Celebrating California Wine Month with Seafood!
Posted by Santa Monica Admin, on September 8th, 2010 in Seafood Education, Selecting SeafoodTweet
September is Californa Wine Month! How are you celebrating? Here’s some great information on pairing wine with seafood…
We wrote about the annual Pacific Coast Oyster Wine pairing competition back in May; here are some California wines that made the cut
- Franciscan Estates 08 Sauvignon Blanc (CA)
- Heitz Wine Cellars 09 Sauvignon Blanc (CA)
- Kunde Family Estate 09 Sauvignon Blanc (CA)
Order up some oysters and feature these highly recommended wines! If you want to serve a California oyster, ask your Santa Monica Seafood representative about the Luna oyster we’re carrying from Carlsbad Aquafarm.
Eric Asimov of the New York Times recently waxed poetic about Muscadet and seafood pairings. Although all of his recommended wines were from France, we bet you can find some delicious Californian Muscadets that will work just as well… If you have some favorites, let us know in the comment section below!
If you’ve got fried seafood on your menu – tempura shrimp, calamari or even fish-n-chips, encourage your customers to try a sparkling wine pairing! The lively bubbles of sparklers cut through the fat and keep palates fresh.
Of course, sparkling wine and caviar will tempt any customer! Just like wine, different caviars have subtle, but different flavor profiles. Slightly nutty, mineral overtones, rich and buttery… Can’t decide what wine to pair with which roe? Offer you customers a chance to pick their favorite by pairing a caviar flight with a sparkling wine flight!
What about red wine and seafood? Many people automatically shy away from this seemingly non-traditional pairing, but there are plenty of natural combinations that work quite well. Wild king, sockeye or other salmon can stand up to delicious California pinot noirs, in fact, Pinot Noir can work with many seafood choices. Scientific America offers this compelling advice that suggests staying away from reds with high iron content.
No matter what California wines you’re featuring this month, we hope you’ll enjoy pairing them with plenty of seafood!
“Muscadet’ is a region in France.
“we bet you can find some delicious Californian Muscadets that will work just as well”.
Resist betting.
“…we bet you can find some delicious Californian Muscadets…”
According to http://www.melondebourgogne.com, your chances are quite slim:
“Melon de Bourgogne [AKA Muscadet] was brought to America in 1939 by Georges de Latour. For many years the wines were labeled, incorrectly as Pinot Blanc, which is an entirely different winegrape (4). Several California producers have produced a labeled Melon de Bourgogne wine in the past, including Merlion and Beaulieu Vineyards, though I know of none at this writing. A few California wineries are reputed to produce wines from this grape, though labeled as Pinot Blanc (5).”
Thanks for all the Muscadet comments… sounds like it’s a good time to try some Pinot Blancs instead! We’ll save our betting money for other wagers.