The Restaurant Guys' Regulars

Ray Isle, Wine Author and Editor at Food & Wine *V*

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The Restaurant Guys' Regulars

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This is a Vintage Selection from 2007

The Banter

The Guys talk about what Altoids and Cap’n Crunch have in common. They also “cover” some issues with “uncovered servers”

The Conversation

The Restaurant Guys welcome wine writer Ray Isle who explains biodynamic viticulture and shares his 7 rules for pairing wine and food. Find out what Ray calls the shortstop of wine. 

The Inside Track

The Guys have had Ray on the show previously and wanted to have him back on to discuss his Seven Rules.

 Ray: Some wines do go better with some foods than others. So I do think it's possible to have some basic rules at hand that actually do work. Once in a while they may slightly backfire on you, but I came up with seven. I'm willing to go to the mat to say that they're pretty effective.

Mark: So, Ray, do you know how  you know that I liked your seven rules? I brought you on the show. If I were just gonna make fun of 'em, I wouldn't have embarrassed you in person. 

-Ray Isle on The Restaurant Guys Podcast 2007

Bio

Ray Isle was a senior editor at Wine & Spirits magazine. In 2005, he moved to Food & Wine. He writes the monthly “What to Drink Next” column as well as regular feature articles for F&W’s print issues, and he’s also the wine editor for Travel + Leisure.

His writing on wine, spirits, travel and other topics has appeared in Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure, Departures, Wine & Spirits, Time, Martha Stewart Living, The Washington Post, and many other national publications. 

He won the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) award for narrative beverage writing, the American Food Journalists award for beverage writing, and the North American Travel Journalists Association gold award, and has been nominated three times for the James Beard Award in beverage writing. 

His book is The World in a Wineglass.

He appears regularly in national media such as Today and Weekend Today, and has also made guest appearances on many other programs.


Info

Ray’s site

https://rayisle.com/


Ray’s contribution to Food & Wine

https://www.foodandwine.com/search?q=ray+isle


Email us for Ray’s 7 Rules for Perfect Pairing

theguys@restaurantguyspodcast.com



If you'll be in New Orleans on July 22, join us for a LIVE show with Jeff "Beachbum" Berry and Annene Kelly at Latitude 29! Tiki talk and tiki drinks. Email theguys@restaurantguyspodcast.com for more info. We hope to see you there!

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Mark:

Morning Mark. Morning Francis. How are you this morning? I, I'm doing pretty well. I had a little funny thing happen to me this morning. Oh, funny, funny, do detail that I wanna share with you, but it, I wanna start with a question. Why is it that I can get, my daughter will eat rocks or rubble or marbles, but lettuce not so much. I, I haven't, I haven't quite figured that out. Hmm. I, I came downstairs today and my wife is laughing. And my daughter is sitting at the kitchen table and she's gotten into the Altoids. Mm, the curiously strong mitts. I bet you smells great. Hold on. And she's got like 11 of them in her mouth, Uhhuh. And she's shoving them in her mouth as fast as she can, and they're, her eyes are watering. Okay? They're tears coming at, it's not crying. There are tears coming outta her eyes because it's so minty, minty and strong. And yet she continues to put them in her mouth and I, and I keep thinking. Is broccoli that bad? Okay. Shouldn't it shouldn't. Why? Why are you eating?

Francis:

No, I think, I think it's the same, it's the same thing as people who like to eat hot food or spicy food. I have, there are these ginger candies that I eat all the time.

Mark:

I, I think it's that she's, that she's two years old and she wants to eat whatever. I don't want her to,

Francis:

no. Nope, nope. I think it has to do with the whole pain thing. It's like eating hot peppers. It's like hurts. But then you want another one.

Mark:

I, I told you about, I had a, I had a doctor a while back and on my very last visit to him, this doctor was 320 pounds, six foot tall. And he was talking to me one day about, you know, you really need to lose some weight. And I'm looking at him going. Huh? What are you talking about? Okay, you are drinking an I and, and anyway, he's talking to me about, you know, eating and, you know, I'm talking to him about the restaurants. He's like, yeah, I got this real issue. I, uh, love salt and vinegar potato chips, and I will eat salt and vinegar potato chips until the sides of my mouth crack and start to bleed. And then I'll just keep eating them. I can't stop and the salt and vinegar will get in the cracks in the sides of my mouth and I'll keep eating them. I can't stop. And I thought. I am never coming back here again.

Francis:

Yeah. Time to change doctors is what that is. I'm never returning to time, time to change to this place,

Mark:

but I guess, you know, I guess it's the same thing that makes us eat Captain Crunch and even though it like chew up the roof of our mouth, you know, when we, when you're a kid, didn't you ever eat that second bowl of Captain Crunch, even though you knew it was gonna rough up the, the roof of your mouth?

