Kristi Mayfield (00:00)
Imagine you're going through your morning routine. Shower, get dressed, brush your teeth, and head to the kitchen for breakfast. You pop open an orange juice from the fridge and toss a big gulp back. Yikes! Bitter bombs start exploding in your mouth, and it's the worst taste ever. So what the heck does this have to do with wine? I know that's what you're thinking. It has

Everything to do with wine. That nuclear reaction that's happening in your mouth is a result of the high acidity in the orange juice clashing big and bad with the minty freshness of your toothpaste. So too can a high acidity wine after brushing your teeth, after eating certain foods or simply not having your palate ready to be shocked awake by fresh, crisp, acidic wines.

Sound like a reason to just avoid high acid wines? It's just the opposite. You simply need to know how to pair them with the perfect food. And in this episode, my friend and fellow Somm, Richard King is going to give you everything you need to know to make acidic wines and food sing.

In nearly every class or wine tasting I lead, the first thing we try fresh crisp white or a sparkling wine. And inevitably at that first sip, that first taste brings about puckered lips, sour faces, and a whole lot of, wow, I wasn't expecting that, or this is way too tart for my palate. And I used to feel horrible, like I'd picked a terrible wine that no one but me liked.

But then I realized it really wasn't the wine. It was just that I hadn't prepared the attendees for the wines appropriately. And if this has ever happened to you, you're in luck today. Not only will you learn why this is happening, but you'll learn how to turn those super high acidity wines into your food's best friend.

Kristi Mayfield (02:14)
I am super excited for today's topic, acidity and wine. It is one of the things that I find trips people up the most, can cause so many frustrations for them, especially if you're not expecting a high acidity wine and pop it in your mouth and it can be like a nuclear reaction in there. So today I have a special guest, Richard King. He's the co-owner.

of Ellerbe Fine Foods here in Fort Worth, Texas. But most importantly, he has about 30 years of being a sommelier under his belt. So if anybody understands the impact and the influence of acidity, whether that's acidity in wine or acidity in foods, and how those two things can either be magical or, as I said, nuclear.

It's Richard. So thank you so much for being a guest on today's episode. really, really excited to have you here. So let's start off with just talking about challenges that acidity brings when you're talking about food and wine pairings for an individual. for our listeners here, I mean, what do they face? Let's talk about on high acidity wines. If you're not expecting it, what can happen in that scenario, especially when you have the wrong wine.

with the wrong food. So first, I think it's important to identify what a high acidic wine is and what acid really means. Because when I'm talking to either my staff or to a guest about acid, they don't quite understand what acidity, what it is. We have a perceived idea what it is. What is it doing with the wine? And how do I know if a wine is highly acidic? So very simple test I usually do with people is I just taste a wine.

and a white wine. know, at first, white wine is a little bit easier to figure out how to set it in reds. And so just take a white wine, put your mouth, push it around, squash it around, almost a bit like mouthwash, then swallow it and then let it let's kind of sit and think about three to about seven seconds. And if your mouth is just really salivating, like you like you squeeze a lemon in there, that means it's high acid. Exactly.

And then wines that don't do it as long, lower acid in the wines that hardly do it at all. It's going to be, you know, you're going have more sweetness to it, are very low acid wines. I completely agree with you. In fact, I'll take it one step further. And for me personally, I will bend my head over after taking a sip of wine, open my mouth. And if I start to feel like I'm going to be dripping drool on my lap within a few seconds, I know it's a high acidity wine. And so traditionally, you know, I guess an extreme example of high acidic wine would be like a Sauvignon Blanc. Right.

And then you kind of work your way backwards. know, like Riesling would be a little bit less and then Alberino and then Chardonnay, we've got all the way down to our other Viognier that are kind of low acid. So, and so when you just kind of think about that, you kind of think of how acidic is our dishes as well, you know, from that same kind of profile. So leveraging that exact point, let's say you are serving this beautiful, fresh farm to table salad with a lemon vinaigrette and they order that Viognier that we know is low acid.

might that experience feel like to them? Not good. Yeah, not good. So here's why. When you're trying to pair wines with dishes, especially acidic wines with acidic dishes, you need them to somewhat match. And so that if you have a lemon vinaigrette going with a Viognier, you have two opposite styles of profiles. So you have a highly acidic component, which is in your food.

