Put Down the Chopsticks, Pick Up the Gruner Veltliner
The best friend is gone now, but the other day when we were traipsing around San Francisco, I twisted her arm to go to The Slanted Door. They had raw oysters on the menu, so there wasn’t all that much twisting.
Actually, there weren’t that many choices since we arrived between lunch and dinner hours. But it turned out to be the perfect afternoon snack: splitting a half dozen Kushi oysters (from B.C.) and The Slanted Door spring rolls. The first were small and succulent and the second were perfectly light: filled with rice, shrimp, pork, and mint, with peanut sauce for dipping.
Along with the tasty morsels, we each had a glass of 2005 Hiedler Grüner Veltliner “vier weingebirge” from Austria. Austria? you might ask, but this white grape is help putting the country back on the wine map (after a minor scandal in ‘85 over the addition of a sweetener confusingly likened to antifreeze). Grüner Veltliner, the most commonly planted grape, makes for a light, slightly peppery wine with hints of pear and grass. It was a great pairing for the appetizers because it allowed the flavor of the oysters to come through, while matching the refreshing quality of the mint in the spring rolls.
Who would have thought: Vietnamese food and Austrian wine? Branch out. Spin a globe and let your fingers decide the next culinary/beverage combination.
The Slanted Door, Gruner Veltliner, food and wine pairing
….Farley Walker
April 16th, 2007 at 8:54 am
[...] A Wine Pairing for Pears April 16th, 2007 by Farley Last week was almost all about white wine for me. One that I didn’t get to writing about was the 2004 Hiedler Gruner Veltliner. I had the 2005 at The Slanted Door several months ago.) The older vintage definitely seemed rounder than what I recalled the other being, though there were still citrus and herbal notes, along with pepper and apple. I was actually scared the wine might have been cooked, as there appeared to be a bit of leakage and a quick sniff before uncorking was dangerously akin to Madeira. However, those fears were put aside once open. [...]