Francis:

I have no idea what you're talking about. Are you kidding me? Yeah, yeah. No. Oh,

Mark:

well most of the listeners are thinking how nuts you are. Yeah, because it Captain Crunch. If you eat one bowl of Captain Crunch, it's totally fine If you eat two Bowl and you know, as a, as a kid, I ate my Share Captain Crunch, I'll be honest with you. Mm-hmm. If you eat two bowls of Captain Crunch. Your mouth only has so much tolerance for the abrasiveness of Caping Crunch. That stuff that makes it stay crunchy in the milk? Yeah. Okay. Well, it stays crunchy. That stuff that makes it stay crunchy, abuses the roof of your mouth and you will, it will rough up the surface of your mouth and actually hurt. And it's much like the salt and vinegar potato chips. Does it, do you do it again? Do you do it more? Of course you do it well. You don't have a third bowl. Okay. I'm, you know, you just, first of all,'cause you're not hungry anymore, but, second of all,'cause your mouth really hurts now. Um, but I guess it's that same thing. The captain crunch in the roof of your mouth, the salt and vinegar in the, that, that make the sides of your mouth bleed and the altoids until you're crying. 2-year-old sitting at my table.

Francis:

Um, this is one of those pleasures that I missed and I, and I don't think, I don't feel the need to rush out and get one. But on the subject of putting salt in a wound, uh, we should share with our listeners our recent experience. We were walking down the streets of Manhattan and we came across a place that we've made fun of before. Mm. And you made us go in and get a drink.

Mark:

You really did. Uh, we were passing, we had about 15 minutes to spare. We were gonna be early for the next thing. We were going to next meeting, and we, and I said, uh, we're going past. We have to go in and, and we went

Francis:

to the Hawaiian Tropic Zone. The Hawaiian Tropic Zone is a, a restaurant in Manhattan that's supposedly a real restaurant, looked like a real restaurant. Mm-hmm. and David Burke is the chef there. I don't know why he's. Chosen to get involved in something. And I, I find I just, I think it's, I don't think it's wrong. I think it should be allowed to be, but I find it in poor taste and I, and I, I don't care for it. I, I would never be, I would never involve myself in it. But, um, it's where the, the waitresses. Serve you food in

Mark:

sarongs and bikini

Francis:

tops. Bikinis, like open sarongs. Mm-hmm. Like bikini tops and bikini bottoms. Oh yeah. Okay. And, uh, you know, look, a go-go bar is a go-go bar. You know what you're getting into. Uh, fine dining restaurant, you know, women have faced dis discrimination on the floors of restaurants for a long time. Mm-hmm. When you meld the two, now this is a restaurant with windows on two sides. You can look right in. Mm-hmm. And believe me, there were a lot of dirty old men staring in the window of the Hawaiian Tropic zone at the waitresses in these rather small bikinis, serving tables full of businessmen. And there were women in there as well. Mm-hmm. Uh, the food looked halfway decent. There was a reasonable cocktail menu. Absolutely. Um, it was Ooie though. It was ook. I, I

Mark:

remember what you said when I, well, it's my line. We were sitting at the bar. Can I, can I get Can Oh, please, please. You have to.

Francis:

And we both were like, uh, and we've been in a go-go bar together. It's not something we've done before, but in our past, the Sure. You go to bachelor party. Party or whatever. Sure. And, you know, I don't feel uncomfortable there, but I really felt ooky and like, well first of all, it's incongruous to see a woman in a Hawaiian print bikini. On Broadway. Mm-hmm. Okay. In Windows on both sides, with the dirty old men looking in from outside, it's

Mark:

also incongruous to say, you know, what do you think about the 76 burgundies on the list?

Francis:

Or even, I don't, I just don't. I, it's, it, it was, it was just uncomfortable to me, and I think it should be uncomfortable to you. And, uh, that's my, that's my view. But you know, if you enjoy it, enjoy it, but. What, what we were, mark and I were trying to figure out just what was making us so uncomfortable as we thought it would make us uncomfortable. Mm-hmm. And the line that I came up with, this line I've heard used before,

Mark:

I'm gonna tell you truthfully, you know, I, we've joked about the place and, and talked about the concept of the place, but I really did feel uncomfortable when I walked. And it's a nice room. It's clean, it's a nice room, but I really did feel uncomfortable. I, I really did feel like I was cheating on my wife a little bit while I was in there. Well,

Francis:

well, but, but. You know, mark said, you know, now why is this so uncomfortable? I mean, you know, we've been around women in bikinis before. Mm-hmm. I'm like, and, and this is what I said. I said, you know, a, a bikini is a bathing suit. Unless you're wearing high heel, then it's linger. That's, that's when the bikini crosses from being just a bathing suit to being right. And you're no longer

Mark:

you're no longer my waiter. You're actually on a catwalk.

Francis:

Yeah. It's, it, it was, it was just a bizarre thing and I'm, I'm not for it. I'm against it.

