CHRIS: I will make any excuse to down some wine. “It’s the weekend,” “It’s Wednesday,” “It’s 8 o’clock,” “It’s Arbor Day,” “It’s Arbor Day’s eve,” “Hey get off my back, I feel like a glass of something…
TESS: This week the excuse was we were having fried chicken for dinner.
CHRIS: What the hell do you open up to go with fried chicken? (Other than a packet of Lipitor.) We put this to some of our wine sherpas.
The folks at the Colorado Wine Company recommended a Gruner Veltliner (the official grape of Austria) called Kalmuck.
Our friend at the How’s tasting room in Noho recommended the Rombauer Chardonnay.
Tess, always the red drinker, suggested a Chateauneuf-du-Pape.
TESS: Actually that was the guy at How’s, too. I really wish you wouldn’t keep getting us confused. It was really embarrassing when you sent him flowers for Valentine’s Day.
Bill is the manager of the How’s wine bar in NoHo. (Yes, that’s right, a grocery store with a wine bar. Sometimes Santa does bring you what you want for Christmas.) He had suggested Chateauneuf-du-Pape, but a good one for under $50 is hard to come by. Hard, but not impossible. I remembered I had a 2004 Domaine du Vieux Lazaret at Dusty’s in Silverlake a few months back that cost me $40 a bottle – in the restaurant! So I did some research and I found it online at winerz.com for $22.80. With tax and shipping it came out to be more like $27 but still that’s a lot less than 50.
CHRIS: So we got all three. All three were nice pairs to an oven fried chicken recipe a friend brought over.
The Gruner Vetliner was a full, fruity, white. Perfect if you’re not too adventurous.
TESS: It also makes a great pool wine and is a good buy at $14.99.
CHRIS: The Rombauer Chardonnay was the big surprise for me. This is a big, oaky, buttery Chardonnay.
TESS: It’s like if butterscotch got you drunk.
CHRIS: It’s kind of too much for me to drink without food, but it paired awesomely with the spices in the fried chicken.
TESS: I second that. I think we know how I feel about chardonnays, but this one really stood up to the food and even I thought it was a good match.
CHRIS: This is a red masquerading as a white for sure.
TESS: What the hell does that mean? Does the red have a wife and couple of clusters he left behind somewhere that he’s hiding from? Is he part of some sleeper cell of fundamentalist syrahs? When he pretends to be the white does he have to tuck his tannins?
CHRIS: CDP is a French blend from the Southern Rhone Valley of France. Every CDP is different, but all winemakers have to draw from a recipe of 13 grapes. Mostly, it’s Grenache, Mourvedre and Syrah. It’s a light fruity red (not too sweet), very accessible for those looking to cross over from whites. This is a great pair with the fried chicken if you’re a red lover.
TESS: I had it with the dark meat and it wasn’t at all over-powering. It’s a great red because it wasn’t too fruity, it was still complex and dry, but it was also light enough that the diehard white drinkers at the table all finished their glasses and wanted seconds.
Tags: chardonnay, chateauneuf-du-pape, food pairings, fried chicken, gruner vetliner
