling wine may not necessarily be the best wine for a particular dish, it’s usually at worst a good accompaniment — and often much more. Sparkling wine doesn’t have strong flavors or tannins that overwhelm food; its thousands of tiny bubbles do a stellar job of cleansing and refreshing the palate; and its acidity and fruit temper spicy heat in food. Sparkling wines are wonderful with Chinese food. (The Chinese themselves gravitate toward bubbles with meals, although bubbles of a different sort: They often mix carbonated drinks like 7-Up with wine, whiskey or brandy.) These days there are many excellent, inexpensive sparkling wines on the market.

If expense is not a consideration or you are celebrating a special occasion, you might opt for Champagne. As importer Theise says, “Don’t forget Champagne! In fact, never forget Champagne.” (Actually, I personally would be likelier to forget my own name than to ever forget Champagne!) Champagnes and some sparkling wines come in several sweetness levels: Brut nature or Extra brut or Ultra brut: bone dry; Brut: no perceptible sweetness; Extra dry: slightly sweet; Sec: noticeable sweetness; Demi sec or Dry: very sweet; Doux: sweetest of all. (Brut is most common.)

Alsace Wines

After sparkling wines, when eating Chinese, I turn to Alsace and its food friendly, aromatic white wines. Their fruity flavors and (generally) high acidity cool the palate and complement flavorful, spicy and sweet dishes. Their lack of oak is also a plus. "[Aromatic] white wines excel particularly with cuisines that are challenging for other wines,” especially those with some sweetness or hot spiciness, write Mary Ewing-Mulligan and Ed McCarthy in Wine Styles. "Alsace wines in general are great choices when the meal has you wondering what wines could possibly work.”

There are several Alsace wines to consider. Riesling is its outstandingly flexible star. (Actually many think it’s the greatest and most versatile of all white wines.) It’s an excellent choice when you want one wine to serve with many different dishes — from seafood to fowl to meat. It can be fruity, flowery, sometimes minerally, usually crisp, often elegant. Pinot Blanc, sometimes called the poor man’s Chardonnay, is a light, crisp, fresh, lively, delicate, all-purpose wine. Pinot Gris is like Chardonnay in weight and texture. It’s dry, rich, round, opulent, powerful, complex, sometimes smoky, with lots of fruit flavors. While it has the acidity of a white wine, it’s full bodied and can often take the place of a red. Pinot Gris is an excellent choice with very flavorful dishes. Gewürztraminer is extremely expressive and exotic, highly aromatic, with scents of lychees, rose petals and honeysuckle. It’s full bodied and sometimes slightly sweet. For these reasons, it’s often recommended with spicy cuisines.

German Rieslings

Also at the top of the list as accompaniments to Chinese food are German Rieslings. Generally low in alcohol, they have high acidity, which makes them crisp, fresh, zesty and good with food. The sugar in them is balanced by acidity. They can handle the wide range of dishes served at Chinese meals. (Some pair Rieslings with game, like venison, pheasants and wild duck. Others recommend them with braised meat or steak.)

German Rieslings are made in several ripeness levels, which are indicated on the label. The most important styles for our purposes include: Kabinett — light, delicate, refreshing wines from ripe grapes with a touch of sweetness; Spätlese — fuller, more flavorful wines, characterized by high acidity and light sweetness, from grapes picked at least a week after normal ripeness; and Auslese — fuller, riper wines with significant sweetness, made from ripe and overripe grape clusters.

The Kabinetts favor subtly flavored, delicate dishes with light sauces. The Spätlese cut the heat of spicy foods and are also good with dishes with some sweetness. The Ausleses demand aggressively flavored dishes, including sweet-and-sour and orange-flavored sauces that benefit from more residual sugar.

Other Rieslings

Austria, New York, Washington, Oregon, parts of California, Australia and New Zealand also produce very good Rieslings. This varietal has at last been regaining popularity as people learn how food friendly it is. According to consumer researcher AC Nielsen, sales rose 24 percent by volume in the 52-week period ending June 2.

Page Two of Beyond Beer: The Best Wines to Accompany Chinese Food>>

 

©2007 Sharon Kapnick for SeniorWomenWeb
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