Cecile's Wine Cellar

Tonight I crossed borders, pairing a Burgundian Pinot Noir with a Spanish roast chicken dish. While I tried to pair the wine with some regional French cuisine, I didn’t think it was necessary. That’s a lie. I just didn’t want to have to cook some French dish for 5 hours...but if you feel the urge, then by all means, knock your little, Francophile socks off.

Getting Thirsty...

The red wine was the 2005 Domaine Bzikot Bourgogne Rouge. A wine that coupled herb and spice with tart cherry and raspberry. No real gaminess in the wine. The wine had a higher level of acidity than I felt a 2005 red Burgundy should have. 2005, after all, had been a benchmark vintage for red Burgundy. Marked with elegance and sophistication, the vintage seemed to leave almost every critic with warm fuzzy feelings. Whatever...With the leaner body and higher acid, I felt that the dish it wanted was going to be lighter as well. Didn’t think it could have held up to some of the richer Bourgogne dishes that come out of the region, like lamb or duck.

Getting Hungry...

So turning my back on French cuisine, I decided to go to Spain, where leaner cuts of meats can be intelligently flared with clever plays of spices and herbs. I settled on a dish that I found on Epicurious.com. It was a Roast Chicken Breasts with Garbanzo Beans, Cherry Tomatoes, and Paprika. An incredibly easy dish to make in no time at all that also offered those nuanced flavors that would accompany the wine.

The Roast Chicken with wine... The paprika coating brought out some really nice earthen spices from the wine. Think some cinnamon and nutmeg. The wine dealt back some herbaceous notes of tarragon and rosemary. The roasted chicken had just the right amount of body and weight to match the lighter style Pinot Noir. I almost even think that pork would be too heavy and rich for this wine. A salmon or tuna could pair very nicely though.

The wine with the Paprika Greek Yogurt Sauce gave nice notes of creamy, spicy dark cherries and raspberries. The little kick from the red pepper didn’t harm the balance, and the acid from the wine cleansed the palate quite nicely of the sauce.

The wine with the Chickpea Tomato mixture played a similar part to the sauce by cleansing the palate nicely. The acidity from the wine brought just enough to match with the acid in the tomatoes and the starch of chickpeas. Nice notes of earthy, peppered red fruit came out of the wine as well. The cilantro did not seem to get in the way of the wine, but sent hints and hits of refreshing garden herbs to the back of the palate.

Overall, I found the Spanish dish to work very nicely with its French friend. While the wine was a little leaner than I was expecting, it provided a very nice fresh fruit component to the otherwise savory dish. I would steer clear from fruit sauces with this wine. They might overwhelm you. And the wine has just the right touch of herbaceous qualities to give those savory subtleties some serenity.