Take back your goulash: two wine dinners, one rigorously planned and right on the money, the other wide of the mark

Take Back Your Goulash

I attended two wine dinners last week, and though the wines at each were excellent, the results were strikingly different. Occurring just two nights apart, they exemplified the fulfillment, sensual and cerebral, that comes from pairing good food with the correct wines as well as the dissatisfaction and disquiet of poorly chosen matches.

The first, a dinner with wines from Austria, took place at Seppi, a respected French restaurant at the Parker Meridien Hotel in New York. It was, sadly, not the menu you would expect in a good Manhattan restaurant. In a misguided attempt at authenticity the menu seemed to be a Hapsburg peasant fantasy. Maybe it’s genre food. But it came across, at least to me, as an archaic, coarse, worn out mode of cuisine, plus it included parts of animals I would not dream of eating.

For my palate, this food vandalized the wonderful, high-spirited, fresh qualities of the wines and inhibited rather than enhanced my enjoyment. Produced in an international style by several noteworthy small to medium sized Austrian wineries, these are terrific wines that belong on smart restaurant menus in New York, London, Paris, Milan or East Hampton.

And Vienna too, for that matter. When I visit Austria, I’m not usually served goulash soup or blood sausages. It’s oysters and rack of lamb and baby vegetables and country cheeses and fruit tarts. In other words, it is the international vocabulary of food, dishes that match well with the tastes of contemporary Austrian wines. If only the Seppi restaurant had kept this in mind, the experience of that wine dinner would have been a lot more gratifying.

No such mistakes were made at my second wine dinner. Not only was it nearly perfect in both concept and execution, it took place right here on North Main Street at the Della Femina restaurant.

In anticipation of opening a restaurant at their vineyard in Cutchogue, Peconic Bay Winery has organized a series of wine dinners on Long Island to showcase their various wines. This was the first dinner in East Hampton and so the first that I attended. It assuredly won’t be the last.

Michael Meehan, the culinary director of Peconic Bay, collaborated with Della Femina executive chef, Michael Rozzi, on a stellar menu to pair with Peconic Bay wines. The result was an evolved, harmonious, highly sophisticated matching of wine with food—and quite simply one of the best meals I’ve had. Each dish was layered, complex, refined and balanced, as were the accompanying wines. At $59 per person plus tax and gratuity, it was quite a bargain for the one hundred or so diners in the restaurant.

The first course, for example, was spicy fluke tartar with wasabi, radish slaw and ginger dressing. The contrasts in texture and flavors were fastidious yet dazzling. The accompanying wine, a 2003 riesling had the body, fruit, acidity and spice notes to synchronize flawlessly. I savored every bite and every sip. And so it went through five courses. The well-formed, smooth oak notes of Peconic Bay’s 2001 La Barrique chardonnay engaged with the smoky paprika oil in a scallop fricassee. A rich, velvety 2002 cabernet franc supported the lush, juicy meat and crisp skin of the duck and the tang of a risotto flavored with wild fennel pollen.

Greg Gove, the winemaker at Peconic Bay, has produced some terrifically successful wines in recent years. And this dinner, in a way no isolated tasting can duplicate, demonstrated just how appealing and exuberant his wines are.

My two different wine dinners last week were an important reminder that a little thought and consideration in pairing food with wine, even in a totally casual way at home, has a real payoff in enjoyment.