Your Grape-by-Grape Guide to Pairing Wine with Cheeses from Around the World

*grapes are listed alphabetically, followed by sparkling wines, sweet wines, and then some of the classic blends*

BARBERA
Abbaye de Belloc
Banon
Fiore Sardo
Fontina
Grana Padano
Lancashire
Ossau-Iraty
Piave
Taleggio

BLAUFRANKISCH
Pair your Blaufrankisch wines (also known as Lemberger) with these cheeses:
Cantalet
Feta
Limburger (esp. from Bavaria)
Monterey Jack
Gouda (smoked, aged, or straight up)
Pepper Jack
Piave
Provolone
Smoked cheeses
Sublimity (washed rind cheese from Oregon)
Washed Curd

CABERNET SAUVIGNON
A big Cabernet Sauvignon red will pair well with these cheeses:
Abbaye de Belloc
Ardrahan
Bra Tenero
Chalosse
Cheddar (sharp)
Comte
Danish Blue
Gouda (aged)
Llangloffan
Le Moulis
Ouray
Reblochon
San Andreas
Tome de Couserans

Cantal

CHARDONNAY
Chardonnay (Burgundy, California, Chablis, Pouilly-Fuisse, Morillon, etc.) wines can pair wonderfully with these cheeses:
Affidelice
Alpine Shepard
Bel Paese
Bucheron
Brie
Cambazola
Cantal
Cashel Blue
Chaource
Cotija
Dry Jack

S.F.Drake Cowgirl Creamery

Epoisses
French mountain cheeses
Garrotxa
Gruyere
Jarlsberg (esp. Chablis)
Panela
Parmigiano-Reggiano
Pave d’Auge
Pecorino (esp. Pouilly-Fuisse)
Provolone
Shropshire Blue
S.F.Drake from Cowgirl Creamery (if you’re lucky enough to get a wheel when they have some)
Tete de Moine

Camembert

CHENIN BLANC
A few ideas for pairing Chenin Blanc with cheese:
Blue Castello
Camembert
Derby
Fouchtra
Graddost
Ocooch Mountain
Raclette de Savoie

Morbier

GAMAY
Beemster XO
Brie
Camembert
Cheddar
Comte
Durrus
Feta
Morbier

GEWURZTRAMINER
A nice Gewurztraminer or dry Traminer wine would pair well with these cheeses:

Alpine Shepard
Ardrahan
Boursin
Chevre
Durrus
Meunster
Pecorino Romano
Robiola
Swiss
Tome d’Aquitaine
Tumalo Tomme
Wensleydale

GRUNER VELTLINER
Known as being a great food wine that can pair with almost anything, including artichokes and asparagus, Gruner Veltliner will also pair well with these cheeses:

Garrotxa

Appenzeller
Brin D’Amour
Caerphilly
Chimay
Double Gloucester
Garrotxa
Harbourne Blue
Harvest Moon (washed rind cheese)
Munster
Livarot
Ibores
Mahon
Vacherin Fribourgeois

MALBEC
Malbec wines pair well with these cheeses:
Cashel Blue
Iberico
Manchego
Mimolette
Taleggio

Gruyere

MERLOT
Merlot, and even some Merlot blends, will pair nicely with these cheeses:
Abbaye de Belloc
Alpine Shepard
Cantalet
Camembert
Chalosse
Doddington
Gouda
Gruyere
Ibores

Robiola

Montasio
Pecorino Toscano
Robiola Bosina
Roncal
Toussaint

MUSCAT
A white Muscat wine, be it dry, off-dry or semi-sweet, will pair nicely with these cheeses:
Blu del Moncenisio
Fourme d’Ambert
Gorgonzola
Monte Enebro
Valdeon

Piave

NEBBIOLO
Fontina
Grana Padano
Piave

PETIT SYRAH
Arina
Benning
Darcy
Pierre-Qui-Vire
Saint-Florentin
Soumaintrain

Fontina D’Aosta

PINOT BLANC
Pinot Blanc (AKA Weissburgunder) wines pair particularly well with these cheeses:
Baby Swiss
Brie
Camembert
Dry Jack
Feta
Fontina D’Aosta
Montasio
Ossau-Iraty
Pierre-Robert
Pont L’Eveque
Robiola Vite
Sbrinz
Taleggio

