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Rosé with Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup #WinePW

 

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To kick off the 2021 #WinePW calendar, Camilla of Culinary Adventures with Camilla is hosting our discussion about Saké and other pairings for Asian foods. You can read her initial invitation here and join us on Twitter January 9 at 11am EST to follow along! I don’t drink saké or bai jui…they’re just not to my taste. But I was super thrilled to dive into wine and Asian foods and this was a brilliant opportunity to pair wine with something I’ve been dying to make: Taiwanese beef noodle soup.

I’ve been wanting to make this soup for ages and finally tracked down the last ingredient (black bean paste) to make it possible. When I lived in Taipei, 牛肉湯麵 (beef noddle soup) was a staple food in my diet. I must have eaten it at least once a week. I remember the first time I ordered it as take out. They gave me one flimsy plastic bag filled with noodles and beef and another, equally flimsy bag, filled with broth. I held them in front of my with all the delicacy I would hold a bomb as I walked home through the night market, my university campus, while I scaled the back gate of the campus (going around the compound was so far), then finally up to my fourth floor apartment.

Pairing wine with Asian food

I tend to play it safe with my Asian food pairings. Generally because I don’t think I have a talent for pairing but I also feel a little hamstrung by the wines available to me. And Asian foods…Asian flavors include everything from sweet, sour, salty, spicy, bitter, umami. Sometimes (frankly often really) combining more than one flavor in the same dish. This is definitely a food category where they old standby “white wine with fish and chicken and red wine with meat” does not do you much of any good.

In an interview with Winetraveler, Thomas Ho said: The predominant Taiwanese flavors are sweet and salty with a bit of spiciness in the south.” According to Ho, co-founder of Taiwan Academy of Professional Sommeliers, executive director of Taiwan Sommelier, and instructor at National Kaohsiung University of Hospitality and Tourism “Taiwan has been influenced by Hokkien, Cantonese, Hakka and Japanese cultures, so the cuisine is colorful and flavorful with the use of soy sauce, garlic, ginger and fermented sauces.” He suggests light red or high acid wine for pairing with Taiwanese foods.

I decided on rosé because Taiwanese beef noodle soup is so darn flavorful I was concerned that it would overpower white wine. And Turkey doesn’t offer a lot in the way of light reds and I didn’t think a high alcohol, okay red would work either. The answer therefore must live somewhere in the middle with rosé.

Chateau Nuzun Blush, 2019

I started out the meal with a riff on my favorite appetizer: crab rangoons. A friend who shared the meal with me is gluten free so instead of wrapping the rangoon mix in wonton wrappers, I served it as a baked dip with fried wontons, humus chips, and carrots on the side. I remember making these for Taiwanese friends. I teasingly told them I was preparing “traditional Chinese food.” They greeted this with much skepticism when I pulled out the cream cheese. They laughed when I conceded that these were more traditional American Chinese food and, in the end, loved them.

For this month’s pairings, I chose two rosé wines from Thracian producer, Chateau Nuzun. People use “blush” and “rosé” more or less interchangeably here. However, for producers like Chateau Nuzun who include both a blush and a rosé in their catalogue; “blush” tends to mean a paler wine and “rosé” a darker. The Chateau Nuzun 2018 Blush certainly fell into that paler category with its light salmon color.

The wine blends together Merlot (70%), Öküzgözü (15%), and Zinfandel (15%). Strawberries, crunchy cranberry, and red currants on the nose with with a whiff of black currant leaf. On the palate it was dry and fresh with vibrant acidity and splashes of lemon to join the red fruits from the nose. Light-bodied with moderate alcohol (12% abv) it paired well with the creamy crab rangoon dip and complimented the sweet chili sauce.

Chateau Nuzun Rosé, 2019

Like the blush, the Chateau Nuzun Rosé blended international and domestic grapes. This blend included Merlot (60%), Çatal Karası (20%), and 10% each of Öküzgözü and Zinfandel. Longer maceration time and greater extraction gave this wine a much deeper color. More a pale red than a dark rosé!

Deep but translucent ruby on the pour, the wine revealed aromas of red plum, black cherry, red and black currants, and bay leaf. Ocean Spray fresh cran-cherry juice on the palate. It’s so juicy as to be dangerous, the 14.4% abv is utterly unnoticeable. Medium-bodied and acidity, the wine complimented so well the spices in the noodle soup, really highlighting the fresh ginger and clove flavors.

Definitely a winning pairing!

Curious about saké and other wine pairings for Asian foods?

Don’t forget to check out what the rest of the #WinePW crew discovered in their saké, wine, and food pairing explorations! And join our Twitter discussion on Saturday, January 9 at 11am EST by following the #WinePW hashtag.

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• Our Osechi Ryori おせち料理 (Japanese New Year’s Food), Other New Year’s Eve Traditions, + Recent Saké Explorations by Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Rosé with Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup by The Quirky Cork
• Steak and Saké Night at the Culinary Cabin by Somm’s Table
• Sushi and Wine? Totally Fine! Here’s a Few to Try in 2021 by Wine Predator
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