and this example in your food and you have a very low acidic component, which is in your wine. So what happens is going to make that wine very flat and really lose all its nuances. And it's going to make that other dish, the food dish really flabby. And so you miss the mark. I think people, well, I love Viognier and I really want this, the salad. Okay. That's fine. That's great. You own that, you know, you made a decision, but if you want the dishes taste better, you want the wine to taste.

better, listen to this podcast and listen to it 10 times or go back and go to your retail shop or go to your Somm and say, hey, I want to have this dish. Give me a good wines compare with this dish. in that vein, let's just say before you even get that dish in front of you and you're trying, maybe you do pick a highly acidic wine. What are some things when you first as a

as a wine consumer, a wine enthusiast, when you first taste that first sip of that high acidity wine and you haven't done anything to what we call open your palate. So basically, or maybe you even brushed your teeth just before dinner. worse. I mean, what are some pain points that that can create for you? Because I have a lot of people at tastings who do just that. Sip a highly acidic wine, they're not prepared for it, or they've just brushed their teeth, they've had some food that's gonna clash with it.

And I mean, it is like a bitter bomb. And all of a sudden they say, I don't like this wine. Well, and so I call that resetting your palette. there's no better wine ever in the world to start off with than sparkling or champagne, which can be, if you can pick a very, you know, low-dosage wine, high acid wine, sparkling wine is a way to go on that side. One, I like the acid, what it does to it. it, you're right.

you had a cup of coffee, you brush your teeth, you had a bite of something before, you know, where maybe that high acid wine with also the the bubbles coming into play, kind of cleanses your palate. And it kind of pushes everything back and awakens all your senses, not only your palate, but awakens all the other senses, awakens your nose. And you know, you start to see it and then your brain, okay, we got something going on. And the next sip our next bite.

I'm ready now. And so I always like to start with, I like to start with acidic wines. It just of just flushes everything out. And I love the sparkling wine. I mean, that does. It's like a palate cleanser and on top of being absolutely amazing and delicious. combination helps out a little bit. You a little pops in your mouth, you know, it helped kind of, you know, push everything around. if you were to

give a few examples of, you we talked about the salad dressing and the Viognier. I what are some classic, I'll call them terrible pairing choices that someone in, you know, as a wine enthusiast could make that are going to potentially cause these really unbalanced experiences between the food and the wine? I what are some things you've seen in your? Well, you brought up good example that somebody wants a, you know, let's say a Chardonnay. That's a very common.

Varietal that we drink a lot of and so that's my gets a chardonnay and let's say a Russian River Chardonnay Which I have an example of us in front of here is Russian River Chardonnay So lots of great fruit goes through malactic fermentation so that's some weight to it But the acid has calmed down because  of the malolactic fermentation that it went through so we do that with an a Vinegar at any really kind of anybody gonna regret it's really good not gonna work well with this did with this wine

but this wine does have acid to it and it has some weight to it as well, our volume. And so I would want to put that with more of a weightier dish that has lower acid. So let's call it a roasted chicken, you know, of some sort. And you can do a sauce with that too. It could be a cream sauce, you know, I wouldn't necessarily add heavy cream sauce, but maybe a lemon cream sauce, you know, or picatta things like that. That still has some pop to it and some brightness to it.

but your wine needs to match that. And so, I kind of tell people, when chefs are creating dishes, right? They're not just poaching a chicken or growing a chicken. They're adding four to 10 different spices and or techniques on how to cook that dish, right? And so wine, we think, Chardonnay, it's just one flavor. Well, that's completely the opposite. So Chardonnay is another way, it is a kitchen pantry of wine.

I mean, of flavors in here, you just got to figure out what that kitchen pantry of flavors in there. So, you know, are we getting, what kind of fruits are we getting? What kind of non fruits are we getting? You know, fruits, are we getting like the brighter style, you know, like the lemon and the lime or, you know, our grapefruit, we get out of, you know, a lot of about the saut blancs. Are we getting more of the melon and the stone fruits? So are we getting peaches or, you know, honeydew? Well, there's two different kinds of fruits in there. They can give two different profiles in that wine. Now there's no honeydew in this wine.

right? But wine Chardonnay can throw off sometimes a lot of honeydew depending on where it's made and who made it things like that. and so wine gets its spices from Mother Nature from the ground also gets from the techniques of the winemaker. you know how much water got that year how was the wind and sun like things like that right we can get real dorky and on terroir but anyways with that being said is that you know there you can you can break down a wine just like you can break down a dish so what are the

major components in that dish profile. if you have chicken, okay, that's our protein, but chicken can go with red or white. So then what are we going for you? So you're saying let's what with whites. Okay. So let's say the chicken is a, you know, a rotisserie chicken or poached chicken. So it's a very light style with a piccata sauce or lemon, lemon or blonde sauce. Right. So now you've got a couple of components in there and then as a just hot dish, hot or cold, you know, and so now we're breaking down this dish. So have several components in this dish. We'll do the same thing in the wine.

