Chateau Coutet Cookbook

Food is an important part of the wine experience. While it is certainly nice to enjoy a glass of wine (or two) by itself, most of the time wine is paired with food. In those cases it is important to get the pairing right.

Wine and food pairing is part science and part art. There are chemical reactions that occur in the mouth that make certain wines taste better (or worse) with different types of food. There are also the intangible qualities that can make one wine a good choice but another, similar, wine a great choice.

Some wineries like to help guide their patrons along with broad suggestions of the types of food that pair well with a wine (e.g. Chambourcin with pizza or a white containing 1% residual sugar with Pad Thai). Chateau Coutet has gone further with their Cookbook (Twitter).

As part of their launch, Aline Baly did a video interview with Wine Spectator. In the video Aline discusses a three-pronged strategy for pairing wines with food: complementary pairings, contrasting pairings, and texture pairings.

Some of the recipes in the Cookbook, like the Terrine de Foie Gras Mi-Cuit, are classic others, like the Lobster Fricasse are not traditional Sauternes pairings (but sound amazing).