Banon

PINOT GRIS
Pair your Pinot Gris with these cheeses:
Asiago Fresco
Banon
Camellia
Caprino Tartufo
Crottin
Garroxta
Ricotta
St. Nectaire

PINOT NOIR
Try pairing your Pinot Noir with these cheeses:

Berkswell
Buche
Cheddar (light)
Comte
Edam
Epoisses (with a big Pinot)
French Chevre (Cabriflore is a good example)
Fumaison
Gouda
Gruyere
Inverness
Lancashire
Port Salut
Saint Andre

Stanser Rotelli

RIESLING
Austrian, Alsatian, American and German Rieslings will pair with these cheeses:
Cheshire
Colby
Comte
Cotija
Edam
Gouda
Monterey Jack
Morbier
Panela
St.Andre
Swiss mountain cheeses
Red Hawk, Mt.Tam or St.Pat from the Cowgirl Creamery

Saval
Stanser Rotelli
Tarentaise
Tomme Fermiere d’Alsace

SANGIOVESE
Sangiovese (AKA Chianti) wines will work well with these cheeses:
Asiago
Boschetto al Tartufo Bianchetto
Dry Jack
Fontina
Georgia Pecan Chevre
Mozzarella
Parmesan Reggiano
Pecorino
Piave
Provolone
Ricotta

SAUVIGNON BLANC
We particularly recommend pairing Sauvignon Blanc with goat cheese (many types of which are listed here) but we also love it with these other cheeses:
Abbaye de Belloc
Amarelo
Blue Castello
Brie
Bucheron
Cheddar (sharp)
Cheshire
Clochette
Coulommiers
Coupole
Crottin
Derby
Double Gloucester
Drunken Goat
Dry Jack

Goat Cheese

Explorateur
Goat Cheese
Graddost
Gruyere
Mahon
Majorero
Neufchatel
Pave D’Affinois
Selles sur Cher
Sonoma Jack
Teleme

Taleggio

ST.LAURENT
St.Laurent, which is a bit like Pinot Noir with a wild side, will pair with these cheeses:
Comte
Edam
French Chevre
Taleggio

SYRAH / SHIRAZ
A spicy Shiraz will pair well with a few cheeses:
Cheddar (sharp)
Edam
Gouda
St. Nectaire

TEMPRANILLO
A good Tempranillo wine will pair well with these cheeses:

Azeitao
Cheddar (sharp)
Cotswold
Dubliner
Fium ‘Orbu
Fleur du Maquis
Havarti
Mahon
Manchego
Serena
Tomme de Savoie
Zamarano

Livarot

VIOGNIER
Pair your Viognier wines with these cheeses:
Blue cheeses (light)
Brillat-Savarin
Goat
Livarot
Pave d’Auge
Stanser Rotelli
Tourmalet

ZINFANDEL
A hearty Zinfandel (AKA Primitivo) red wine will work beautifully with these cheeses:
Asiago
Canestrato
Dry Sonoma Jack
Goat cheese
Gouda
Gruyere

Zamorano

Maytag Blue
Muenster
Pau
Pecorino (esp. Fiore Sardo)
Piave
Zamorano

ZWEIGELT
Zweigelt, a red wine backed with great spice notes, pairs well with these cheeses:
Cheddar (sharp)
Edam
Gouda
Salers, A.O.C.
Selun (a Swiss cows milk cheese)
St. Nectaire

SPARKLING WINE
All styles of sparkling wines, including Champagne, will pair well with these cheeses:
Baby Swiss
Beaufort
Brie
Brillat-Savarin
Camembert
Cheddar (mild)
Chevre

Sbrinz

Cooleeney
Crescenza
Edam (for dry wines)
Explorateur
Fromage de Meaux
Gouda
Langres
Pierre Robert
Pont l’Eveque
Sbrinz

SWEET WINE / DESSERT WINE
Pair your Ice Wines, BA’s, TBA’s, Sauternes, Tokaji, and Ruster Ausbruch wines with these cheeses:

Blue cheeses:
Bleu des Basques Brebis
Bleu de Sassenage
Cashel Blue
Fourme d’Ambert
Maytag Blue
or
Crème Fraiche
Marscapone
Taleggio

PORT
Cheddar (sharp)
Gorgonzola
Roqueforte
Stilton

BORDEAUX (red)
Brie
Camembert
Chalosse
Gabletou
Roqueforte
Tome de Bordeaux
Tome des Recollets

CôTES Du RHôNES (red)
Bleu d’Auvergne
Camembert
Chevrotin des Aravis
Fourme d’Ambert
Reblochon

One easy rule of thumb if you don’t find what you’re looking for here- pairing a wine with a cheese that comes from the same region is usually a fair bet.

