CH’NG Poh Tiong
Many people consider it silly, absurd, even ridiculous to pair a simple dish with an expensive wine.
They regard it a mismatch.
You should never entertain such a reservation if you will enjoy the dish and the wine in equal measure. And feel they match perfectly.
The same would be true of two people falling in love.
It matters not a bit if one is poor and the other wealthy. Or if one is notoriously famous and the other a “nobody”. What matters is if they love each other.
Wine and food deserve the same outlook.
If you have a bottle of prestige champagne or precious Chevalier-Montrachet stashed away for a special treat, don’t think twice to lavish them on your favourite meal even if it be a casual dim sum lunch comprising classics such as siew mai, deep-fried beancurd skin stuffed with prawn filling, harkow, and Chiu Chow dumpling.
The yardstick is not the humble cost of the dim sums (or dish) but whether you will enjoy them with the wine. Come to think of it, one bottle may not actually suffice.
The same would be true of a costly delicacy paired with a value-for-money wine.
If you enjoy the two together, what are you waiting for?
A dried 6-head Amidori abalone (US$3,240 at Forum Restaurant, Hong Kong) will land you on Cloud 9 when savoured with an evolved Vigneti Massa Derthona. The unoaked Timorasso (saved by Walter Massa from near extinction) – golden, creamy honey/apricot/pineappley fruity – will wrap itself around the velvety sauce of the Chinese delicacy (my lips and taste buds are trembling just thinking of this).
Both wine and abalone are richly textured. And abundantly delicious and deserving of each other.
Another great match with the sea delicacy is an evolved white Chateauneuf-du-Pape or more humble Cotes-du-Rhone Village. The scented stone fruits – including peach – floral notes and glycerol textured Rhone whites need a generous Burgundy glass to release all that underlying Southern exoticism. A BIG GLASS PLEASE!
