Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 16
T
RETA I L E R
CH A L L E NG E
Sa n Fran cis co
Si ch u an B Y O
Reported by BARBARA HAIMES
Photographs by JASON HENRY
his year's Retail Challenge was inspired by
our Bay Area friends in
the wine trade who often
head out to the Richmond District for BYOB regional Chinese
dinners. We chose a Sichuan restaurant, Spicy Queen, and asked
six retailers to each bring a white
and a red to pair with dinner. The
price limit: $20 per bottle.
Unlike last year's pizza challenge in NYC, where the retailers
were intimately familiar with the
food choice, none of this year's
challengers had eaten much spicy
Chinese, which resulted in a bit of
dart-throwing on their parts. And
the old but useful wine-pairing
adage, "If it grows together, it
goes together," isn't particularly
relevant with any style of Chinese
cuisine.
But all of them were eager to
put their choices to the test, as,
asked if they fielded requests
from customers for wine recommendations for Chinese food, the
retailers responded, practically
in unison, "All the time." (Except
for Andy Booth, who gets more
questions about wine for paella at
the Spanish Table.) It's often a difficult question to answer without
knowing what kind of Chinese
food they are having, says Lee
Madueno of Flatiron Wines &
Spirits-though, at Gemini Bottle
Co., Dominique Henderson finds
her customers just want to know
what to drink with dumplings.
Sichuan cuisine might be one
of the more difficult choices
for wine, as it's known for its
heat. That heat comes from
two sources, called ma-la: the
round and numbing sensation
from Sichuan peppercorns, plus
straight-ahead heat from local
chilies. So before we even started
eating, we tasted the 12 wines
blind; four were sparkling, and
most all the selections held to
styles that were mineral driven
and low in alcohol.
Then the food began to arrive.
We began with a plate of cucumbers that looked to be cooling but
set our mouths ablaze. We experimented with texture, from fried
chicken to fish in boiling broth, as
well as with different main ingredients, like eggplant, lamb and
pork. Ma-la was the leitmotif that
ran through all the dishes. Like
the song you can't get out of your
head, the question remained,
"How would the wines stack up
against all those chilies?"
In the end, the group chose
a favorite from each retailer, as
well as three winners overall,
two whites and one red. The real
surprise, however, was how well
many different wines went with
our spicy food.
SPICY FISH IN
RED CHILES
16
WINE & SPIRITS
JUNE 2019
Illustration by Tatyana from The Noun Project
Wine & Spirits - June 2019
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine & Spirits - June 2019
Contents
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - Cover1
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - Cover2
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 1
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 2
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 3
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 4
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - Contents
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 6
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 7
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 8
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 9
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 10
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 11
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 12
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 13
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Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 15
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 16
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Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 18
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 19
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Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - Cover3
Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - Cover4
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