Moric Reserve 2008

For their Connoisseur Wine Club, Williams-Sonoma paired up our Moric Reserve Blaufrankisch 2008 with a recipe for pork loin chops with roasted rhubarb. We have to hand it to them: this is an excellent match-up. Clearly they are running a wine club with some more out-of-the-box picks, and doing the testing in their kitchen to deliver great ideas. We’ll share with you their notes and recipe, with links to their website for more information:

Pork Loin Chops with Roasted Rhubarb
In this recipe from Williams-Sonoma, rhubarb harmonizes with the red fruit flavors in the Moric Blaufränkisch, while a touch of allspice brightens the wine’s savory peppery notes. Pork loin chops, like beef porterhouse steaks, include both the loin and the tenderloin, separated by the rib bone. Here, the chops are roasted on a bed of onions and rhubarb. Select firm rhubarb stalks, either red or green, with bright, glossy skin.

INGREDIENTS

Pork Loin with Roasted Rhubarb, Courtesy Williams-Sonoma

For the rhubarb:
1 lb. rhubarb, trimmed and cut into slices 3/4 inch thick
1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced
2 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup reduced-sodium chicken stock 1/2 tsp. whole allspice, ground Kosher salt and pepper, to taste
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
6 pork loin chops, each 8 to 10 oz. and 1 inch thick
2 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt and pepper, to taste
1 cup apple juice
1 tsp. cornstarch
1 Tbs. water

PREPARATION
Preheat an oven to 375°F. Butter the bottom of a roasting pan.
To roast the rhubarb, in the prepared pan, stir together the rhubarb, onion, olive oil, stock, allspice, and a sprinkle each of salt and pepper. Spread the mixture out in an even layer. Cover with foil and roast until the rhubarb and onion are tender, about 30 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven. Sprinkle the rhubarb mixture with the brown sugar, stir well and spread the mixture out in an even layer.

Let the pork chops stand at room temperature 20 minutes. Brush the chops on both sides with the olive oil; season with salt and pepper. Preheat a large fry pan over high heat. Add the chops and sear for 2 minutes. Turn the chops over and sear for 1 minute. Transfer to the roasting pan, arranging the chops in a single layer on top of the rhubarb; reserve the fry pan. Transfer the roasting pan to the oven and roast until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of the meat registers 150°F, about 7 minutes. Transfer the chops to warmed plates and tent with foil.

Pour off any fat from the fry pan, set over medium heat and add the apple juice. Boil until reduced to about 1⁄3 cup, 4 to 5 minutes. Add any liquid from the rhubarb mixture to the fry pan and reduce the heat to low. In a small bowl, dissolve the cornstarch in the water. Whisk the mixture into the fry pan a little at a time and simmer 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the rhubarb mixture and heat through. Spoon the rhubarb mixture over the chops. Serve immediately.

(Adapted from Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Roasting, by Rick Rodgers, Melanie Barnard & Bob and Colleen Simmons (Oxmoor House, 2004).)

It sounds like the stage name of a frowsy screen-starlet appearing in low-budget S&M movies. And oh, what we folks in the world of fine wine wouldn’t give if only that were the case, and this critter—also known as Daktulosphaira vitifoliae—were really a cinema-performer of indifferent talent. Phylloxera is a little beastie of the insect persuasion, a louse—and a lousy one at that. Phylloxera is in the most deadly enemy of the fine-wine grape-vine. In fact, the only food of this worldwide menace is the fine-wine grape-vine, vitis vinifera. This little pestiferous insect, greenish-yellow of hue and silent of cry, nourishes itself by sucking fluid out of the vine. And as it sucks, it injects the plant with its poisonous saliva, which results in formation of small galls on the leaves, along with nodules on the roots. The resultant swelling inhibits growth in the infested sections of rootlet, and the portion eventually dies. This, coupled with secondary damage from fungus and other insects, results in the eventual decay of the plant. The adults are quite tiny, about .04 inch long and half as wide, and thus very difficult to detect. Phylloxera has got a rather complex life-cycle: some lice feed on the roots of vines, while other lice munch in a most licentious fashion on the foliage, providing a one-two punch that is easily capable of putting fine wine production down and out.