Mark:

Well, you know, certainly a fair amount of our listeners are, are gonna go to places like Hawaiian Tropical Zone. Some because of this particular show are going to go to Hawaiian Tropical Zone. And, and

Francis:

maybe some of our listeners of their dirty old men, but don't have the cahones to go in, can just go stand at the window. And, and, but the guys were like, you know, they, it was sunny out and they were putting their.

Mark:

No joke, this happened. Four. Francis and I were in the place for all of 12 minutes and no joke, four or five times people would press their faces against the window, like,

Francis:

and hold and hold their, their hands over their eyes to shade. You could see. And she shield

Mark:

the shield, the sun, so they could look inside at the, at the girls with my tropical. So how

Francis:

does that work? they, you know, you can't hire men. It can't, it's like the Borgata

Mark:

babes in, in New Jersey a while back.

Francis:

I think what they did was they hired them as they would have to hire them on them conjecture. Now they hired them as models who serve drinks. Mm-hmm. And then you can find them. I will

Mark:

tell you, the women in the place were very good looking. Well, I got a date with one of them, but no, I didn't, I didn't really get a date.

Francis:

Jennifer, if you're listening, I didn't, I didn't really get a date. No, I mean, it was, you tried. He just failed. It was. It was profoundly uncomfortable and, uh, you won't be seeing that at stage after Catherine Lombardi. Anytime. No, not today. Hey, we'll be back in just a moment. Talk I don't look great in a bikini. Talking with, uh, Ray, Ray Isle, who's a great food writer. Uh, senior wine editor for Food and Wine Magazine back in just a moment. Hello everybody and welcome back. You're listening to the Restaurant Guys, mark and Francis of Stage Left, and Catherine Lombardi restaurants in downtown New Brunswick. We're talking today with Ray Isle. He's one of our favorite wine writers. He's the senior wine editor at Food and Wine Magazine, James Beard nominee among other things.

Mark:

Ray, welcome back to the show. It's great to be back. Thanks for having me.

Francis:

You know, we were talking briefly with Ray during the commercial, and Mark said to Ray said, you know, uh, we read yourself all the time and we just like put it in a file. And when, when it gets big enough, we just call Ray and have him on the show. We love that. A

Ray:

massive accumulation of information.

Francis:

Well, you know, the other thing about your writing Ray, is, you know, being in the, in the business, what's happening and what people are talking about. You really do hit the trends on the head and, and, um. One of the things that we see a lot now, and it's really entered the mainstream. It went from, I think there's this, way, uh, something happens the way an idea grows. It goes from like. Uber wine geeks and top sommelier. Mm-hmm. Right. To like the wine cognoscenti who wanna be on the ne next trend. And then about 2, 3, 4 years later, it goes into the mainstream. Well, something that's really hit the mainstream that you, what I mean by that is you'll see it advertised on a commercial or on a, on a shelf talker, on a supermarket, uh, wine. Aisle is biodynamics now. We see that in organics, uh, in, in agriculture overall. But we see people advertising that their wine is biodynamic. and you've written about that recently? Yeah. Let's talk about it

Mark:

actually. Well, first of all, I mean, Ray biodynamic is such a great word. I mean, it's bio, it's dynamic. I

Ray:

mean, it sounds, it sounds wonderful. It sounds sort of like, you know, healthy and active at the same time. Yeah, exactly.

Francis:

Exactly. So why don't you give us, uh, because I could tell our listening audience what biodynamics is, but that would be the whole show.'cause I'm not very good at, at making things concise.

Ray:

Do a sort of quick, the concise biodynamics. Yeah. What, what is biodynamics one,

Francis:

what is biodynamics and why does it appeal specifically to winemakers over other agricultural concerns? So it's, it's another agricultural concern. Well,

Ray:

I think, you know, it's interesting. Biodynamics is, is unusual in that it has. I mean, it really, really does have both a spiritual aspect and a, and a straightforward organic farming aspect. And that's, that's actually been the kind of controversial thing about it. Um, it's, you know, it's an organic farming movement based on some lectures that a, a philosopher named Rudolph Steiner gave an Austrian philosopher gave in the 1920s. And essentially the, the sort of nut of the whole thing is it sees the, the vineyard or, or farm,'cause there are plenty of biodynamic, you know, farms that aren't vineyards. Um, it sees the farm as a, as a kind of. Entire, organism. So the, the, the plant life, the, the soil, the sort of, you know, microbial life in the soil, the bugs in the farm, the, you know, the sheep that are grazing on the cover crops. The, and, and the, you know, the atmosphere around it are all kind of interconnected in if you follow biodynamic sensibility, and they kind of extend that as well to the, quote unquote astral forces. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, the. The, the actions of the cosmos, I guess you'd say,

Mark:

but not just moving in, in sync, but almost contingent upon one another.

