1st Thursdays at the Hilton: Wine and Food Pairing Dinners Hosted by Ned Towle
Tasting, Enjoying, and Learning about Food and Wine Matches

Course Summary

Wines taste best with food, but which wines with which dishes? Behind the marriage of luscious dishes and  harmonious wines, lies a smorgasbord of ideas about food and wine pairing. There are the very laid-back theories - “If it’s a kind of food you like and a wine you enjoy, go for it!”, or “It’s not so much the wine and the food as the company and the occasion that matters.” There is truth in both these perspectives, but most of us would not enjoy matching a sweet cake with a dry white or a high alcohol red with a hot (spicy) dish, no matter how much you liked the wine separate from the food or the people you were with!

Other theories emphasize matching wines and foods from the same region. This works spectacularly at times, such as in the pairing of the Loire Valley’s Crottin Chavignol goat cheese with the local Sancerre Sauvignon Blanc. However, when looking for the best cheese match for Portugal’s Port, most gourmets go across the sea to England for its stilton cheese, rather than pick a local Portuguese cheese. Nevertheless, the local wine and food customs should not be ignored as they often point to good matches.

Many writers on food and wine look to mirror or balance the flavor and “weight” (body, intensity and persistence of flavors) of the food and wines: i.e. they would suggest you forego your favorite tannic, oaky, block buster red when ordering the delicate, sautéed filet of sole.  But even balancing flavors and weight may not succeed if the food is dominated by spicy or acidic, bitter, sweet, or umami tastes. When one or more of these tastes dominate they will heighten disagreeably the bitterness, dryness, astringency, and acidity of wines, particularly those wines already high in these tastes.  

These perspectives on food and wine matches will be helpful in developing some simple guidelines.  The fun part is getting to the actual tasting of wines and food, where no doubt we will discover that our palates and preferences differ, and where some of the guidelines are more useful than others.

               Class 1: Thursday, January 7th:  Chef Vijay Francis begins the 2010 “1st Thursdays” with a meal of Indian and Asian Cuisine. Ever wonder which wines to match with Indian and Asian food, come find out!

               Class 2: Thursday, February 4th: French Cuisine and Wine – need we say more? We match typical French appetizers, sauces, entrees, and cheeses with the French wines with which they go best.

              Class 3: Thursday, March 4th:  we take on a variety of food dishes from South America and match them with the outstanding whites and reds from Chile and Argentina.

               Class 4: Thursday, April 8th: now to the “Cool Climate Cuisine” of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. And, by the way, there is no end of food-friendly whites and reds from these countries for us to enjoy.

               Class 5:  Thursday May 6th: Home at last! Now for American Cuisine prepared with care and paired with the outstanding wines of the USA.

               Class 6:  Thursday June 3rd: We swing far south to the “Down Under Cuisine” of Australia and New Zealand, and the fabulous wines for which they are famous.

Five courses are prepared by Chef Vijay Francis of the Hilton Rye Town. Six to eight wines will be paired each evening. Chef Francis will be available to discuss the preparation of the dishes and, with Ned Towle, the choice of wines.