They’re quite prolific: each female lays 400 eggs per sitting, often reproducing asexually when there’s no male available. The nymph spends the winter on the vine, awakening with warm weather and commencing to feed. They spread either by being blown around by the wind, or by crawling on their own in search of new fodder once an infested vine dies—on occasion the female lays eggs that produce offspring of both sexes, who do mate. It makes one wonder, if there is indeed anything Intelligent about the Design of things, why Nature would provide such a destructive pest with so many means of propagation and survival…

What can be done to combat the spread of phylloxera? Sandy and wet soils offer vitis vinifera a certain degree of protection from the pest, but humidity presents good grape growing with other challenges. One solution is found in the vine-nursery. Even though our American vines vitis riparia and vitis berlandiera do not produce distinguished or even satisfying wines, they possess a native resistance to the depredations of the plant louse. The trick was developed some hundred and few years ago of grafting buds from vitis vinifera vines onto rootstocks of these aforementioned hardy midwesterners.

Drunken Bastard

And no matter what one’s opinion of the French as a nation might be, one surely knows that they’ve had their gallic pride sorely wounded twice in the twentieth century, when it required armed intervention on the part of the United States to save their butts from the Germans. But an even crueler joke on them guys over there is the fact that nearly all of their celebrated grape-vines in Bordeaux, Burgundy and Champagne are in fact grafted on to vine-roots whose roots (as it were) are in Ohio.
It has become by now a moot point whether the pre-phylloxera wines of Bordeaux (by which we mean those from the 1860s and earlier) were greater and more profound than those made afterward, but once upon a time there was lively debate about whether or not Bordeaux had ever entirely recovered its former glory.

In the 1860s the insect was indentified who had just begun laying waste to the vines of Bordeaux and the Rhône. It had arrived on vines brought from the eastern United States for experimental purposes. From there, it spread out indiscriminately over the European continent, munching on every vinifera rootstock it could grasp with its greedy little mandibles along the way. By the end of the nineteenth century, it had destroyed two out of every three vineyards in Europe. And for an encore, it marched westward across the Rocky Mountains, and devastated the nascent Californian viticulture in the 1880s.

Imagine the level of panic. Some positive developments resulted, like when Bordeaux’s wine-expertise moved south to Rioja in search of resistant vineyards and created a Spanish still-wine industry, the fruits of whose labor we this day savor… But the European wine industry took up until the nineteen-twenties to come close to catching up.

And more recently in the closing years of the 20th Century, the curse came home to roost once more, when it began tearing a new path through the vines of California. Rootstocks which were developed in the 1960s and 70s to combat other problems turned out to be less resistant to the bug, and have recently been replaced at colossal expense—another factor which has contributed to price increases for the fine wines of Napa and Sonoma.

—Andau, and How~!

Andau St.Laurent

One of the most serious questions facing those of us in the wine-dodge is, what to do with our samples at the end of the week?
Quite often there is more left in the bag than we can prudently drink, even after we have schlepped an extra hour around town dropping our somewhat nibbled-upon bottles to wine-directors who answer the telephone… At the very worst, samples sit upon the kitchen counter until going into the sauce at some later date—
So it was headed for six of a Friday evening when I got on the train at NY Penn, bound in a suburbanly direction, but feeling a bit lazy and disinclined to shop and cook for myself. Programmed into my mobile phone was the number of Dim Sum II in Cranford, which lies most perilously right along the path which leads from depot to domicile—
And I don’t quite remember when it was that Five-Spice-Shrimp vanished from their menu—but they recognize my voice when I call, and make it for me without a grumble—
At some point, I became curious about what the five spices in 五香粉 actually are—
Easy internet reference informs me: fennel seed, cinnamon, cloves, star anise and Sichuan pepper. No wonder I like it! Four out of five are staples of my own cabinet, and appear in various combinations—and I shall shortly organize a field-trip to Kalustyan’s and hunt up some star anise…