Ray:

Yes, exactly. And, essentially what you aim to do in biodynamics is you try and get all of those pieces of the, of the, of the puzzle as it were to, to work together and, and to work together in such a way that you don't need. Chemical fertilizers, you don't need pesticides, you don't, and then in effect, it's, you know, it's forbidden under the sort of biodynamic regimen to use any of that thing. The idea is that it, once you have the. The farm imbalance. It it much like a human body being healthy. It's more resistant to disease and it's more resistant to, pests and additionally produces better fruit and consequently better wines.

Francis:

Okay. Okay. Now, um, 15 years ago, this was. Kooky hippies we're talking about this, right? Yep. And now, uh, Ray, just for those of you who don't know Ray, Ray has been published in the Washington Post, Martha Stewart, living Gastro Amica. He's appeared on CNN headline news and CNBC high net worth. So you're a pretty down to earth serious wine journalist talking about astral forces. Yes.

Ray:

Well, I, I do talk about the astral forces part with a, with a, you know, a slight grain of salt. or a grain of cosmic salt or something. Uhhuh cosmic dust doesn't work. Yeah. Cosmic dust. Um, I think that, I mean that's, that's where biodynamics gets kind of weird because when you say, you know, you need to harvest when the, you know, the, the moon is moving through the house of Jupiter or something like that, a lot of people who follow Biodynamics Dynamics claim that these forces are in fact, um, you know, tangible when you taste the wine that's made from'em. But there's no scientific way of proving that any of this is having an effect Biodynamics does make you do, regardless of all the spiritual stuff, is it forces you to pay incredibly close attention in the vineyard. Mm-hmm. Um, and that has a positive effect no matter what. So it's very hard to separate out, you know. which aspects of biodynamics are making the wine better in what way?

Mark:

Well, and, and certainly that's the debate that, that we've had here, and we've had this debate a couple of times on the show where, you know, our biodynamic wines on average better than non biodynamic wines. I think that's yes. That the answer is clearly yes.

Francis:

But is it because to be a bio biodynamic winemaker, you just need to pay such close attention.'cause if you make the slightest mistake and you can't use chemicals to save yourself, you're, you're in a lot of trouble. So maybe it's just that biodynamic winemakers pay extremely close attention to their vineyards looking at every plant every day.

Ray:

Yeah. I mean, it really does. There isn't margin for error. Um, though, it's interesting'cause the, the recent harvest in a lair was very, essentially very damp. There's a lot of mold and mildew and so on, and Nicholas Jolie, who's the. The kind of the

king of all right, high, high priest.

Ray:

Biomics was saying that essentially there was no real difference in terms. I mean, everybody's grapes were affected by this, this weather. And, and if you look at the biodynamic grapes and, you know, the sort of skeptics were saying, you guys are gonna get wiped out by this. You don't have, treatments to, stop it. He said actually that, you know, the grapes are about as healthy in both biodynamic and the, and the ones that have been zapped with, you know, 900 pounds of chemicals.

Mark:

Yeah. High priest is a much better word to use than King when you're talking about bio. Yes, it is.

Francis:

And France, as a matter of fact, if you wanna, if you wanna think that through, If you go to your liquor store, you go to a good wine shop, you will see a number of wines that say biodynamic on the label. You'll see other wines that maybe don't say it on the label, but if you talk to the guy in the wine shop or you talk to your sommelier in the restaurant, They'll know what, what the, some of the biodynamic wines are. They generally represent a higher quality Ray, I wanna throw something out to you. We were talking before the break about, there's a certain hocus pocus element to biodynamics, which talks about Yes, there is, which talks about, you know, aligning, uh, the astral forces and using those as a guide uh, as when to pick and when to plant and when to prune. You know, Barbara Shin, with David Page, her husband owned Shin Vineyard out in Long Island and they, they utilize a lot of biodynamic practice practices and, and I was out there and we did an interview with her. And I think, I think she made a great point. She said, look, I'm a cynical New Yorker, and I do some things in, in keeping with biodynamic wine making that I know it works. And there's a, a, biodynamic explanation that that has to do with the astro forces. Am I sure that's why it works? No. But do I need to know why something works to do it? As long as I know that it works. You know, and a lot of these ancient agricultural practices were tied to the lunar calendar, and maybe they didn't work because the power of the moon God, but it was still a good idea to plant and harvest for experience at those times. Do you think that there may just be forces at work that we don't understand the exact functioning of them, but you know, do you need to understand it to be able to use it?

