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Solving a Food and Wine Pairing Puzzle at Tadich Grill

: Wine & Dine; Written by Fred Swan; Created on Friday, 23 July 2010 22:30

Finding a good wine pairing for cioppino is a challenge. Cioppino is essentially a stew made with tomatoes, wine and all kinds of seafood — but always a lot of shellfish. There’s usually some celery and onion in there and plenty of garlic. Some restaurants add hot red pepper, others avoid that to emphasize the sweetness of the seafood.

Normally when we think of pairing wine with seafood, our mind goes to white wines. But, cioppino is a perfect example of why one needs to focus not on the protein but on the sauce when selecting wine. Scallops, crab and white fish could go with any number of wines. But, when you start throwing in a lot of tomatoes, plus garlic and hot pepper, the list of options shortens substantially. You can forget about Chardonnay and most other medium to full-bodied whites. They won’t have the acidity to hold up to the cooked tomatoes and will have all the charm of a mouthful of mineral oil. There are white wines that do have a lot of acidity, but many of them have neutral flavor profiles. Those wines might work as palate cleansers with cioppino, but so does water. What should you choose?

cioppino-small

Though the dish sounds like it comes from Italy, cioppino was actually “invented” by hungry San Francisco Italian-immigrant fishermen in the late 19th century. Not long thereafter, the dish moved from the fishing boats, where it was a fresh and easy one-pot lunch that warmed body and soul, to The City’s restaurants, where on cold, foggy July days it is a fresh and easy one-pot lunch that warms body and soul. It is served throughout the Bay Area, but Tadich Grill considers it one of their specialities. They serve hundreds of bowls of the tangy fish stew daily. What better place to go for advice on cioppino pairings?

Tadich Grill, which started business in 1849 as wharf-side coffee kiosk, is a busy place. Having moved to its present location in the Financial District in 1969, it’s become a lunchtime hangout for San Francisco’s movers and shakers, a mecca for well-informed tourists and a destination for truckloads of fresh fish. Tadich Grill takes no reservations, but moves people through in a hurry. Hence, conversations with the waiters are brief. “Excuse me kind sir, what wine would you suggest for the cioppino? Perhaps a crisp Sauvignon Blanc?” “No,” says the waiter. “Pinot or Zinfandel. You want more bread?” And away he trots.

Pinot or Zinfandel — that was unexpected. California serves up some rich Pinot Noir that still retains good acidity, so I could see where the waiter was coming from. Somehow though, it didn’t sound quite right. Zinfandel on the other hand seemed a brilliant call. Zesty with bold flavors yet low enough in tannins to play nice with fish, Zinfandel blends are probably also the wines the Italian fishermen would have been drinking in the 1880’s. The key, I decided, would be finding one that isn’t too high in alcohol.

While Zinfandel used to be the daily drink of Italian farmers throughout the Sonoma and Napa regions, and that of their relatives in nearby cities, at some wineries it has become like sipping whiskey. With intense flavors, heavily influenced by oak, and full body from high-alcohol levels created with extra-ripe fruit and superhero yeasts, these Zins make an impact at tastings and can easily chase a cocktail. However, they also steamroll a plate of food. Plus, drinking high-alcohol wine with food that may have hot pepper in it is almost literally throwing fuel on a fire. Reviewing the Tadich wine list, I saw four good Zinfandels, but three of them struck me as better options for a grilled steak. I chose the fourth, the 2007 Storybook Mountain Zinfandel Mayacamas Range Napa Valley ($34 retail, $50 on the wine list).

The wine turned out to be perfect for the cioppino. Fresh, dark berry flavors parried the bright tomato and soft oak-derived chocolate married with the red pepper spice. Elegant and supple for a contemporary Zinfandel, the wine did not overwhelm the white fish, scallops, crab or mussels. Smooth on the palate, the Storybook went down easy and was enjoyed by all.

This was my first time at Tadich Grill and I was pleased with the experience. The prices are fair, even low for downtown San Francisco, and the portions quite large. Plenty of good San Francisco sourdough bread is provided for each table automatically too, so take care not to over-order. Dungeness crab leg cocktail and prawn cocktail appetizers were fresh tasting and included six pieces of the named seafood for $15.75 and $11.25 respectively. The Pacific Oysters Rockefeller ($19.00) also came with six pieces, but overflowed with the tasty cheesy-spinach topping and also included a huge tomato stuffed with same. That dish could easily serve as a main course. The “cup” of Boston Clam Chowder ($6.25) is thick, hearty and comes in bowl the size of a large coconut shell. I didn’t see any “bowls” of the chowder ($7.25) but can only assume the portion is large enough to bathe in.