St. Laurent Grape

Leftover from the expedition Westchester and Worse on Wednesday was half a bottle of Winzerkeller Andau St Laurent 2010. I have been on a St Laurent bender since spending a memorable afternoon with Hannes Schuster in St Margarethen last month, but have also become curious about how this more modest manifestation of the “Lorenzitraube” is showing these days.
Five Spice Shrimp is no friend to wine, and has always been a really good reason to reach for a bottle of lager or pilsner. If you’ve got to drink a white with it, Grüner Veltliner from a liter bottle is not horrible—but nothing in my experience wraps its own flavors around those of the spices as well as this light St Laurent. The savory and aromatic elements of the seasoning are rather demanding, even as the other ingredients—shrimp, mushroom, red/green bell-pepper, miniature corn and sweet peas—are not.
I’ve tried many things—out of the French crew, Gamay comes the closest, but the spices make Pinot Noir taste narrow and brittle, bring out the acid in Cabernet Franc, and Syrah doesn’t stand a chance. A modest Garnacha from Spain isn’t horrible, but Tempranillo never works, except for possibly a very light Vinos de Madrid.

Random 5 Spice Shrimp Picture

What the 2010er Andau Sankt Laurent might conceivably lack in terms of depth or length, it certainly makes up for with total charm. And it has won a place in my heart solely because of its aptitude for putting Five-Flavor-Shrimp firmly in its place. The SL has developed a really fetching core of sweet fruit, and shows little of the lactic character that more impressive examples often have. One thing that helps is the absence of any wood in the wine, which is supported by the finely-woven tannins of skins alone. There’s an intriguing edge to the aromatix, not all that remote from the orange-rind notes in an old-fashioned Gevrey-Chambertin, which matches with its own exotic tone the savory/cigar-box aromas of the spices, and this edge slides every-so-deftly between the five fingers of the chef’s hand, leaving neither mar nor scar.
The textures match as well, and all elements head harmoniously together, delightfully down the hatch.

Stephan Schindler and I just visited Prowein, the international wine fair in Düsseldorf, Germany. And for some mysterious reason known best to the people who scheduled it, Prowein was held three weeks earlier than it was last year, and three weeks earlier than it will be held next year. So not only was there a biting wind coming down the Rhine instead of blooming daffodils and crocuses, but also there were far fewer finished wines and many more tank-samples. Of course it’s always a treat to go to the traditional restaurants like Das Ürige and zum Schiffchen and eat large plates of pork-knuckle with sauerkraut and drink the local dark beer, Alt, out of small glasses that are automatically replenished by a energetic squad of waiters. But this time we enjoyed some very good sushi; there’s a large Japanese community in the Rhein-Metropole, whose culinary proclivities are well-served.

