Sublime No.3 - The Perfect Pairing

So back to the wine dinner. If you will recall, we had just finished the third course, had compared the Brunello with the Masseto, and had noticed that the places were now being set with not one glass for the next course, but three. One of the ideas behind a dinner like this is that you have small glasses of wine with each pairing, so that even though you are sampling a different wine with each course, you are not getting blasted. But how does that work when you are served three glasses with a single course? Really, by now, who cared? One wine, three wines, how many fabulous wines could we drink in a single evening? Bring it on.

The next course was paired with Barbaresco, one of the two prestige wines from Piedmont. The grape is nebbiolo, which we’re told is a fussy grape, and one that only grows only in a narrow area of Piedmont. Apparently, vintners have tried to raise this grape elsewhere, but never with any success. And the Barbaresco for last Saturday was Gaja, one of the most recognizable and prestigious of all the Italian winemaking names. And the reason we were given three glasses each was that we were tasting three different Gaja Barbarescos, all single vineyard wines. The names of the vineyards are Costa Russi, Sori Tildin, and Sori San Lorenzo. These names don’t really mean much of anything to me in and of themselves, but I’ve seen these wines on wine lists, and the prices are always huge. Not quite astronomical, not necessarily Lafite or Petrus; but way above my price range, that’s for sure.

The Barbarescos were all great, in my opinion. We tasted and compared, everyone expressed their preferences, our host declared that while two were excellent, one was disappointing; but I have to confess that although I could detect differences among the three wines, I was unable to say which one I liked most, or least. That’s partly because all three were so great that I found the question irrelevant.

But the real reason I couldn’t discern any defects in any of the wines, was that the pairing for this course was the most perfect pairing of wine and food that I had ever tasted. Tony served up a guinea hen with a fois gras sauce. It went so well with the Barbarescos that every taste was a trip to sensory paradise. Really, every taste of this dish, washed down with any one of those Gaja Barbarescos, sent me off on some kind of ecstatic fit. As great as the other wines had been, and maybe on their own they were better than these Gajas, nothing yet had matched the sensation of this perfect pairing of food and wine. We’ve got two great wine courses yet to go, and more amazing and memorable wines to taste, but this was the high point of a spectacular dinner for me. Not only that, but considering the price of these exclusive wines, I doubt I’ll ever have the chance to duplicate this experience again. I’m just glad I didn’t pass out or have a conniption at the table. Anyway, time for the intermezzo.