So I just can't say I want to go there. Hey, I'm cooking chicken. So I want, I want Chardonnay. Nope. What kind of Chardonnay do I want? Or do I, or do I have any other kind of varietals that work outside the box of Chardonnay? You know, um, but so I, you know, I like to break down what other flavors are getting out of that, at that particular wine that's in front of me. Cause there's hundreds of different styles of Chardonnay. There's a hundred different styles of grilling chicken.

Exactly. And I always talk about Chardonnay as being the chameleon in the wine world, because it can be that high acid lemon lime Chablis, or it can be a rich, buttery, creamy Napa Valley, highly oaked, malolactic fermentation, ridden butter balm. So you can go from fresh and crisp all the way to red, rich and creamy with one variety. So it's so important not only to know the varietal but

all of those other nuances that you talked about. there's, a lot of cues and tricks because that same Chardonnay on the rich and creamy style with that vinaigrette or that bright, you know, sauce on your protein is not going to work where there should be maybe the perfect pairing, same varietal. Great. So we've talked a lot now about the, the negatives, the what can go wrong, but I want to flip the gears for you, our listener on, you know, what can go right? How do you appropriately

leverage the flavor nuances, the mouthfeel nuances, the component nuances of food and wines to get something really amazing for like that perfect pairing. And what are some of your guidelines when you're making a recommendation to be able to have that perfect balance? What are you looking for? Yeah. And so I think that's probably one of the questions any Psalms probably get the most in her career is

what do I pair with this, vice versa? What wine do I pair with this dish? this dish, I'm ordering what wine do I have? it's, know, cause somebody's like, hey, I have that, we got this wine from our wedding. We went have a really good dinner and I want to cook dinner for my wife. You know, like, okay, well then what wine is it? It's this. Okay, then let's work backwards. And sometimes people do it the other way around, right? So number one thing is super easy for everybody to remember. If it grows together, it goes together. So that's a very classic one.

pairing one on one. know, can't ease go with red sauces. And there's a reason why the first and Italians are so great at pairing wine and food together and food and wine together is I'm not sure which came first. I don't know if the wine came first or food came first in our countries. But you know, we've been doing wine for about 2000 years. So, so, you know, they, they grew grapes that one grew well in their region, but they also grew crops.

and animals and animals raise animals that also went well in the region as well. So those two, they're naturally going to go together, you know, so back to, know, let's take, let's stick with old world. So, you know, France and Italy and Germany, things like that. in Italy, you know, if you're going to go more of that, you know, Southern Italy style and Sicilian, then go Sicilian, Mediterranean more style of food, right?

Then you go to the Tuscan wine. Well, you can go Tuscan foods, you know, and we're going white and red on both these styles, right? And then you work your way up. then we got Piedmont. I love Squab, know, wild game with our Barbera, right? Our Barberesco, because, you know, that's what they raise a lot of Squab there and they grow some of the best Barberesco period in the world. So I love it there, right? Then you your way to France and, you know, so you see this cuisine changes from, you know, south to north and then same thing from France, you know, all over is

You know, when you're in Champagne, they don't eat and drink the same thing they're eating in Bordeaux and drink the same thing in Bordeaux. So that's why I do the same thing. It's like, you know, if you have a Bordeaux wine, not Bordeaux wine, Charlie Bue, Forgiving, think, than some other wines out of France, but have a Bordeaux style dish that's going to be savory and not super sweet, you know, and it may not have as much fat in it as some other areas, like in Texas, you know, we do a lot of

brisket, right? It's a holy grail. And so then so from my example is, you know, you don't see brisket as a whole lot of in France, right? We see brisket in Texas. So, you know, what do you have in brisket? You have unami, you have smoke, you have meaty, you have just really tender and salt things like that. So people say, well, I cap. Well, actually, you know what, like, sera goes really great with that. And the reason why sera or ganache is because it already throws off that smokiness or it throws off that meatiness.

it has some good tannins to break down that fat in that brisket. So our temper neo, you know, and so, and so let's stick with that grows together grows together. So as you know, Texas will do well here beef, right? Another vibrato we do well here in Texas is temporary. And so you know, William Chris or law things like that go buy some great Texas temper neos and goes great with our brisket we do here.