Ray:

Well, I, I mean, absolutely there. I mean, there could be forces at work that we don't understand, uh, that's true of, you know. That's true of all life. And especially since we don't understand them, we don't know what they're doing. So, um, but, and I do think that, you know, that, that one reason biodynamics has become popular with some very, very good wine makers and, and very smart wine makers. I mean, Olivier Reck, for instance, has a PhD in, um, I forget what branch of science. I mean, he's not a, you know, a gullible guy. Um, I think that the reason that people shift to it is when they start working with it, it does. Create and you know, at least taste wise, a distinct difference in the wine. That is a positive difference. And I, you know, I agree with Barbara. If you, I mean, if you do something and you don't know why it works, and yet it, it makes your wine better,

Mark:

do it again. Do it again. Don't stop doing it. Yeah. Hey,

Francis:

we're, we're gonna, we're gonna take a break. when we come back. We're gonna talk with Ray. He's come up with, um, you know, one of the hardest things to do in, the wine businesses coming up with rules to pair food and wine. It's more art than science. And, uh, Ray's come up with seven rules that you can follow to match your wine and. Food at home, and we think they're pretty good and pretty useful. Ray Isle is the senior wine editor at Food and Wine Magazine. In addition to being broadly published, he's one of our favorite wine writers. He was nominated for a James Beard Award and he joins us today. Talk about, well. Wine. Wine.

Ray:

And

Francis:

why not,

Mark:

Ray? I'm, I'm gonna tell you that I find a lot of wine writers, uh, write in, in very complex ways and, uh, I think that that can be very difficult for the, the novice reader. And one of the things I enjoy about your writing while, while you write about the complexities of wine, and you write very intelligently that, that what you do is you kind of. Break this down for someone who may not be an expert.'cause let's face it, of of the people I talk to every day, one or 2% of them are experts and 98% of them are novices. So when, and I'm sure that's true of your readers as well, that there's some level of, of acumen as far as wine knowledge, but basically most of most people are somewhere in that middle.

Ray:

Absolutely. I mean, that's, that's definitely true.

Francis:

One of the difficult things. We teach wine classes all the time and we've done it for, oh God, 20 years now. Right? And it's fun is we really enjoy teaching about wine.'cause I think that when people get a frame of reference for wine, it's much easier for them to then go off on their own and learn more and, and enjoy the wine a lot more with a frame of reference. And I think people who read you get the same sort of thing. One of the things that's very difficult to teach and very difficult to write about. Are rules for pairing wine and food in classes. Mark and I will come across a wine and people say, well, what would you eat with that? And I'll come up with a bunch of ideas and I sort of have general rules, but as, as, as soon as I come up with them, I find 27 exceptions to the rule. Um, you came up with seven pairing rules. Talk to us about is it possible to, to live in the world with seven pairing rules and, and do well with food and wine? And then let's talk about the rules.

Ray:

Yeah, I, I mean, honestly, well, yeah, I was kind of skeptical when I, when I started trying to put the article together. I guess I, there are exceptions to every rule and that's, you know, it's true in grammar and it's true in wine pairing. But I, I really wanted to see if there was a way to. To simplify and demystify this whole thing because, you know, we, we eat every day. Um, I, you know, in an ideal life, we drink a glass of wine every day with our food and it shouldn't be, you know, something to stress out over, you know, whether the wine is gonna go with the food. And, and, and at the same time, some wines do go better with some foods than others. And, and so I do think it's possible to have some basic rules at hand that, that actually do work. I mean, once in a while they may, you know, they might slightly backfire on you, but, but I. Seven. I came up with, I'm, you know, I'm willing to go to the mat to say that they're pretty, pretty effective.

Mark:

So, Ray, do you know how, you know you, how you know that I liked your seven rules, how that I, I brought you on the show. If I were just gonna make fun of'em, I wouldn't have embarrassed you in person.

Francis:

So let's talk about your seven rules, right? What are the seven, the seven rules that you've published for pairing wine and food?

Ray:

Yeah, these are, um, they're in our October issue and the first one. is, for example, serve a dry rose with, with hors d'oeuvres, kind of, and the, and the reasoning behind that was that hors d'oeuvres, typically if you've got a, a spread of hors d'oeuvres at a party, you've got a, everything ranging from ate to, you know, fri to cheese puffs, to, you know, watershed that's wrapped in bacon, who knows what. And what you want is an incredibly adaptable wine and, and dry roses in that they have the, you know, the kind of acidity of white and a little bit of the fruitiness of red. Um. Are the most kind of, you know, shortstop like of wines in a way.

Francis:

So, and let you know, we'll play a little game. Well, I'll pick the wine. That is most the worst, uh, example of breaking that rule. You wouldn't want to, for example, invite people over and start your dinner with passing around hors d'oeuvres and serving a big fat Okie Cabernet Sauvignon from California.

Ray:

Oh yeah. I mean, it would, you know, their, their palate, they won't be able to taste the food at, you know, once you actually get to dinner. And, and also where, I mean, it's a little bit like the arms raised. I mean, where do you go from there?

Francis:

Right,

right. You can't go back amarone

Francis:

or something. Well, and for, for our listeners, it's you, it's hard to go from a, a bigger, bigger wine with a lot of power to a lighter wine because then you don't taste the lighter wine. You always wanna go from lighter to heavier.

