May 22 2006
When in New York recently, my wife and I did a Greenwich Villagefood tour … a kind of neighborhood tour de force that delineated all of theexcellent purveyors—some history, some gossipy chatter, whom to go to for cannoli’sand a lot of tasting—from pizza at Joe’s to Murray’s Cheese.
Murray’s is the venerable cheese shop that carries over250 varieties of cheese including a good number that you’re not likely to findanywhere else in the states and some blue cheese that is so full of flavor thatit makes the stuff at the local A&P seem like Kraft singles.
The tour ended inMurray’s upstairs area where classes are conducted; a quick scan of the classschedule shows that a lot of the classes are about wine and cheesepairing.
Thatmakes recent research all the more curious.
HildegarrdHeymann and a graduate student/researcher, Berenice Madrigal, from UC Daviscompleted research that challenges the conventional wisdom of wine and cheesepairing. This research got some mediaplay last summer and then again in the early portion of ’06.
TheSan Francisco Chronicle, as usual, has a nice article that encapsulates theresearch.
"Ourdefinition of a good pairing was that the two enhance each other," saysHildegarde Heymann, professor of sensory science in Davis’ viticulture andenology
…it was Heymann who steered Madrigal to cheese as a thesis topic, a continuationof the professor’s research into the sensory analysis of wine with food.
ToHeymann’s surprise, few sensory scientists had analyzed the presumed affinityof wine and cheese. A review of the literature turned up almost nothing. ASwedish scientist, Tobias Nygren, had looked at white wine with blue cheese --the cheese mutes white wine flavors, he found—but no one apparently hadlooked methodically at the intersection of red wine and cheese.
Heymann says, "My ‘take home’ is, you shouldn’t worryabout which wine you have with which cheese," says Heymann. "Have thewine you love with the cheese you love. " If most cheeses affect most redwines in a similar way, by turning down the volume, it may be pointless to keeplooking for a match that soars.
Sometimes academics can get shouted down for breakingconventional wisdom with research. I’mnot sure if Heymann was smart, or not brave for her caveated last statement, “Havethe wine you love with the cheese you love.” Many gourmands are likely to call “poppycock” on her, but at the sametime, the little man has struck another blow—the guy that wants to drink aSyrah with Tilapia in a buerre blanc sauce has moved one step closer tovalidation.
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Also on the same tour, wevisited some historical houses made with clinker brick. Clinker brick, as I learned fromwikipedia is a brick that is very usable, but has been overfired.
Inearly brick firing kilns, the surface of the bricks that were too close to thefire changed into the volcanic textures and darker/purplish colors, and werecalled "clinkers". They were originally discarded, but around 1900, these bricks werediscovered by architectsto be usable, distinctive and charming in architectural detailing, adding theearthy quality favored by Arts & Crafts style designers. Modernbrick-making techniques can recreate the appearance of these bricks and producea more consistent product.
In the past I had enjoyed theKlinker Brick Zinfandel from the winery of the same name, but, really, I
didn’tknow a clinker/klinker brick from a paver stone at the local Home Depot.
I re-visisted the Klinker BrickZin and it’s really a good value. Theweb site tells their story, as well.
http://www.klinkerbrickwinery.com/index.htm
Rich, deep color, enormousdensity, unique and distinctive are the same qualities found in our old vineZinfandel. And, we hope it is a name that you are not likely to forget!
The Old Vines Zin is around $15bucks and deep and rich. It doesn’thave the same sort of minerality that you find in other OVZ’s, but it’s wellworth taking a flier on …
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