I love that you're bringing not only Texas wines into it, but I love the fact that we are covering not just white wines, but red wines, because I think one mistake that's very common is thinking that only white wines are acidic. Red wines can be equally acidic, and I think that's one of the key elements you have to take into consideration in these pairings.

We talked about classic pairings. You there's the steak and cab. We've talked about a lot of regional that what grows together goes together. And then there's obviously going to be some really creative and unusual pairings that Assam could make as a recommendation for someone at a restaurant or to pair with that wine you have at home. And so if you could kind of keep things narrow, we've talked about the elements behind it, the principles behind it. But if you want to keep it simple, what are a few

very safe food and wine pairings where a high acidity wine is going to work well every single time. And in particular, what are some of your favorites and kind of what successes have you had, whether that's your own dishes at home or here at Ellerbe or in your career? One, I'd love that let's cover traditional, let's cover regional, but then I'd also love to get into any surprise high acid wine and food pairings that.

surprised you even. traditionally, I mean, let's stick with Texas here. You know, I grew up hunting and fishing. And so grew up I'm a bird hunter mainly. And so, you know, shooting a lot of quail. And, you know, quail can really do well with with Pina Noir, a high acid red, and then I'll grow duck hunting as well. So

You have two types of birds, right? You have a one is a white game meat, one is red game meat. One is a little bit more game here than the other. But Pino works well with wild game. I think because of that, that tanginess and all of that bitterness and that wild game can put off here in Texas. I think Pino Noir does the same thing. It can be tangy. It can be a little bit bitter and bitter. Bitter is a good thing. Like coffee is very bitter, right? But we drink a lot of coffee. Okay. let's make sure bitter is a good word here. And so now what am going to do with that quail or that duck?

Right? So am I going traditional French style and, you know, going to do it, confit. Right. So I would have to have a totally different kind of a pinot noir because I'm adding a lot more fat. Right. I'm rendering the duck down in its own fat. So it's going to be a heavier dish, you know. And then let's say, let's say I'm doing a just a red demi-glace sauce with that. Right. So I want to do a demi-glace sauce, red demi-glace sauce that's going to pair well with that pinot. So I might even use a pinot noir burgundy in that, in that, right. In demi-glace. Right.

So now people say to use expensive wine when you cook, that's up to you. The answer is don't use super cheap wine also. I tell people like, when they use wine cooking, just do average run, you know, we don't need to Lafite in there, but we don't need to put, you know, a $5 bottle of red in there as well. Your sauce tastes like $5 bottle of red. So I like that traditional style on the, so that's a red example. On the white example, you know,

Here at Ellerbe, we get a lot of fresh, just vegetables, or seasonal restaurants. So Molly, my business partner, chef, she is constantly doing everything with vegetables as much as she can. And Molly loves vinaigrette's because it really just pops those veggies out, right? So, but when Molly does that, I, let's say we're having sometimes a bit vegetables, vinaigrette's like right now in the summer and spring, I can't use the same wines I'm going to use. I'm going to

here at L.A.B. in the winter because we're have different kind of vinaigrette, different kind of vegetables in the winter time. So let's talk about right now. So we're getting a lot of really great tomatoes. We're getting great peaches and strawberries and things like that. So tomatoes, vinaigrette, it goes all kinds of vinaigrettes, right? And so I would want to use a wine that I mean, love, I love sparkling. I thought at the beginning, I think sparkling wines go great with salads.

And then I also like, you know, just like you mentioned, like Chablis would go great with, know, our, Sancerre or something Blanc would great with kind of really fresh, cause you're thinking fresh wines, fresh produce, fresh fin de garrettes, you know. Then, you know, let's say we go to more to our risotto style. we're, you know, we're doing risotto with, you know, or just, just a plain risotto. We don't have to add a protein, but what's in our risotto? Is it a white risotto? It's made with saffron. Well, then you know, your dish started going a little bit more weighty or a little bit.

is still a quiet dish, but we can go to a to your wine and more of a quiet wine. I call like an alborino is a a is a way to your wine, but not as loud, not as acidic, you know, on that side going with that dish or things like that. I love that. Yeah. Last night I did a a lemon shrimp risotto and I had a Tourraine and it went really well. So so you did a good example. So you not only did you pair

