When we think of wraps, we think of a light refreshing lunch for a sunny summer day — much like Ann Vogel describes in her recent luncheon on Bainbridge Island.
Initially when we saw wraps as this week’s recipe, we weren’t sure which wine we wanted to recommend.
Luckily for us, Vogel made it easy with her choice of Thai Curry Chicken Salad for the filler of the wrap. In fact, we have two wines we think would pair well with this dish: Gewürztraminer or Riesling.
Both wines fit the light lunch theme and are a refreshing treat on a hot summer day.
Our go-to wine pairing Bible: “What to Drink With What You Eat”, by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page, says Riesling — especially a Spätlese — is best for chicken or fish with curry sauce. Almost equally it says an Alsatian Gewürztraminer would go well.
Both wines boast a balance of acidity and sugar. Made in the traditional German style, the wines will be sweet and the higher residual sugar levels will be a welcome compliment to the grapes’ main characteristic: acidity.
It’s this balance between the acidity and the hints of sweetness that make these two styles of wine the go-to for most spicy Thai, Indian and Asian dishes.
So what is Spätlese? It’s a German wine term that translates to late (spat) picked (lese). It’s the lightest of the wines that fall under the late harvest category.
Spätlese grapes are picked at least seven days after the normal harvest, making them riper and giving them a higher must weight (the measure of sugar in grape juice).
A Spätlese Riesling has a high level of acidity that balances any overt sweetness; it is “fleshy” and intensely flavored, often with notes of apple, pear and honeysuckle and has an elegant nose with noticeable aromas.
Like the Riesling, the Gewürztraminer, or Gewürz for short, is a German grape known for its aromatics. This grape also grows well in France’s Alsace region. Whereas the Germans make a dry styled wine, the French let the grapes speak, producing a range of styles from dry to dessert wine.
For Vogel’s Thai Curry Chicken Salad Wraps we decided to recommend the same winery for both pairings. And it is by pure coincidence that we’re recommending a winery that has ties to Randall Graham, winemaker of Bonny Doon Vineyards — the winery we recommended for last week’s watermelon and Rose pairing.
Part of the Bonny Doon
crowd headed north from California to Washington five years ago
with the intent to create the best Riesling in America. The result
of those efforts was the establishment of Pacific Rim.
It’s because of the winery’s dedication to Washington Riesling that we recommend its dry Riesling.
We also recommend the winery’s Columbia Valley Gewürz because of its balance of acidity and 2.2 percent residual sugar.
On the next sunny weekend, we suggest holding a summer lunch for friends. Plan to make the wraps and buy a bottle of the Pacific Rim Riesling and Gewürz, then let your guests decide which they like better with the meal.
They’ll have fun
choosing, and you’ll look like a coordinated host/hostess with your
matching bottles and Asian-themed lunch.