Speaking of main courses, at $26.25, the cioppino is one of the most expensive items on the menu. But it’s loaded with clams, prawns, scallops, bay shrimp, Dungeness crab meat and white fish and comes with two pieces of garlic bread. You don’t need an appetizer and I think it’s a good value. At $17.75, the meat ravioi with meat sauce is a full plate too. Porterhouse steak was a special that evening for $21.75. It was wide enough to cover the whole plate but very thin and somewhat overcooked — ask for it rare.

And then there were the desserts. The Cheesecake ($7.25) was large but didn’t strike us as a specialty or something made on site. However, the Mixed Berries ($7.00) was a heaping bowl of very fresh and flavorful fruit. It comes with a massive quantity of Zabaglione Sauce that was flavored with something that may have been Grand Marnier. It was very good and a single order could satisfy at least three people. The Chocolate Mousse ($8.25) was the prettiest dish I saw come out of the kitchen and, while big enough to share, can be tackled by one person. The rich, not quite fluffy chocolate, is served in a cylindrical mold made from artfully wrinkled leaves of frozen chocolate and topped with a dollop of whipped cream.

As mentioned above, Tadich Grill doesn’t take reservations and that’s a policy from which they don’t waiver. However, they have a lot of tables, especially two- and four-tops, a large bar to make the wait pleasant, and move people in pretty quickly. They were able to seat my party, a group of 11, by putting together three four-tops, within about fifteen minutes and that was at 7:30 on a Saturday night.

Tadich Grill doesn’t have a website to speak of, but they are located at 240 California Street in San Francisco. That’s between Front St. and Battery St. They are open from lunchtime through 9:30pm, six days a week. They are closed on Sundays.

Storybook Mountain Vineyards is a Napa Valley winery whose 100% organic vineyard lies on the eastern slope of the Mayacamas Range. Their vineyards get direct morning sun but the harsh afternoon sun hits the vines at an angle, sparing them from its searing heat. Cool breezes come up from the San Pablo Bay to the south and over the mountains from the Russian River to the west. This keeps the average temperate for the vineyard about 10 degrees lower than for those on the valley floor. Clay soils and relatively high rainfall (due to moist air from the ocean reaching the dew point as it rises over the Mayacamas Range) allows the vineyards to be “dry farmed” for the most part. The site and weather allow Storybook to create concentrated, yet balanced, wine. Their offerings include very well-regarded Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon and Viognier varietals. NorCal Wine Highly Recommends the 2007 Storybook Mountain Zinfandel Mayacamas Range Napa Valley ($34, 14.6% alc.)

All of the food and wine mentioned in this article were purchased at full price by my friends and I.

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Follow NorCalWine on Twitter for breaking wine news, information on events and more. Become a fan and join the NorCal Wine community on Facebook. Also check outour comprehensive Northern California winery listings. They are very useful for planning a tasting trip or just getting in touch with a winery.

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Matthew Stamp of The French Laundry Wins Top Sommelier Award

: Wine & Dine; Written by Fred Swan; Created on Monday, 02 August 2010 06:23

After grueling qualifying and regional competitions, the 2010 TOP|SOMM US Sommelier Championship finals were held today in San Francisco. Ten of this country's best sommeliers were put to the test by eight judges, each a Master Sommelier. The challenges included written exams in essay format; characterizing and identifying seven wines in a 25-minute blind tasting and three service challenges: food and wine pairing, champagne service, and decanting. Curveballs were thrown in each challenge — the decanting service involved 38-year old wines with disintegrating corks.

The competitors were all kept in suspense as to the results until tonight's celebratory dinner at the Hotel Monaco in San Francisco. Master Sommerlier Fred Dame of Foster's Wine Estates and president of the Guild of Sommeliers was one of the judges and also acted as emcee for the ceremony.

The first award presented was for Best New Sommelier. This honor goes to the sommelier under 32 years of age who had the best score in the final competition. The winner for 2010 was Jason Heller of REDD in Yountville, CA. Prior to working at REDD, Heller was responsible for the beverage program at Thomas Keller's Bouchon Bistro, also in Yountville. In 2009, he was dubbed Best New Sommelier by Wine and Spirits Magazine. Jason Heller also turned out to have the second best score in the overall competition.

