Feeling like “Chinese for dinner” is as Australian as enjoying a good pizza or devouring a kebab. But what are ideal drinks to sip on when tackling some of the more complex flavours of this wonderfully diverse cuisine?
We ask sommeliers and restaurateurs from leading Chinese restaurants in Sydney and Melbourne how they approach food and wine matching in their establishments.
The Flower Drum, Melbourne
The Flower Drum, known for its elegant Cantonese dishes and sharp waiters, takes its wine service as seriously as it does the consistency of its famous Peking duck.
While co-owner Jason Lui says there aren’t too many rules in the world of food and wine matching, he does encourage his staff to suggest wines that will complement the meal.
“Being a Cantonese restaurant the food is generally more delicate and produce-driven,” he says. “I like to match buttery and rich chardonnays such as the Giaconda Estate from Beechworth with our baked crab shell.”
And of course, there’s duck with pinot noir. “Our Peking duck with any pinot noir is great – but one particular favourite at the moment is the William Downie Mornington Peninsula pinot.”
Still, customers will sometimes stretch the friendship with extreme requests. “Over the years I’ve seen customers match the most delicate of seafoods with reds such as malbecs, and recently some Chinese customers put dried sour plums in their Grange. At the end of it all, as long as the customer is happy having the wines with their food however they like it, then I am just as happy.”
Mr Wong, Sydney
Franck Moreau, head sommelier of the Merivale Group in Sydney, is working with many and varied restaurants. At Mr Wong he matches wines with strong, aromatic and subtle flavours, sometimes all at once. “Riesling, pinot noir and grenache are a few grapes that work very well with Asian-inspired dishes,” he says.
His favourite matches from the restaurant include yellowfin tuna, kohlrabi, sweet wasabi, soy and ginger dressing with KT ‘Peglidis’ riesling from the Clare Valley in South Australia; Chinese roasted duck with Principia pinot noir from Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula and steamed fish fillet with ginger and shallots matched with Yeringberg viognier from the Yarra Valley, Victoria.
Still, he also gets some left-of-centre requests that are more than OK with him. “I have had so many interesting requests but the most important thing is to make our customers happy. One of the strangest requests was to add crème de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur) into a very expensive bottle of cabernet to match with fish.”
The customer was happy, which means so was Moreau.
David’s Restaurant, Melbourne
David Zhou has owned David’s in Melbourne’s South Yarra for the last 16 years. With a menu inspired by his native Shanghai, there are dumplings, pork dishes and seafood often made punchy with vinegars and chilli. Zhou’s base rule starts with bubbles and dumplings.
“The lightness of a sparkling wine is well-suited to our dumplings,” he says. “Some of our dishes have sweet tastes, so light fruity reds such as pinot noir, refreshing rosés or fruit-filled whites like pinot gris make a great match with sticky pork belly and chat potato and our chicken ribs with chilli.”
Zhou says it’s up to the customer if they wish to complement or contrast their wines with the dishes they order. “We choose wines to suit our dishes when we write the wine list, but ultimately it’s up to the customer.”
Zhou recently held a wine dinner with leading winemaker Rick Kinzbrunner and his son Nathan from Giaconda winery in Beechworth. It was an easy marriage where crunchy garlic prawns were matched with the 2011 Giaconda chardonnay and pork with a seaweed biscuit sat well with the winemakers’ 2010 pinot noir.
“Rick’s innovative but authentic approach is what I believe and have been working on for 16 years and quite simply, his wines are great with our food.”
Spice Temple, Sydney
Gary Armstrong, assistant head sommelier who assists in creating the many wine lists of the Rockpool Group, says there are a couple of rules of thumb when matching wine with key Asian flavours. “Firstly, spice is better with more textured white wines, so slightly sweet wines with a richer mouth feel handle spice heat very well.”
Paramount is the need for balance with wine and food matching. “Light, delicate flavours need a light, delicate wine or you lose the subtleties of the dish,” he says.
In handling complexities of red wine and spice, Armstrong is clear: “Red wine can also handle spice heat very well but tannin and spice clash, so what works is plush, velvety fruit.” This includes softer reds like grenache and pinot noir.
The second flavour to manage is soy. “The savoury and umami elements that underlie much if not most Asian dishes need a wine with a slightly oxidative element that brings harmony to a pairing,” he says.
Two matches he recommends are prawn toast with Spice Temple sweet and sour sauce with a glass of 2014 Adelina ‘Off Dry’ riesling from the Clare Valley; and lobster siu mai dumplings with a 2013 CRFT ‘K1 Vineyard’ gewürztraminer from the Adelaide Hills.
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