The beauty of wine is the mystery, and how one cannot possibly know everything.
We were blown away by the surprisingly bright and fresh food pairing of a spinach salad with fresh yuzu and Libra Winery’s 2008 Pinot Gris. Eva received some beautiful homegrown yuzu citrus fruit from her green-thumbed brother Filip. She pureed the entire fruit (after taking out the seeds and cutting out some of the white pith) into a fresh and bright vinaigrette with some sesame oil and garlic. The zest of the fruit contains some natural pectins and gave the vinaigrette a nice creamy mayonnaise-y texture.
beautiful fresh yuzu
yuzu vinaigrette
It was absolutely perfect with the wine we had with it.
Perfect Pairing -- Libra Pinot Gris with Yuzu Spinach Salad
The 2008 Libra Wine, www.librawine.com, has a white plum, grapefruit and rose bouquet, with crisp and bright acidity. We tasted the wine at 55 degrees, slightly warm for a Pinot Gris, but wanted to taste at that warmer temperature to detect the nuances of flavors (and you can often better taste a white wine’s flaws when warm).
My good friend Doug Hengehold, VP of National Channel Management at Rodney Strong Vineyards in Sonoma says wine often gets a bad rap for a poor food pairing: “The quality of the wine always gets blamed for a bad pairing, it’s never the quality of the food.” While the yuzu salad was spectacular with the Libra Pinot Gris, the butternut squash soup we had as well was neutral. If we had not tasted the yuzu with this wine, we certainly may have “blamed” the wine for simply an average tasting.
Great Monday Night Dinner
The Wine:
Libra Wine
2008 Pinot Gris
Price: $15
Availability:
Contact the winery for details: 503-313-1775
Contact the winery for distribution details