The next award went to the third place finisher in the overall competition, Michael Meagher. Presently working at Vineyard Road, an importer and distributor in Waltham, Massachusetts, Meagher is a Master Sommelier Candidate and won the 2010 Chaine des Rotisseurs Best Young Sommelier competition. In addition to his studies in wine, which include a master's thesis on wines under screwcap that has since been published by the Journal of Culinary Science and Technology, Meagher studied cooking at the Culinary institute of America and was in the Masters Degree program for Gastronomy at the University of Adelaide in Australia.

The final and top award was earned by Matthew Stamp, recently of The French Laundry in Yountville, California. Immediately prior to The French Laundry, Stamp was at the Farmhouse Inn & Restaurant in Forestville, CA. He preceded that with nine years at V. Mertz Restaurant in Omaha, Nebraska. He has a CWS certification from the Society of Wine Educators and received the Rudd Scholarship for best-in-class performance while earning his Advanced Certification from the Court of Master Sommeliers.

somm-winners-plus-mondavi
Richard Arnold (winemaker, Robert Mondavi Winery), Jason Heller, Matthew Stamp & Michael Meagher

The remaining finalists in the 2010 TOP|SOMM US Sommelier Championship were:
Yannick Benjamin, Le Duc, New York, NY
Ian Cauble, The Ritz Carlton, Half Moon Bay, CA
Chris Dillman, Sage American Bistro, Columbus, OH
Eric Hastings, Eddie V's Prime Seafood, Houston, TX
Brian McClintic, Montagna, Aspen, CO
Inez Ribustello, On the Square, Tarboro, NC
Dustin Wilson, The Little Nell, Aspen, CO

At a dinner for nearly 30 Master Sommeliers, the wine needs to be good. Event sponsors Iron Horse Vineyards and Robert Mondavi Winery did not disappoint. The pre-dinner reception featured passed hors d'oeuvres and two very fine sparkling wines from Iron Horse:
1996 Iron Horse Joy!, Very Highly Recommended, $160/1.5L (13% alc.)
1996 Iron Horse Joy! Rosé, Very Highly Recommended, $NA

As the award given to the US Sommelier Championship winner is called The Robert Mondavi Trophy, it was fitting that Robert Mondavi Winery provided the wines for dinner. The five wines served were:
2006 Robert Mondavi Winery Chardonnay Reserve - Highly Recommended, $40 (14.3% alc.)
2007 Robert Mondavi Winery Sauvignon Blanc I-Block, To Kalon Vineyard, Very Highly Recommended, $75 (14.7% alc.)
1990 Robert Mondavi Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve, Very Highly Recommended, $NA (13.5% alc.)
2006 Robert Mondavi Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve, Very Highly Recommended, $135 (15.5% alc.)
1999 Robert Mondavi Winery Botrytis Sauvignon Blanc, Highly Recommended, $40 (~11.5% alc., ~20% RS)

I recently reviewed the 2006 Robert Mondavi Winery Sauvignon Blanc I-Block, To Kalon Vineyard. While the 2006 has already picked up complexity and hints of nut, the 2007 is a focused study in deliciously fresh peaches, both white- and orange-fleshed. It will age well, but is nearly irresistable now.

The 1990 RMW Reserve Cabernet has held up extremely well. Still a very dark ruby in the glass with just a bit of garnet at the rim, it offers stewed black cherry and prune with accents of dried herb, earth, leather and pencil lead. The wine's texture is almost creamy and still shows plenty of sweet and softly powdery tannins.

The 2006 RMW Reserve Cabernet, which had been decanted, was opaquely ruby with pigmented legs and a bold nose of cherry, plum and cigar box. It's a full-bodied Cabernet Sauvignon, yet not at all over the top. Oak and alcohol, fruit and powdery tannins are all in balance. Flavors include cocoa, black cherry, vanilla and sweet oak. This is a wine that will last for many years to come but can easily be enjoyed right now.

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Off Topic: Great Cheap Bites of The Big Apple

: Wine & Dine; Written by Fred Swan; Created on Friday, 09 January 2009 22:30

When you’re pounding the pavement checking out one wine shop after another, eventually you have to grab something to eat. Or at least go inside to thaw out. And, although you could be blinded by all the Michelin stars in Manhattan, sometimes the merely very good is more than good enough. And if the very good is also fiscally responsible, so much the better. So we’re taking a brief time-out from wine talk to let you know about some of our favorite spots for really good food at prices that won’t make your wallet cry for mercy.

