Pairing Alsace Pinot Gris

I've gone through around 5 or 6 bottles of the 1997 Tokay Pinot Gris Comtes d'Eguisheim by Léon Beyer in the past 2-1/2 months, ever since I found them available locally from Bacchus Int'l., and have enjoyed every one of them.

After drinking a lot of pinot gris in Alsace, from the top makers' best bottlings down to unheard-of house wines, I can personally confirm the literature that says it is very versatile with food. I've had it with foie gras (pan-seared and in terrine), Flammekueche (a.k.a., tart flambée), Baeckeoffe, choucroute, Cantonese crispy/spicy pork, Thai lamb curry and prawn crackers dipped in a spicy curried peanut sauce, and, as posted earlier, with an Alsacien stew of quail and foie gras. It matched well, in varying degrees, with each of the mentioned dishes.

Pinot gris wine will never have the crisp, minerally brightness of riesling, but with heavier dishes, such as the quail and foie gras stew, it is, to me, a better match.

The wine is a limpid, gold-tinged full yellow with a heady bouquet of alluringly spiced melon, ripe yellow tropical fruit, touch of lemon drop, moderate vanilla/oak, all mirrored on the palate in broad layers and voluptuously rounded curves. Full-bodied white, ripe fruit, but not at all cloyingly sweet, its acidity was just good enough to support/buttress the generous flavors.

I just had another bottle over dinner tonight with my family at our favorite Thai restaurant. My eldest son, 14 years old, has been having a glass or two with us when out to dinner. Unprompted, tonight, he commented to me that he thought the wine went well with the prawn crakers and curried peanut sauce and the dish of lamb curry. He was absolutely right...it certainly warms the heart to see how he can tell.

Another match I think making special mention of is with a Cantonese dish of deep-fried pork, crispy on the outside and juicy inside, laced with salt and hot red pepper. The wine gently eased the burn and resuscitated and cleansed the palate, its off-dry ripe fruit playing nicely with the pork's salty notes. An excellent match.

There are few bottles left in Bacchus of this wine. I purposely didn't post on it until now to make sure I had gotten a good helping of the Bacchus stock before someone cleans it out. Hopefully, that someone will be me.

With Marc and Léon Beyer (13th and 12th generations, respectively, in the business) in their Eguisheim vineyards: