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Sauternes as Aperitif?
By Malcolm Jolley
"But how often does one eat foie gras? Once a year? You see: it's a problem."
The Bordelais quoted is not concerned for the goose and duck farmers of the Perigord. He is Eric Larramona who has brought to snowy Toronto a few of the recent vintages of Chateau Lafaurie-Peyraguey, a Sauternes whose vineyards were classified 1er Cru in 1855 along with its neighbour's, Yquem. The problem isn't that we're not eating enough foie gras (this point is debatable), but that the successful campaign of 30 years to match Sauternes with a fowl's engorged liver has limited the imagination of the food and wine loving public to the point that we're not enjoying nearly enough of the most nectarine of wines.
Sauternes is the ne plus ultra of dessert wine. The Hungarians owe claim to a serious challenge with Tokaji (Tokay), and they may yet have their Judgment at Paris day, once the vineyards and cellars are fully recovered from the viti and vinicultural effects of the Warsaw Pact. But for now, as it has been since at least 1855, the collection of rolling hills in Graves that attract a particular late harvest fog rolling in from the Bay of Biscay, command a towering respect worldwide. The relatively low alcohol, the twang of pronounced acid and the mysterious, almost unami, quality of noble rot put this wine in front of all other high sugar contenders.
It's probably the acid that first attracted the pairing between foie gras and Sauternes. The LaFaurie-Peyraguey was beautifully touched by it, particularly the 2002 we tasted. This would cut the fat of the engorged liver without disturbing the minerality of liver taste since the sweet and unami notes of the wines body quickly kick in. Sauternes, Tokaji and Australian botrytis infected wines work well with the fat (particularly from the Hunter Valley north of Sydney, where the Sauternes varietals Semmilion and Sauvingnon Blanc thrive) because they challenge, then supplicate in this way. Kobe beef, or more accurately Wagyu - since true "Kobe" beef is never exported from Japan - works the same way. The nouvelle cuisine chefs of Paris and points Michelin-starred-south thereof were doubtfully the first to figure this out, but they were, without doubt, the ones who spread it around the $30 a plate world. Back in Berkeley after a stay in France, Jeremiah Towers Anglo-Saxonised the concept in the late-70s at a swansong dinner at Chez Panisse when he famously paired Chateau Yquem with a well marbled roast of beef. It was inspired but Larramona's curse there began. By the mid-90s super fat, of which foie gras was the best and most margin making, was married to dessert wine - and if you were lucky (or in France, which in culinary terms is the same thing) it was Sauternes.
Another article could spend another 1,000 explaining the crimes against the palate committed in North America by well meaning, but poorly traveled, sommeliers who equated any old dessert wine as a great match to foie gras. Or anything sweet for that matter. They didn't (and still don't) get it: it's not just the sugar, it's the acid and the botrytis too… consumers of mediocre ice wine please take note. Save it for the end of the meal.
Last fall the cause of the aperitif in Ontario was dealt a near fatal blow when the LCBO delisted Lillet (more on this in future Gremolatas). Perhaps Sauternes and Barsac and Monbazillac, and the other noble rotters ought to fill that void. With Roquefort, or Parmesan, if not foie gras toasts.
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