I found myself in a quandary recently when I invited some vegetarian friends to dinner. As a fairly ardent carnivore, I don’t have much occasion to match wine to vegetarian dishes (nor much experience at creating them). Well and truly out of my comfort zone and cursing my crazy decision to serve Brussels sprouts.
According to my guests everything was fine. It really got me thinking, though, that I almost exclusively focus on the meat element of a meal when I’m matching wine and food, and I’m not the only one who does this. I can’t think of a single back label on a bottle of wine that’s ever read : “This is a perfect match with Brussels sprouts.”. Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but the point remains. Meat rules supreme when it comes to wine and food matching lore, and this is a bit crazy when you consider that vegetables present us with a vast array of flavours and textures, and as such, great opportunities for enlightening wine and food matches.
So I was pretty keen to make the journey out to Salute in Greytown the other weekend to attend an entirely vegetarian degustation dinner featuring the wines of Urlar and Vynfields. It was, as I hoped, an eye-opening experience. The matches created by Travis Clive-Griffin were excellent, and I in particular enjoyed the matching of Urlar Pinot Gris 2010 with cauliflower risotto, stinging nettles, taleggio and quince and Vynfields Mad Rooster 2009 with Moroccan spiced mushrooms, porcini, eggplant and lentils with celeriac, thyme and parsley salad. The earthy, savoury flavours of the mushrooms and eggplant were great with the savoury spiciness of the wine, and would also be a great match for the more earthy style of Pinot Noir typical of Martinborough.  Our table of carnivores were thoroughly impressed with both the food and the skilled wine matches, and though we spent a considerable amount of time discussing the relevant merits of different brands of pork scratchings (food match – a dry Sherry, preferably Manzanilla), we all survived an evening without meat!
Vynfield’s Classic Riesling 2010 has an incredibly sherbetty nose, redolent of preserved lemons, mandarin peels and blossomy florals. Though this has some residual sugar, the fruit is very clean and well-balanced acidity makes this wine clean and refreshing.  $35.00 We had this matched with haloumi and a watercress tabouleh. The saltiness of the haloumi worked well with the wine, but it would also work well with spicy food.
Urlar Pinot Gris 2010 – a certain figgy note is mingled with a mealy character (hence the quince in the matched dish). This wine is textural and responded well to the slightly gritty texture of the nettle puree.  This is quite a full and luscious style of Pinot Gris and should be very versatile with food. I suggest playing around with this one! $33.0