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The question
What's the best wine and food pairing you've ever had?
The answer
There is a technical answer and there is an emotional answer. …
I've had the good fortune to experience foie gras with old Château d'Yquem. Best of all, a friend was paying. Talk about guilty pleasures: ethically questionable liver, a lifetime's allowance of cholesterol and a $500 wine (for a mere half-bottle). Seared duck liver with the greatest of all dessert wines ranks as one of the ultimate duos, the culinary equivalent of Astaire and Rogers, Lennon and McCartney, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg.
But the pleasure was not my most memorable because such matchups, given the expense, draw attention to themselves. You spend time dutifully commending the pairing with high praise rather than silently enjoying. I'd sooner take the plate of raw oysters I once had with ice-cold muscadet ($12 at retail) at a Boston harbour bar. It was the perfect ambience for the molluscs: summertime, a bustling room and a Red Sox game on the screen. And it was the ideal wine: crisp, lean and deferential, a white that knew how to whisper with subtle shellfish. That's as close as I'll come to the sort of unfussy grazing Hemingway seemed to do wherever he went and chronicled in such perfectly plain language. The combination was one plus one equals three – and gave me change back from a $50 bill.
E-mail your wine and spirits questions to Beppi Crosariol. Look for answers to select questions to appear on The Globe and Mail website.