Burgenland in Spring

And the wines from 2011? Well, certainly we got a good look at the vintage. One very welcome feature of Two-Eleven is that after the small quantities produced in 2009 and 2010, there are not only good wines in 2011, but enough of them to quench even this nation’s mighty thirst.
The year in Austria started off with a rather unkindly winter—we had one too, you may remember, not at all like the winter just concluded. There were localized cases of frost damage here and there, but when springtime arrived, it did so with punctuality and full flower. After a moody second half of June and most of July, everything dried out nicely and followed on to a warm and very sunny August. Good weather held through September until the second week of October, Old Wives’ Summer, by which time the harvest in Burgenland was mostly done.
Grüner Veltliners of the lighter sort profited from the weather in the form of a little extra richness, and though the grander types had to be careful about how they held their liquor, there was adequate acidity to grant balance to even the most opulent of them. Not as fat and voluptuous as the 2006ers, these Smaragd and Reserve wines will likely set a new standard for ageability and development potential.
And the Rieslings? Almost universally brilliant and crystal-clear, with an eloquence of expression that’s unusual for young examples of this greatest white variety.
The very early look at a few 2011 reds indicates that this vintage will show depth of fruit like the 2009s, but with structure comparable to 2006.
Noble sweet wines? The hardy few persisted in letting grapes hang, and were rewarded with 2011 Eisweins that were picked in February of 2012, powerful and concentrated…

~~~~~

Stift Goettweig

To which I’ll add a couple notes specific to the wondrous world of winemongering—
1. the Rieslings from both Stift Goettweig and Malat are truly superb.
2. the Pinot Noir Rosé Messwein from Stift Goettweig is total charm with lovely depth.
3. very fine Veltliners from Ebner-Ebenauer; and not just the Elite Litre this year!
4. Zweigelts both ’10 and ’11 very expressive and forward from Feiler Artinger and Umathum
5. Moric 10 Blauf Mittelburgenland very much like the elegant 07er.
6. Högl entry level Rieslings and GVs all showing a bit extra.
7. Donabaum offered his best collection in a few years.
8. Hannes Schuster just keeps getting better. Look for the extraordinarily delicious Blaufränkisch 09, in addition to their customarily excellent Sankt Laurent.

Zalto Champagne Stem

Today we are making a small amount of Zalto Champagne sets of 4 and 6 glasses available in a wine value pack that essentially gives you a bottle of the stunning Marie-Courtin Resonance Champagne (93WA) at no extra cost (2 bottles if you opt for the 6 glass deal). So technically, it’s the incredible bottle of Champagne that’s on sale, because as we said, Zalto wine glasses are never discounted.

While the virtues of Zalto glasses almost need no introduction (search the blogs and chat boards my friends), here’s a quick primer: these are hand-made (mouth-blown), feather light yet remarkably durable, dishwasher safe and lead-free. They have set a new bar in the top end category for wine glasses and are many wine enthusiasts’ most coveted treasures. Why else would Chef Sommelier Aldo Sohm (Worlds Best Sommelier 2008 & right hand man to Eric Ripert at Le Bernardin) put his name behind the brand? Why would Francois Mauss, President of the Grand Jury European, allow himself to be quoted as saying “I didn’t think there would be anything better on the glass market- this glass is.”

Marie-Courtin Champagne

And the Marie-Courtin Resonance Champagne? This is the kind of small production wine that you might not have had a chance to try. Our friends at Joli Vin Imports have made these bottles available to us and were kind enough to keep their promise even after the 93 point write up by Robert Parker that made this wine an immediate sell-out.

But as for the number of Zalto glasses we have made available for this offer, amounts are limited and orders will be filled on a first-come first-served basis.

Perhaps Pamela Anderson put it best when asked how she planned to celebrate one of her marriages: “I’ve got two words for you- CHAM PAGNE!” Joking. We all know it was Tom Waits with true wisdom on the subject: “Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends.” (no, we don’t care if somebody else may or may not have originated that quote.) Get your Zaltos and your Champers on.

4 GLASSES + 1 BOTTLE: $297.99 SALE PRICE: $244.50
6 GLASSES + 2 BOTTLES: $476.98 SALE PRICE $338.50

Andau Gruner Veltliner

Our very own Winzerkeller Andau Gruner Veltliner was selected for the April shipment of Michael Chiarello’s NapaStyle Wine Club. Why would we link you over to another website selling wine? The fact is that what we have here for you at Winemonger are the wines we import– but we love wines from all around the world, and sharing some other places to get those wines is what it’s all about.

What it’s also all about is that Chef Chiarello created a recipe to pair with our Andau Gruner*, which we’re sharing with you here. But first, this is how he describes the wine:

When the spring sun pops out, reach for Austria’s favorite white wine, Grüner Veltliner. It’s similar in texture and body to Riesling but differs in taste. The wines show tropical or citrus fruit flavors when very ripe, and savory or herbaceous flavors when less ripe. This snappy, crisp Grüner Veltliner is perfect for celebrating longer, warmer days. It has engaging aromas of lemon blossom and pineapple and flavors of persimmon, kumquat, white pepper and citrus zest.

Beer and Chipotle Battered Fish Tacos
Cooking Notes: You can’t beat the combination of sour cream, lime and cilantro to serve with these delicious fish tacos.