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Enoteca La Storia Wine Bar opens in Los Gatos

: Wine & Dine; Written by Fred Swan; Created on Tuesday, 13 April 2010 18:40

Enoteca La Storia opens tomorrow in Los Gatos. The new wine bar/wine shop should soon become a favorite hangout for locals and those visiting the area to shop downtown or taste at local wineries. Enoteca is a welcoming place, spacious with a long white marble bar, comfortable stools and a row of tall tables. The decor is elegant but inviting and evocative of Italy.

I attended a small pre-opening gathering last night that served as both a celebration of the opening and a final dry run for the staff. Enoteca was pouring some of their more value-oriented wines and serving up samples of their food. My antipasto platter included tasty mortadella and Barolo-marinated salumi, cut thin on shiny red and chrome slicers that remind me of vintage Italian race cars, an assortment of cheeses, olives, cippolini onions, marinated white beans with capers, mushroom and truffle tapenade, olive oil, rosemary focaccia and sliced baguette. For dessert, they served up cubes of delicious carrot cake made from a recipe of the owner’s mother. Some people may become regulars just for that. The wines were good too, including one Italian red that goes for just $10 a bottle.

The selection of wines is roughly one-third Italian, a bit more than a third domestic (mostly northern California and heavy on Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay) and the remainder non-Italian imports. There is a good mix of wines ready to drink today and some that will grow more complex with age. The wine selection is not as extensive as it would be at a large, off-premise-only wine shop. However, a lot of care has been put into the list and the staff can answer questions about any of the bottles. There is also the added benefit that you can take any bottle off the shelf and have it opened at the bar with just a modest corkage fee. Try before you buy is the way to go if you’re thinking of buying several bottles of a wine. Of course, Enoteca will also offer several wines by the glass.

Enoteca La Storia

In addition to their on- and off-premise wine sales, Enoteca La Storia offers a number of wine-related services. These include three different wine clubs, wine cellar consultation, wine tastings with producers on hand and wine classes. If you’re purchasing for a big event, volume discounts are also available. They will have an online store, but it's not up and running yet.

Located at 416 N. Santa Cruz Avenue just off of Los Gatos-Saratoga Rd, Enoteca La Storia is less than 5 minutes from the freeway. It’s in a small shopping mall and there is plenty of parking, a bonus in Los Gatos. There is also a side room for private events.

Enoteca La Storia
416 North Santa Cruz Avenue
Los Gatos, California 95030

408-625-7272
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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Hours
Mon – Weds: 10:00 AM – 9:00 PM
Thurs: 10:00 AM – 10:00 PM
Fri and Sat: 10:00 AM – 11:00 PM
Sun: 12:00 PM – 8:00 PM

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Review: Food & Wine Magazine App for iPad

: Wine & Dine; Written by Fred Swan; Created on Tuesday, 12 October 2010 07:00

Food & Wine Magazine has released an app for iPad. They previewed the app at the 2010 American Wine Awards ceremony last Tuesday night and released it on Thursday. The app is essentially a digital version of their magazine with an attractive interactive interface and some extra features made possible by its digital nature. The app and the inaugural issue — “the wine issue” — are free for now. There will be a fee for subsequent issues. Whether or not you buy future issues, I think there’s more than enough value in the current one to justify your time in downloading it.

food-and-wine-app

Speaking of downloading time, as with most iPad magazines, getting the app itself is very quick but the magazine files are large and takes a few minutes even on WiFi. You only have to go through that process once for each magazine though, so it’s not a big deal. The attractive design and stunningly good photos alone make it worthwhile. (The photos in the print version are very good, but on the iPad the food shots practically leap out of the screen — absolutely gorgeous.)

The iPad issue also gives you more than just a shiny copy of the printed publication. There is extra content. In the current issue, there are videos of chefs Michael Chiarello and Mario Batali demonstrating cooking techniques and recipes. (The videos are well done, but the app crashes every time I close the video window.) There are also 100 new wine pairings that were put together expressly for this iPad issue.

