HOW SOUR and SALT WORK with WINE, PART ONE

On the previous blog post, I mentioned Tim Hanni MW (that stands for Master of Wine). Tim was  the person who got me thinking seriously about pairing issues.

Tim maintains that we should always drink wines that we like. For many people, this means embracing sweet wines and avoiding the bold reds that are supposed to be the pinnacle of a palate's sophistication.

In fact, as Tim points out, the more sensitive a taster you are, the less likely you are to tolerate bold reds. The alcohol burns more painfully, and the sourness, bitterness, and astringency of these wines are too strong for comfort.

Here is Tim showing us what to do if we are stuck with a bold unbearable red: use lemon and salt.

I've seen Tim blow the minds of people who hate the bold reds (but are scared to admit it), by having them taste the wine before and after sucking on a lemon with a little salt. The wine, which was so impossible to drink before, is now sweeter and less bitter, and its fruitiness is enjoyable.

(By the way, no power on earth, not even Tim with his lemon and salt, can make me like big California Cabernet Sauvignons—they have a chemical in them, 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, the major flavor compound in green peppers, which I can't stand. Some Chinese pan-fired green teas I've tasted seem to have this chemical as well, so I can barely drink them. But back to the story...)

Here's a diagram from Tim's book, "Why You Like the Wines You Like: Changing the Way the World Thinks about Wine" (you can find out more about the book at http://www.timhanni.com):

This is the most general pairing diagram for wines, according to Tim, and it works!

What this diagram says is: go ahead and have the big red wine with your umami-rich steak, but only if you like your wine to taste bitter, astringent, and (this is my addition) with a strong burn from alcohol.

If that's not your idea of pleasure, but you must have the big red to show your sophistication, or just to make your host or guests happy, then salt your steak and enjoy it with a good Béarnaise sauce—this sauce is made with vinegar, which provides sourness, and with fat, which turns off the burn of the alcohol hitting your "hot" TRPV1 receptors. Yum!

In my next post I'll explain how to understand the paradox of using sour to make sweet and sweet to make sour. Stay tuned!