How to tweak dishes to pair with that bottle of wine you've been saving

A few years back, esteemed chef Jack Riebel gathered wine professionals to work out food pairings for a fundraising dinner. But rather than finding the right wine for planned dishes, he was aiming to make the food compatible with the event's predetermined bottles. What did corn-crab chowder need to play well with the chardonnay? (A touch more crème fraîche, as it turned out.) And just how much black pepper should adorn the beef tenderloin to work with a big ol' Aussie shiraz? A lot.

Welcome to the world of "reverse pairing": modifying food to work with a particular wine. Restaurant chefs need to do it frequently for meals featuring specific beverages, but home cooks are just as capable of tweaking cuisine for optimal matchups. It's that easy.

"I always refer back to Jeremiah [Tower]," said Steve Vranian, the chef at Gianni's Steakhouse in Wayzata, who worked for years with the renowned Bay Area trailblazing chef. "You just need to have a common thread that runs through the dish and the wine, some kind of common spice or aroma or flavor."

For Vranian, it starts with, well, common scents. And that makes sense, considering aromas are such a huge component of taste (as much as 80% by some estimates). "It's the first thing you hit and the last thing you experience," he said.

Napa cabernets and steak are a great marriage, but Vranian burrows deeper. "If it's from the Napa floor," he said, "all I think of is eucalyptus, so adding bay leaf or maybe even smoked bay leaves [to a dish] can make a difference."

Erik Skaar, executive chef at Vann Restaurant in Spring Park, agrees. "Aromas are at the top of the pyramid, so you're building the pyramid upside down."

The pyramid's other building blocks include the dish's main component, whether protein or vegetable, and often more important, spices (as with the bay leaves) and sauces.

For example, an olive-tinged sauce is a swell accompaniment for briny wines from France's Rhône region. Whites made with grapes grown near the ocean, such as Spain's albariño or Greece's assyrtiko, elevate dishes that get late, light additions of salt — preferably sea salt, of course — in the food.

And that may be counterintuitive; you should tread softly with the saline in most situations. "Salt and tannins can really make the tannins bitter and green-tasting," said Vranian, who tends to apply salt a few hours before cooking and pats the meat dry before tossing it on the grill.

The cook's goal: "To be respectful and always make the wine look good or better," Vranian said.

'Like with like' — or not

It's hard to go wrong when using ingredients that are compatible with the elements of a wine. But one size doesn't fit all, and sometimes contrast is needed — especially when it comes to how light or heavy the food is.

Skaar, who refers to these culinary modifications as "ornaments on a Christmas tree," likes to go that route.

"If you have a really light pinot noir, you can have a rich, thick sauce," he said. In such cases, the bright acidity of the pinot masterfully cuts through the rich sauce. And sometimes a wine provides an opportunity for gastronomic ambidexterity. Chablis and Champagne provide contrast to fatty smoked salmon, but brushing the fish with capers and/or Dijon mustard punches up the compatibility factor.

Home cook Brad Ballinger of St. Paul loves to play around with sauces to optimize the matchup. "If you have a pinot noir you've been aging, and you also have a recipe for venison with blackberry sauce that you absolutely love," he said, "change the venison to something a little less pronounced, like pork or chicken, and go for a sauce that's a little brighter, like cherry or even a bit of tamari."

The cooking method also can come into play. When grilling meat or fish to go with a bold red, Vranian said, wood tends to be smokier and heavier while charcoal is milder. (Side note: Buttery California chardonnays can cozy right up to a grilled steak, especially if it is brushed with butter.)

Easy does it

The options are endless, but as with most food preparation, Skaar notes, "A lot of times things get overcomplicated, so I try to simplify things."

Thankfully, there are at least two nearly foolproof approaches to this unification practice. First, pair wine you like with food you like, and modify the latter as you see fit — and don't be afraid to experiment (see below for options).

Still, the most surefire method is to incorporate the wine into the food. Ballinger did that for a multicourse dinner featuring the French dessert wine Sauternes, which he cited as "a rich, unctuous wine that usually has a large amount of acid to pair with savory dishes. So we wanted to showcase that.

"A tagine, for example, got an infusion of more dried fruits. A seared arctic char was served with a beurre blanc made with Sauternes instead of a dry white wine. A leek flan dish saw the leeks get extra caramelized. All of this was to create bolder flavors to go with a bolder wine."

In our kitchen, we love to make the evening's wine — usually a sauvignon blanc — part of the finishing touch with shrimp scampi and chicken piccata or francese. Same goes for a hearty red with steak au poivre.

There are few sure things in life, but that strategy is among them.

Matchmaking

If you're looking for superstar wine-with-food pairings, here are 10 ways to start.

Bordeaux reds: dried herbs and/or currants

Chenin blanc: green apple and/or honey

Grüner Veltliner: white pepper

Merlot: plums

Pinot gris/grigio: lemon or orange rind

Pinot noir (domestic): red berries and/or tamarind

Pinot noir (French): mushrooms

Sauvignon blanc: grapefruit and/or fresh herbs

Syrah/shiraz: Blueberries and/or bacon

Zinfandel: dark chocolate and/or blackberries

Bill Ward is a freelance food and drink writer living in Nashville who writes at decant-this.com. Follow him on Twitter: @billward4.