UNCORKED Season 1 Extra: French Laundry Food & Wine Pairing

Paul Roberts was the Master Sommelier at the French Laundry until 2008. He walks us through the basics of food & wine pairing. Paul is now the wine director at Colgin Cellars.

[Applause] hi my name is Paul Roberts the wine director of The French Laundry in Napa Valley here we are in a beautiful July day with one of our favorite dishes as a French Laundry during the summer a salad of compressed summer melons take three melons that are grown in the French

Laundry Gardens we have a watermelon cantaloupe gallium melon some pickled watermelon rind and then a mint Agri Dew so kind of a glucose mitt infused syrup which really adds a kind of refreshing herbal quality to these wonderful melons so you have something with a little bit

Of sweetness a little bit of a tart component along with that great herbal nature of the mitt which is a wonderful contrast to the flavor of the melon we’ve also taken some watermelon rind pickled it adds a little bit of a tart contrast and then small slivers of

Nicoise Olives so a little saltiness to counteract that real refreshing sweetness that you see within the melons we need to think about the components of the dish think is the dish light bodied medium bodied full-bodied so when I think about this it’s more that light body dish so automatically I need to

Start thinking about a light bodied wine so light bodied wine is something that generally maybe has not been aged in Oak barrels it has a little bit of more of a crisp refreshing sensation those types of grapes can be sauvignon blanc is a great one shinen block is another

Fantastic one also Riesling so where we start here should we start with sauvignon blanc from the Napa Valley so we smell the wine you know clean crisp definitely when I smell it it reminds me of almost of Summer has some kind of citrus components to it even a little herbal

Element but it doesn’t quite necessarily smell like like as much as melons as I thought even gonna taste it has almost a little more body might even be almost too much of a wine for this so sauvignon blanc I think is what we call compatible what I mean by compatible is

When we think about food at the French Laundry and how it relates to wine so we have two kind of philosophies sometimes you just need something that’s compatible meaning it works meaning that the dish and the food doesn’t hurt the wine and the wine doesn’t hurt the dish

I think I know that’s what we have here is we have a compatible wine but what we’re always trying to achieve it’s what’s called expressible and expressibility for us is kind of the Holy Grail it means that we found a wine and a dish that so worked together that

You know the sum becomes greater than the individual parts so I think with fish dish you know I have those fresh summer flavors of the mint of the herbs in terms of the mustard greens a little salty almost brownie quality and then just something that has almost a crunchiness and sometimes for anything

Crunchy like I do in watermelon I almost think of something which has a real bright refreshing acidity so what I’m always thinking is maybe a reasoning so automatically I smell it again it smells almost like mint has this kind of fresh mint kind of Summer component smells of cantaloupe melon herbs even

Just the smell of the wine almost reminds me and makes my mouth water just like a perfect perfectly fresh melon would so if I take a sip of it it almost tastes like the salad all of a sudden the melons are going to taste more like melons the reasoning will

Taste more like Riesling then that is what we’ve achieved expressibility because all of a sudden everything is working in concert and that’s when you found the perfect match and then here we have one of the classics of the French Laundry this is a grilled beef with a hint of the woods

Mushroom heracovair or green beans fresh potatoes called risole meaning we Brown them on all sides and then sauce Colbert which is a kind of a infusion of butter veal stock and a little bit of tarragon so the wonderful qualities that you’re looking for here are all kind of

Accented together the beef what we’ve done is this cut of beef is actually ribeye whether you have ribeye New York strip filet look at how you’ve cooked it here we’ve actually done is we’ve grilled it so as you grill the beef you get a more Smoky quality a little bit of

Char really going to dictate the type of wines that you want to head towards so the natural match which most people do is they think beef they automatically go Cabernet the Apple Valley Cabernet really extraordinary with many many beef dishes so here we have a wonderful producer and it’s from the Rutherford

District of California so Rutherford in Napa Valley gives you more of a Dusty quality lots of black cherries a little bit of tobacco but also because it has been aged in those oak barrels you pick up a little but that smokiness that you get and actually in the flavors of the beef

Another thing you can look for because all of a sudden you’ve added these earthy components of the mushrooms and the veal stock so you can look towards California Syrah this is actually a wine that you’re going to get much more kind of black fruit flavors more Black Plum

Black jam instead of the kind of earthy Smoky red cherry flavors you associate with Cabernet but again don’t always get locked in It’s thinking beef equals Cabernet it is a great match but look at really what’s on the plate and that’s what we try to do here at the French

Laundry is we start with the base protein I.E the beef or a fish or a pork and then we basically move outward and as we move outward that’s when we begin to look and see what is on the plate that allows you a lot of different Freedom so if you like Syrah possibly

Maybe you have a even an olive component on the dish you have herbs like here we have tarragon Syrah is a real natural match many times if we’re looking to not necessarily pair a wine from the Napa Valley or the surrounding region we try to go back and think where’s there great

Beef in the world well some of the most extraordinary beef anywhere in Europe comes from Tuscany in Italy they have a real class and there what they do is they drink senjavesi one of our favorites is sanjivasi specifically from an area called Brunello de Montalcino so here we

Have a great one this Rosa de manchacino from the o4 Vintage you get dried cranberry a little almost a rose petal flavor and this herb component almost a little tobacco but especially with this earthiness that you find in this great aged beef the mushrooms and then the

Tarragon and the veal sauce sanchezi is another classic match so here’s one plate three different wines they all work fantastic so always remember start with a protein and then work out think about the flavors on the plate and that’s going to really drive the type of wine you want to serve with it