Matching morels

Matching food and wine is where the fun part of this addiction sets in. Of course there are no rules and fashion changes. Before 1900, the British often drank sweet white wine with dinner and claret afterward. In France, even now, Port is mainly a before-dinner drink. The Russian Imperial Court took Champagne with caviar but the Champagne sent to the Czars was sugared well beyond anything available today. Still, there are some combinations that really do seem favored, like raw oysters and Chablis. For years I had convinced myself that Muscadet worked with oysters, and it does, that New Zealand sauvignon blanc’s bright tartness was as flattering to the oyster as a squeeze of lemon, and maybe it is. But when I feel flush enough to spring both for the Chablis and the oysters, I have to face the fact that I have been fooling myself – this is how things are meant to be. Sauternes and foie gras, less predictably, are also a simply perfect fit. In the current fashion, wild salmon (and the Copper River Kings are running this week) and Oregon pinot noir are thought inseparable: I like this match just fine but I am not a true believer here. The great, eternal, one and only, match for good pinot is the wild mushroom. Last week O’Malia’s had morels for $40 a pound. So what could I do but buy a couple of ounces, saute them in butter, reduce a little heavy cream, and pour them over a slice of rare beef? With a bottle of pinot noir from Burgundy (Gros Hautes Côtes de Nuits 2002), what a perfect match. The forest floor undertones of the wine matched the mushrooms and the bright cherry fruit added a new note, almost a new dimension. The same combination of morels, cream and Burgundy would do much the same for a piece of chicken, or, for the fashionable, some roasted salmon, or, for that matter, a piece of ordinary toast. Happily, the morels at O’Malia’s are near their pinots and they have two excellent pinots under twenty dollars at the moment – one from Au Bon Climat in California, the other from Cloudline in Oregon. Sure the morels are expensive but a couple of ounces are only five dollars and they’ll make your $18 pinot taste like fifty bucks.