Here’s a list of the primary articles included in this issue of Food & Wine for iPad:

Batali’s Eataly - Covering Mario Batali’s new 50,000 square foot “artisanal-food-and-and-wine market and restaurant complex.” Recipes are included.
Trendspotting - The focus is on Italian-American food.
Chef Recipes Made Easy - Seattle chef Jason Franey’s recipes are tweaked for home chefs.
Well-Being - Seamus Mullen, a finalist on last year’s “The Next Iron Chef” series from Food Network, offers healthy tapas recipes.
The Gastronaut Files - Domenica Marchetti shows how to make ravioli.
Fast - Grace Parisi of Food & Wine offers 9 recipes for good food you can make quickly.
Travel - A guide to the “best wine & food” in Canada.
Sonoma Vineyard Lunch - An article, recipes and videos focused on the wines of Jamey Whetstone’s Whetstone Wine Cellars and wine country lunch prepared by Michael Chiarello.
Wine Lessons - Sommeliers give their advice on 12 different topics, from “essential gear” to good values in sparkling wine and their favorite web sites.
Wine and Food Pairing - Recipes for 8 tasty-looking dishes and pairing suggestions.
Trends - Wine country art and art related to wine.
100 Bottles to Drink Right Now - A list of wines that executive wine editor Ray Isle thinks you need to try. [Can anyone drink 100 wines "right away?"]
2010 American Wine Awards - Find out which wines really got F&W tasters excited.
Italy's Lazio - “Eat & drink like a Roman”
Where to Go Next - 5 new favorite hang-outs for sommeliers.
Buying and Pairing Guide - Wines from Food & Wine’s 100 Bottles list are arranged into lists by color and price point, then paired with a recipe.

As good as this iPad-azine is, there are things I’d like to see enhanced, or added, in future issues:

Shopping lists - Give me a button after each recipe that sends a shopping list to Mail or Notes.
Links - There are a couple of links that take readers to the Food & Wine webpage that itself has links to certain cookbooks on Amazon. That’s not enough. Shouldn’t every chef's name link to a bio? Personally, I think every wine name should also link to the winery, though I imagine that F&W feel they should get paid for that. Restaurants and shops have their addresses, phone numbers and urls listed, but the urls aren’t clickable. This is 2010 folks, if you’re going to include a url in a digital publication, make it functional!

Clickable icons and scrolling for recipes, but non-functional urls
Interface tweaks - The app is very interactive. There is a lot of scrolling and tapping. Changing the orientation of the iPad can change the layout and make more content visible. There’s also a fairly helpful introduction to the interface that pops up when you first open the issue (and is accessible thereafter via the table of contents). And the “recipe index” is marvelous. But I get the impression that the graphic designers won a few too many battles against the human factors/user-experience people.  For some recipes, there is a fixed header (with the title and a photo) that takes up so much room in landscape mode that the scrolling window for the recipe below is too small to be practical.  Photo links are easy to spot — marked with a camera icon — but text based links blend in too much with the body text.  The video buttons (““tap for video” WATCH MARIO cook!”) are cool, but please tell me WHAT he’s going to cook. Don’t make me watch the video to figure it out
Finally, I think digizines like this should interact with my digital life more. It would give me a richer experience and be better for the publishers and their advertisers. Why aren’t there opportunities to Tweet things like “check out the the great list of wines in the Food & Wine iPad app?” Why can’t I “like” the app or a recipe on Facebook? Why can’t I tap the address of a listed restaurant to add it to my Contacts? Why can’t I tap the date in the ad for the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen to add the event to my calendar? Publishers need to accentuate the “digi” and move beyond the “zine.”

These mild-mannered suggestions aside, the Food & Wine app for iPad looks great and, if you drink every listed bottle and make every recipe, will keep you busy and gaining weight for at least four months. Check it out!

If you enjoyed this article, please share it! Icons for popular sharing services are at the right above and also below.

Follow NorCalWine on Twitter for breaking wine news, information on events and more. Become a fan and join the NorCal Wine community on Facebook. Also check out our comprehensive Northern California winery listings. They are very useful for planning a tasting trip or just getting in touch with a winery.

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Most Read Articles

Wine & Dine

Solving a Food and Wine Pairing Puzzle at Tadich Grill

Matthew Stamp of The French Laundry Wins Top Sommelier Award

Off Topic: Great Cheap Bites of The Big Apple

Enoteca La Storia Wine Bar opens in Los Gatos

Enoteca La Storia

Review: Food & Wine Magazine App for iPad

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