Matches made in the backyard

In My Glass

By Rob Kasper

April 30, 2008

The sweet Elio Perrone Moscato d'Asti went well with fruit salad. It's "a sparkling charmer," says wine guide author Courtney Cochran. (Sun photo by Elizabeth Malby / April 22, 2008)

There are backyard times, evenings when you are wearing shorts and a T-shirt and munching on fruit salad. They are on the uptick now that the weather is warming.

For suggestions on good backyard wines, I called Courtney Cochran in San Francisco. She is 28 and the author of Hip Tastes: A Fresh Guide to Wine, a handbook of tips delivered in a relaxed style.

For example, she advises that if you are stuck at a business reception where only lousy wine is being served, you should put ice cubes in your glass to dilute the off flavors. Through her Web site, courtney cochran.com, she works as a personal sommelier, an occupation, I guess, that is the grapy equivalent of a personal trainer. She also plans parties focused on wine. At one, a tasting of white wines, everyone wore white and many sippers were clad in T-shirts.

"I am not into stuffy," Cochran told me.

She sent me a list of wines that she thought matched up well with warm-weather fare, such as gazpacho, fruit salad, watermelon and potato salad.

For the fruit, her strategy was to match sweetness with sweetness. For the savory dishes, she chose wines with acidity that would mellow assertive flavors.

Her idea of pairing fruit salad with Moscato d'Asti, an effervescent Italian wine, was a delight. Who knew you could drink wine with fruit salad?

The only disappointment was on the potato-salad front.

Cochran suggested pitting a French chardonnay against the potato salad. I tried a bottle of 2006 Macon-Villages. The wine was very good. But the matchup left me thinking that no wine goes well with potato salad.

The pairings

BEST COUPLE
>>Fruit salad and 2007 Elio Perrone Moscato D'Asti
Castiglione Tinella, Italy
$19. Distributed by the Henry Group Sweet without being cloying, this low-alcohol wine (5 percent alcohol by volume) performed as author Courtney Cochran predicted. "A sparkling charmer," she said, "that mimics the flavors of the fruit salad." Who knew a sip of wine would taste good with a piece of pineapple? It also worked, I discovered, with watermelon.

FIRST RUNNER-UP
>>Gazpacho and 2006 Albarino de Fefinanes
Pontevedra, Spain
$19. Distributed by Kysela Pere et Fils The white wine from Spain's Rias Baixas region had great body at 12.5 percent ABV. The wine hit it off with Spain's traditional cold red soup, heavy on tomato and garlic. Cochran said the wine's subtle "vegetal and herbal notes deftly play off the tomato." All I could say was, "They sure get along."

NOT A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN
>>Eggy potato salad and 2006 Guillemot-Michel Macon-Villages Quintaine
Clesse, France
$21. Distributed by Kysela Pere et Fils This wine has crisp fruit and well-balanced acid that Cochran and I thought would cut through the creamy goop of the potato salad. The goop prevailed. The wine, however, at 14 percent ABV was quite good by itself or paired with another warm-weather staple, the tuna-fish sandwich.

[Rob Kasper]

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