Mark:

And I, I just wanna warn our audience ray's not when Ray says a dry rose, he means a dry rose. That's not a white Zinfandel that has a little bit of sweetness to it. Right. This is, this is, it's a very different wine.

Ray:

Classic fringe or, or more and more American roses are, are being made this way. Rose is very in right now too. It's got kind of a, a, a happy moment for those of us who've always been. Been Pro Rose. Um, alright.

Francis:

Let's, let's move on to rule number two. Serve an unoaked white wine with anything you can squeeze a lemon or lime on.

Ray:

And that's the, the idea there is essentially that un oaked white wines tend to tend to, they're, they're great strengths, tend to be acidity. Um, you've got clean, you know, it is like LV blanc, um, Rieslings, uh, vermentino from Italy, uh, Albarino from Spain. These are wines that have real zip, um, to the, to the acidity. And they work. In a sense on your palate, they work the same way that squeezing lemon or lime does on a, you know, on a piece of fish or something like that. It, it's a, it's a, it's a refreshing action on your palate.

Francis:

So when you, when white wine sees oak, it picks up like vanilla flavors and becomes creamier and richer. And so, so you know that, that changes the texture of the wine. So maybe it doesn't go so well with something that you could squeeze a lemon or lime on.

Ray:

Right. That's the idea. And you know, of course there's gonna be something out there that people squeeze lemon or limes on that, that doesn't quite fit this, I think, you know? Right. But

Francis:

you're talking about fish, you're talking about.

Mark:

Shellfish, you're talking. Yeah. I mean, absolutely. Or, and

Ray:

you know, and tight and some of the, you know, and things like that. It's, uh,

Francis:

okay, here's a good one. Uh, try. With spicy foods, low alcohol wines, and I have always heard that with spicy foods serve semi-sweet wines and that sometimes work and sometimes doesn't. Why low alcohol?

Ray:

Well, low alcohol, partly because alcohol, the heat in foods comes from oils, um, typically and compounds like capsicum that are in, in chili's or, you know, hot oils, you know, pepper oils and so on. And, and alcohol essentially acts as a transmission device. It acts as a kind of solvent. Um. On them and, and actually, and, and intensifies the heat of, of pretty much anything that's spicy.

Mark:

Not just the heat, but the pain

Ray:

and the heat, and then consequently the pain. And, you know, and so why, you know, unless you're, you're, you know, g Gordon Liddy, why intensify the pain? It's um,

Francis:

alright. Um, this one seems like a no brainer. It's Match Rich Red Meats with Tannic reds, like big Cabernet Sauvignon, big young American wines, big Bordeaux. That's, that's pretty common rule that everybody does. That's

Ray:

a common, yeah. I mean, that, that's a, that's one of the basic, basic rules that I just kind of, you know, that's, that's out there. But you, you

Mark:

put some logic to it, which I, which I liked. You know, you talk about the tannins in those wines, because I, I'm not sure that everybody knows why particularly or what tannin is do better, explain those things. Work. So, Ray, why don't you talk about tannins and, yeah.

Ray:

Tannins. Tannins and wine. The, the, the example I always use is if you, if you wanna know what tannins and wine are, take a. Bag of Lipton's tea and steep it for about 10 minutes. Um, make an insanely strong cup of tea and take a sip. And that astringent drying effect where your tongue just suddenly glues to the roof of your mouth. That's, those are tannins and that's, those are present in wine as well as, as as Lipton's tea. they come from the skins, um, primarily of the grapes. Sometimes seeds, sometimes stems, and they give red wines particularly structure, so that you're not just. You basically, you're not drinking fruit juice. You're drinking something that has additional compounds that give it a, a backbone or a spine to carry that, fruitiness.

Francis:

And those go really well with, with proteins and the fat of meat. Absolutely.

Ray:

what they do, which is, which is wonderful, is they kind of clear your palate. I mean fat, you know. Fatty foods are rich foods like that are, are, are hard to eat, just kind of bite after bite after bite because your mouth gets fatigued by all that fat. And this is really almost like, you know, like scrubbing bubbles in a sense. It's, um, although it's tannins, it, it just kind of brings your palate back down to zero where you're ready for another bite of this incredibly rich food.

Francis:

Alright, let's go to, rule number five, with lighter meats. Pair the wine with the sauce.

Ray:

Yeah, I actually think that it's one of the problems with suggesting pairings, and I suggest pairings constantly in the magazine, is that, um, the basic rules that people seem to follow for pairing are, you know, well, you've got a piece of chicken, what do you pair with chicken? Or you've got pasta. What do you pair with pasta? But the truth is that for some of those lighter flavored. Meats, the dominant flavor of the dish is gonna be the sauce. you know, the classic example is like if you have, um, chicken in a white wine, lemon sauce, and you have chicken that's, you know, flattered with sweet, intense barbecue sauce, you're gonna want completely different wines for those, for those two pieces of chicken.