You did compare compare. That's what I compare compare. And you also did Tourainne

Yeah, no, I did that because I, you know, I did multicolored carrots. had, you know, I had the mirepoix in there pretty heavy. But then I marinated my shrimp and lemon zest, lemon juice, olive oil, a little bit of seasoning, and then topped it with some fresh basil from the garden. And you know, when you do

that home-chefing like that out of your employing a wine out of your, know, out of your retail store, at your cellar, you know, take note, you know, I mean, we always take notes when we make a dish right home, like, gosh, I did this or I cooked it too long or too much salt. Well, take note when you do the wine pairing. this was great. Or you know what? It made the dish too acidic or we missed it or made the wine flabby or as perfect. So I take notes on both sides. You know, we forget about the other, the beverage is the other half of the experience.

And people put all the, all the weight and experience on the dish itself versus the, you know, I'm the other way around, but I'm unique. know. so, but yeah, take notes on that. That's such a great tip because I always encourage our listener to take notes, whether, you know, just snapping a picture and using their notes and their, their mobile device or just in the image itself, putting some notes. So I love that tip and do it at home too. Don't just do it when you're out and about at restaurants. so first of all, we've got pay attention to.

as far as wrapping up the tips, pay attention, you know, the acid levels both in your dish and in your wine to make sure you take notes and remember, figure out a way to remember what worked well, what you liked, what didn't work well. So what would be your final tip to kind of wrap up the acidity in wine and food pairings? two more things for me is one another basic one. It's just

it just look at your components of that dish. So we just can't say just the white line was see if you read on me that that nomenclature that's gone. So we had to get rid of that. So what we had no kidding what could be and that's my second point. It's a good segue. But but you know, where is this dish? How are you cooking this dish? What's going in this dish? And then work either through your knowledge of that wine varietal where it's grown and things like that or talk to your retail person like

Hey, I need this kind of profile of a chardonnay or saut blanc because I'm having this dish. Right. So work with your, your song or your server or your retail person to work with you backwards on that. But also the yay is that, you know, get outside your box too. Right. And so, you know, like we eat just a lot of Asian food in my house. Right. Asian food goes with a ton of just beverages in general. Right. Because we have the fried portion, we have the saute for

portion. We the stir fry, we have the sweet, we have the salty, we have the spicy, we have all kinds of components going on and a just a region of food, right? Well, you know, in the Asian market, you know, we don't see a whole lot of wines coming out of there. We are seeing a bit more now. But I mean, like obviously, sake is, you know, it's gonna go great. Sake and beer. Sake and beer is gonna go great. So if you want to stick with easy, easy, and go out and maybe you've never tried sake, they're great to try on purpose with these kind of foods. So do it.

Um, that's good out of your box a lot, a little bit, also another reverse side is like have a dry riesling that is going to, um, have a really a lot of high assets. It's to break down all of that spice. So spice likes acid, you know, and, and, and spice also prefers a little bit of sweetness. So, so if you can have, you know, a little bit of sweetness and doesn't not wine. And I'm not talking about sugar sweet fruit sweet.

on that wine that really kind of tame that acid down a little bit. I'm sorry, the spice down on it and really make that wine come out better. It makes also the food even taste better. I could not agree more. Well, I love all of these tips and your last note kind of gave us a segue, Richard, into next week's episode where you're also going to be my guest, where we're going to be tackling the beast of sugar, not just sugar in foods, but sugar and wines and really helping you, our listener, understand that

Sweet wines aren't necessarily a bad thing, but also pairing sweet wines with food is an art and a skill, but it's not as complicated as we make it sometimes. That's right. Awesome.

Kristi Mayfield (24:06)
What a fun episode. know you have enjoyed taking a completely new look at high acidity wines, just as I have. So if you loved this episode, please scroll down in your Apple podcast app and give us a five star rating and a review. Better yet, take the time instead of a review. Tell me what you want us to cover on an upcoming episode. go to

www.wine-wise, w-i-z-e.com and be on our insider list so you can find out all the great things that are happening to transform your wine journey. And in next week's episode, we're taking the opposite twist on food and wine pairings and heading over to the sweet side. Richard will be joining me again and I know you're going to want to take a walk with us.

on the dessert side of life. So until then, pop the cork and learn wine your way.