How we got to Kerner………
I’m often asked how I arrive at the selections that we serve as Alinea’s wine pairings, and the fact of the matter is that there are many paths to that end, several of which repeat themselves with regularity. This particular story is one about a wine lying in wait, so to speak, for just the right dish.
Click on the above image for a preview of the Kerner Subscription Tasting Note.
To backtrack a way, there was a point several years ago where I put out a call, as I often do, to a number of our wine vendors. Knowing a menu change was imminent, and having a general idea of what the Chefs were working on, I requested samples of red dessert wines for a proposed chocolate dessert. The wine ultimately selected in that instance was the Moscato Rosa from the Abbazia di Novacella in Italy’s Alto Adige. It was a happy discovery, a wine I had not had before, a wonderful pairing for that particular dessert, and in fact, a wine that would make a return appearance with a different dessert much later on. At the time, in the process of learning more about the winery, I tasted a number of their other wines. Among these, I very much enjoyed their Gewürztraminer, a vivid and delicious example of that varietal which we put to work in a pairing later on. Another wine that caught my attention was their Kerner, a more obscure varietal (a hybrid cross of Riesling and the red grape Schiava) that I had little experience with. I was struck by the lovely aromatics, the ripe fruit character, unique flavor profile, and the sense of richness deftly balanced by its elegant structure. It was clearly an “Alinea wine,” and I tasted it with a number of dishes over several seasons, but never found the right match.
Last spring, knowing of our interest in the wines, we were contacted by Novacella’s importer to arrange a visit from the winery’s sales director, Marco Scartezzini, during his stay in Chicago. He led our sommelier team through a tasting of their lineup, and filled us in on aspects of the winery’s history and operations. It is a terrific story; the winery is part of a working Augustinian abbey that dates back to the 12th Century. The winemaking operations are led by one of Italy’s top enologists, Celestino Lucin, who has been an important figure in the recent surge in success and acclaim for the wines of this incredibly beautiful region in the foothills of the Tyrolian Alps. I enjoyed the tasting immensely, reminded again that the Kerner was still on the list of wines that I very much wanted to feature. Additionally, a very pleasant surprise that afternoon was the Lagrein from their vineyards near Bolzano, a wonderfully round, approachable rendition of a varietal that can tend to be very tannic and astringent in youth. I noted it as something else that should find its way onto a pairing in the future.
Click on the above image for a preview of the Pork Belly Subscription Chef’s Note.
Not very long thereafter, the Chef gave me a dish to try before adding it to the menu. It featured crab and a complement of Thai-inspired flavors. The more obvious choices didn’t really match up well, and I started pulling samples from the shelf of wines I collect for such occasions. The wine I selected at that point to serve with the dish was one I had only recently been introduced to, a unique blend of Chenin Blanc, Grenache Blanc, Viognier, and Roussanne, from a producer named Sequillo located in South Africa’s Western Cape region. It is a delicious wine and we enjoyed presenting it to our guests. But as sometimes happens when Chef Achatz introduces a new dish, things get changed and tweaked until he is satisfied. When the dish appeared on the menu it featured pork belly rather than crab, and as other elements subtly changed, I realized that the Sequillo was no longer matching up as well as I would have liked. I began a new round of tasting with the now-finished dish and realized we were in a range where Riesling would be a good pairing, but failed to find one that made for a really compelling match. In a sense, the dish came off as a great vehicle to show off a beautiful Riesling like the Dönnhoff Felsenberg Spätlese we’ve included in the Tour Subscription, but the overriding goal with our pairing selections is to find wines that more specifically flatter the food. Somehow the Kerner came to mind, and I called our distributor to have a sample dropped off, tasted the dish again the next day, and was very pleased to have found the right dish to finally allow us to feature the Kerner. We have been serving it for several months now, and it has been a very successful pairing. It is gratifying to be able to introduce our guests to something a bit unusual, and we especially enjoy the chance to pour such a lovely wine in an ideal context. That particular pairing is in fact included in the current Oenophilia subscription offering, and I’m happy to share a preview of the notes included in the subscription package. We are also happy to be able to offer for sale some of the wines mentioned above. Just follow the links. And look for the Sequillo White to return on a future pairing………….
Wines Mentioned Above:
Abbazia di Novacella 2007 Kerner
Abbazia di Novacella 2007 Lagrein
Abbazia di Novacella 2008 Gewürztraminer
Abbazia di Novacella 2007 Moscato Rosa “Praepositus”
Hermann Dönnhoff 2006 Riesling Schlossböckelheimer Felsenberg Spätlese
Sequillo Cellars 2007 Sequillo White