Prep Time: 20 minutes, Cook Time: 20 minutes, Serves 12

photo courtesy NapaStyle website

Ingredients
For the batter:
2 oz canned chipotle peppers
2 eggs
2 cups beer (recommended: Tecate or other 2 tbsp lime juice, plus 6 limes, cut in wedges pale beer)
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp cornstarch
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp gray salt
freshly ground black pepper

For the fish tacos:
3 cups sour cream
1 1/2 bunches cilantro, chopped
1 tsp gray salt corn oil, for frying
3 tomatoes, small diced
12 red radishes, thinly sliced
24 corn tortillas
1 1/2 lbs cod or other white fish cut into 1-oz strips

Directions
Preheat oven to 300°F.

To make the batter: Puree the chipotles and egg together in a blender. When well-blended, transfer to a bowl and whisk in the beer. In a separate mixing bowl combine the flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture, whisking well to prevent clumps. Add freshly ground pepper. Set the batter aside while preparing the other ingredients.
In a small mixing bowl mix together the sour cream, 2 tbsp of the chopped cilantro, 2 tbsp lime juice and 1 tsp gray salt, mix well and remove to a serving bowl.

For the fish tacos: In a large pot or skillet add corn oil about 1 to 2 inches deep. Over medium heat, heat the corn oil to 350°F.
On a large serving plate arrange the tomatoes, lime wedges, chopped cilantro and sliced radishes to garnish tacos.
Wrap the tortillas in aluminum foil and heat in the oven while frying the fish.
With your fingers dip the fish strips into the batter and carefully place in the hot oil. Fry until golden brown all over, about 2 minutes on each side. With a slotted spoon remove the fish to a paper towel. To assemble the tacos, place 1 piece of fried fish on a warm tortilla and garnish with tomatoes, chopped cilantro, radishes and sour cream. Serve with lime wedges.

For more great recipes and wine pairings from Chef Chiarello, follow this link

*as of this post, we are actually sold out of this wine, but there are other fine retailers who still have it available. LOOK HERE.

One of my favorite addresses in that onceuponatime Imperial and Royal city of Vienna is a famous and fabulous old wine-house and restaurant called “Gasthaus zu den Drei Hacken,” which would be called perhaps “At the Sign of the Three Hoes,” were it a public house located in Jolly Olde… It’s an insider’s insider—I’d been visiting Vienna for nearly fifteen years before being taken there one evening and introduced by my colleague Monika Caha. We folks who import wine from Austria are more than just occasionally found in each others’ company, and although sometimes somebody gets on somebody’s alarm-clock, we just as frequently sell a box of wine for one another.
And ten days ago I managed to just barely catch the first Spargel of the season! This vegetable so inimical to wine and so toothsome and flavorly… in itself the essence of Springtime and cause for celebration in Austria and a few of her European neighbors as well.
There’s been much ado among the blogosauruses recently about Gruner Veltliner, contention being that this marvelous chameleon-like creature is The Thing to tame the recalcitrant though cultivated asparagus…
But I’ve found a viable and perhaps preferable alternative, which is the Neuburger, a grape we’ve previously introduced and greeted.

Spargel!

Last Saturday night after a wonderful performance of Mozart’s final opera The Magic Flute in the marionnette theater of Vienna’s Schönnbrunn palace, I made a beeline for the Sign of the 3 Hoes, and sat down to a modest two courses, but when the starter—a nicely cured hammington—showed up very quickly and didn’t droop off the plate on either side, I ordered an intermezzo of white and green asparagus with Hollandaise sauce to set the stage for the Beuscherl, that Viennese signature concoction—as essential to the culinary experience as Wiener Schnitzel or Fiakergulasch—consisting of various disassembled components from the pulmonary apparatus of a former farmyard critter, brought to a boil in wine and spices and arriving in the company of a Semmelknödel… So with this, three courses at the 3 Hacken, I gave a hearty nod to the multilayered Freemasonic mysteries of Mozart’s great work, where there are three trials the hero Tamino must face, three shield-maidens who serve the Queen of the Night, and three boyish heralds—not to mention the three charming ladies whom I accompanied to the opera, two of them pushing ten years old and the third, mother to one of the above…

Beuscherl!

The thing about Neuburger is that it’s not aggressive like GV can be and I was very happy to see Karl Alphart’s 2011er Hausberg on the menu. And unlike the heavyweight Neuburgers from the Wachau, Alphart’s version comes out of deep brown soils laced with limestone, and tops off around 12,5 % alcohol—more handling than horsepower, to put it automotively, and a substantial element of elegance to boot—some notes of cinnamon, clove and ginger, woven into a fabric of pearlike fruit with a little bit of apple about it.
This is a very fine wine, which when it grows up will taste like the 09er currently in Winemonger Imports’s program, which has filled out and blossomed into a wonderfully vibrant character—
and there you have it—
Neuburger picks up a little extra spice, a little extra minerality in tandem with asparagus, and doesn’t compete with it like even a good GV can sometimes do. At the same time its texture reinforces the texture of the Hollandaise, and provides an experience that’s beautifully centered, detailed and highlighted, bringing glee to the heart of gourmetto and glutton alike.

[editors note: you can check out our semmelknodel-for-beginners recipe at this link]