Francis:

And, and a good, and a good example is a lot of these sauces use wine. If the sauce uses wine very, very often, the wine that's in the sauce is a good match for the dish. Yeah.

Ray:

It's a, it's a, it's a great sort of default jump to, you know, if you're cooking with it, you can probably drink it assuming that you're using drinkable wine.

Francis:

Okay. We've only got a couple of minutes left before we have to take a quick break. Right. But rule number six is choose an earthy wine with earthy foods. What's earthy?

Ray:

Earthy is that kind of bottom note that you get. Um, typically mushrooms, a, a hint of, of, of what you would call savoriness. Um, you know, it's, it's connected to that Japanese flavored. Correct character umami, but I didn't wanna say umami'cause I thought that would throw people off. So it's like a lot of wines have this as well.

Francis:

It's said like musty stinkiness almost.

Ray:

It can be a musty stinkiness, it can be a, a kind of darkness that's underneath the fruit of the wine in a, in a sense. You've got that bright berry fruit and then you've got something kind of. Deeper underneath it.

Mark:

I, I think mushrooms was a, was a great example. If you, if you think about mushrooms, mushrooms have a real earthiness to

Francis:

them. Well, and to talk, talk about wines that have an earthiness to them. Uh, burgundy certainly, which is made of pinot noir, some new world Pinot Noirs. You talk about wines from Piedmont, made from the nebia grape like Barolo and Barco. And if you ask your wine merchant or, or your somia in a restaurant for an earthy wine, he'll know what you're talking about or she'll know what you're talking about. Definitely. And then finally, quickly, you say, for desserts, go with a lighter wine. A lot of people have always said, go with a heavy sweet wine for dessert. You disagree? Why?

Ray:

yeah, I disagree. I do disagree. I, I think that with sweet desserts, really what's, what's. Better. And what's more refreshing is to have a wine that's just a slight bit less sweet than the dessert itself. Um, otherwise you get this kind of, increasing sweetness that, that really overwhelms your palate. Yeah. They

Mark:

build on each other.

Ray:

Yeah. And what you want is, it is nice to have a sweet wine with something sweet, but what you want is the wine to be a little lighter so that you get the acidity and freshness of the wine as well. So it's both refreshing and. And sort of has that unctuous sweetness to

Francis:

it. And, and what we, what we, I use, you know, truly sweet wines for like syrupy sweet wines or fortified wines like pork. I like them by themselves. Mm-hmm. Or maybe with a little bit of cheese. One,

Mark:

one of the wines you recommend in grapes you recommend is Moscato. And, and there's a sparkling wine made made with Moscato Dossi. That is my cheat wine at wine tastings. I will go if after I'm getting pout fatigue from drinking cabernet, after cabernet, after cabernet, I'll sneak over to the Mosco asti table. Take a little sip of Masco oti. First of all, the bubbles from it being sparkling, but plus that, that light sweetness from, from the Moscato helped to clear my palate and set me up for another, tasting of, of red wine.

Francis:

We were talking about how to pair wine and food before. We're gonna put those seven rules, Ray, with your permission up on our website so you can go and print'em out and keep'em in your kitchen cabinet. Is that all right with you? Sure.

Ray:

Yeah, absolutely. Terrific

Francis:

now, and we'll also link you to Food and Wine Magazine. It's a great publication. We'll put the link up there on our website and you can read, raise stuff directly. One of the things you've been writing about recently, Ray, is you've been writing about Italian wines and Spanish wines. Um, but let's talk about Italian wines. You haven't been writing about the wines that everyone knows from Italy. I mean, for so many years. You know, we all know ke and then maybe we've, we learned of Val Pello, Barolo Barbaresco, Piedmont Tuscany, and the veto. Where those popular wines come from. You've been writing about. Uh, wines, of grape varieties that maybe people aren't as familiar with, which seem to be taking over, the Italian wine sections of, of many wine lists.

Ray:

Uh, they, they absolutely are. And, and especially what's, what's nice is they're taking'em over, especially at the, at the, at the more affordable level, which is gratifying. If you're like me and you're a journalist, you're not paid a lot. Um, it's a, you know, Italy is home. I forget exactly how many thousand different grape varieties there are in Italy, but it really is a couple of thousand. Indigenous grape varieties. And a lot of them have never gotten much play, obviously. And, and, but even some of the great ones haven't gotten much play. So now you get, now you're starting to get, you know, narrow to alo from Sicily or, Greco to Tufo from Kahana. And, and these are, you know, these are wonderful wines. And, and Italian wine as a whole has also become incredibly popular in recent years. It over overtook French wine as the most popular imported wine, um, a few years back. is one realm where you can explore wine and, and find a lot of really interesting new wines and not have to pay a, a, you know, boatload of money for them.

Mark:

I think one of the things that is our job, certainly, and, and definitely your job too as a, as a journalist, is to go out there and be able to find places that you might not have explored yet that are gonna offer you greater value va. Greater bang for your buck when you're out buying wine?

