Bacchus in Hong Kong: Eight Mysteries(3)
Mystery #4: Why Wine with Chinese Food
Lau Chun, chef at private kitchen Yellow Door Kitchen, makes several points against serving wine with Chinese food:
• In Chinese culinary tradition, eating and drinking are essentially separate activities – there is no history of drinking fermented grape juice with a meal;
• A Chinese meal has no “main course” consisting rather of a succession of dishes complicating matching relatively few wines with relatively many courses;
• Presentation is less important making fancy stemware ridiculous;
• Strong flavours rule out subtle wines with yellow wine made from wheat often a better bet.
That said, Chun served up some of the most innovative food and wine matches of the week: 2001 Schlumberger Gewürztraminer Vendages Tardives Cuvée Christine with Shanghai stuffed duck, Pinto Grigio from the Alto Adige with pan fried pork neck in spicy vinaigrette and an Antonin Rodet Burgundy 2005with smoke pork rib with honey and tea leaves, Chun’s pièce de résistance.
Mystery #5: Why Western Wine
Nicolas Joly, the Buddha of Biodynamic wine making, raised an obvious point when he visited SA. “When I visit a country, I like to drink the wines of that country, not French imitations.” As the Cathay Pacific insert for Deep Blue 2006 notes “Grace Vineyards is situated in the centre of Shanxi Province, China, close to Tai Yuan, an area with a wine-making tradition that can be traced back to as early as the 7th century.” Long before vines were planted in Bordeaux.
Simon Tam reckons they were probably fermented from fruit or at least indigenous grape cultivars such as Zuoshan No 1, Shuangyou and Gongliang No 1. Why fly to HK to eat pizza?
