Wine Rebellion: Throwing the Rules out the Window
Guest post by Heather L. Benton During a recent discussion about wine and its cliché pairings (yes, cliché is meant with the same hint of snark I might use regarding over-used metaphors in writing) I found myself in a lively discussion with another veteran of the fine dining industry. The other party mentioned that at an upcoming springtime dinner with seafood the host must be clueless for talking about serving red wine. Among your casual wine drinker, this probably wouldn’t have made much of an impression. But after several years working in the high-brow hospitality industry, this kind of sentiment is something I’ve heard more often than I’d like to admit. And the more I hear it, the more I want to challenge it. Okay, for argument’s sake let’s say there are times a dish just pairs with a specific type of wine in a way that brings out the beauty in both. I understand this, and I believe this happens when the starfruits align. But there is also the notion of “congruent pa