Ray:

Absolutely. I mean, Southern Italy is, sort of one of the value central regions of wine right now in terms of, of quality for price. you know, you can get some of these wines for 17 or$18, um, which are, are just terrific, you know, are, are the equivalent of 40 or$45 wines. Um. You know, you can get even more affordable ones that are, that are maybe not quite to that level, but are still delicious.

Mark:

It, it's hard to great. Get a great California cabernet or, or Napa Cabernet Sauvignon for$17. It's hard to find a great one,

Ray:

believe me. I've tried, well, and I was trying to do an under 20 Napa cab column. It, it, it died on the Vine

Francis:

column. If you found two of them, send, send to where they are. Um. The thing that I find is also interesting is for the, for the novice wine explorer and for the wine professional, you know, the sommelier, the waiter in the restaurant, the wine buyer at the little trattoria, wherever you've gotta go and taste the wines.'cause let's face it, you go to a tasting, there's still a lot of garbage out there. I mean, there's still, as in any region of the world, there's a lot of schlocky wine produce, right? There's good

Mark:

ugly onco and there's bad, ugly onco, right?

Francis:

Um. But there's so much great stuff that is yet undiscovered and it's so vast and there's such variety in Italy that there are these great bottles in a restaurant, But I think it gets really exciting when you start to pay retail maybe 15,$20 a bottle from Italy to go to an unknown region or a grape like Negro Romero that you haven't heard of before, and even the whites of Italy. Um. I, I think it's an exciting place because it's, it's not completely explored,

Ray:

I think. Absolutely true. I mean, it's, it's, it's odd that some place so old and that's had such a wine tradition is just, right now is kind of this renaissance of, of uh, all sorts of new grapes. You know, I keep coming across grapes I've never heard of, which is. Which is weird, you know? Yeah. We've been writing about this stuff for a long time.

Francis:

We, we did the same, we expanded our, our Italian wine selections when we opened Catherine Lombardi, which is an Italian restaurant. Uh, we had had a contemporary American restaurant for 13 years. When we opened the Italian you know, I was able to triple my Italian section. And it was just, it's a fascinating ride for me. Right. I thought I knew. Find out,

Mark:

you find out who's growing, you know, growing their vines up into trees and picking'em out. Trees. Yeah.

Francis:

Esperino, dea, did you read that article in the, in the Times about Esperino dea, which is, they're, they trellis the vines into trees and they pick the grapes with ladders.

Ray:

Which is, you know, a little more effort than most people want spend. Yeah, exactly. Great. Well, you

Francis:

just get to go to your liquor store and spend 15 bucks on it, but you know, that's the best, best, the grape. Hey. Hey Ray. I'm afraid we have to leave it there. It's always a blast to talk to you. It's been 12 of you to come on the show.

Mark:

That's true. Thanks for having me. Thanks Ray.

Francis:

You're listening to the Restaurant Guys. Hello everybody. Welcome back. It's Mark and Francis, the restaurant guys,

Mark:

you know, we were talking before about Italian wines and, and simplifying this and it, I I almost feel like the Italians have made it difficult sometimes to read their label. It's, it's so hard to navigate the Italian wines and part of it is because everybody in, Each of these Italian, little Italian regions is so proud about what they do. And so they want to keep their region distinct from other regions. And so Sangeve grown in Chiante is called Chiante Grown in, Montepulciano is called Vino. Nobile grown in. Mancino, it's called Brunello. Uh, in other places it's called plo. there are just a thousand different words for the grape sangiovese, and they're all slightly different strains, and, and certainly the Italians will tell you that they're as different as they can be, but for, for we Americans all trying to make sense of this. Mm-hmm. It, it just seems like it's, they, they're purposely keeping the wines. If it

Francis:

separately named, if the Germans had taken over Italy, it would've been a lot easier.

Mark:

No, I read German labels and they're, they're just as hard to read, but it's all systematic in, in, in

Francis:

Germany. No, it's true. But again, that is, thank heaven for that because in a world where. You know, a wine becomes popular and then it gets high scores, and then it goes, the price goes into the stratosphere. These wines may be a little difficult to understand, but it's like a great adventure. You don't need to totally understand everything about where it comes from, and it's a great opportunity for your wine sales. But you person in your wine shop or your sommelier, or you're in the restaurant or, or business or you're a waiter, to have these in your pocket and to know them really well to, to, to bring people along on the adventure.

Mark:

One quick little tip. If you see, Niro Davila, cheo the alba generally the first word is the grape variety, and the last word is from where it comes, but not always, but not always. Of course. Welcome, welcome Didley.

Francis:

I hope. Hope you enjoyed the hour with the restaurant guys. I'm Francis Sean. And I'm Mark Pascal. We are the restaurant guys. 1450 WCTC. It's 12 noon.