September 16, 2004
Throw out the rules!White with red meat. Red wine with fish.
Match wine and food the way you like it. Lighter body pinot noirs are a stellar match for salmon and halibut. White wines like roussanne marry well with beef!
I recently went to Harry’s Plaza in Santa Barbara for dinner. I went down with some good friends from Santa Maria. Two of us had-you guessed it-Santa Maria-style cookin’. While Don had Harry’s spaghetti, Sherrill had the ribs and I had the Omaha (tri-tip). The food, by the way, was terrific. We were all stuffed when we left.
The next night, I had leftover tri tip with two salads-a fresh tomato with a clove of garlic, and a salad of thinly sliced lemon cucumber from Gold Coast Farms and onion. Fresh garlic is a winning match with almost any wine, I think.
With the Omaha and salads, I drank white wine! The wine was roussanne. Rosenblum Cellars in Alameda produced it from grapes grown here in Santa Barbara County.
Roussanne is a variety grown in both the northern and southern regions of the Rhone Valley in France. It is cultivated in Hermitage in the north where it is blended with another white grape called marsanne. In the southern Rhone, the grape is blended with other varietals. It is one of 13 grapes which is grown in Chateauneuf-Du-Pape in the southern Rhone.
Marsanne, roussanne and viognier are three white varieties that have roots in the Rhone. Important local producers such as Alban, Qupe, Tablas Creek, Beckmen, Ceres, Buttonwood and Curtis are producing great wines from these white Rhone grape types.
Roussanne has full body and a haunting aroma-hints of herb tea and an appealing minerality, which explains why the wine works particularly well with red meat, I think. Of all the Rhone whites, roussanne is my favorite.
According the wine author, Jancis Robinson, roussanne produces irregular yields and is susceptible to rot because of the tight clusters. “Noble rot,” also known as botrytis in the grape can produce a stunning dessert wine! One produced in France is called “vin du paille,” or “wine of the straw,” where the grapes are allowed to raisin on straw mats.
In Italy, a wine called “vin santo” is produced by the same method.
Alban in the Edna Valley has produced on occasion-when the conditions are right-some of the most exquisite dessert roussannes I have ever had, bottles well worth searching out!
If you run across a roussanne on a store shelf, pick it up, especially if it’s from Santa Barbara or San Luis Obispo county. Try it with a tri tip and lots of garlic!
Festival time!
- The Santa Barbara County Vintners’ Association will do another “Celebration of Harvest” Celebration on Saturday, October 9. To savor and sample the edible delectables-both wine and food-call the Vintners’ Association at (805) 688-0881.
- Paso Robles Wine Country is also presenting its Harvest Wine Tour October 15-17, 2004 with winemaker dinners and special winery events. In attempting to visit the Paso website for more events, I had problems with both browsers trying to navigate the site. I use-Mozilla and Netscape. So much for the Internet! Or so much for Bill Gates and the PC! I later had no problem navigating the site with a Mac. So for details, phone (805) 239-8463.
Bon appetit!
Wine lover and Santa Maria Times Wine columnist, Bob Senn, lives in the bucolic Los Alamos Valley and owns the Los Olivos Wine & Spirits Emporium.
