Food and wine pairing is complex. But as many of us are trying to eat healthier, more plant-based diets it becomes an exercise in frustration. Traditional outlets barely ever talk about how to pair red wine with vegetarian dishes, beyond eggplant and mushrooms.
Wendy Narby, a wine educator and writer in Bordeaux and Sally Evans, a winemaker and owner of Château George 7 (sette) aim to change that. This week they talk about their new site, which helps us learn to pair the wines of Bordeaux and wines like them with vegetarian dishes. This podcast and their site, Wineand2veg.com, gives great ideas for pairings that prove you don’t have to give up bold wine if you decide to eat a plant-based meal.
Knowing you can have a meatless day and still have a great wine pairing makes it a little more appealing to try it, no?
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Welcome to wine for normal people the podcast for people who like wine but not the snobbery that goes with It I’m your host Elizabeth Schneider author of the wine for normal people book and certified wine dork and I’m MC ice just a wine loving normal person this podcast is sponsored by wine access if you want fantastic wines that will pair perfectly with vegetarian food go to Wine
Access.com wfnp and check out a page of the wines that I am loving right now get 10% off your first order with my special URL and don’t forget to join the wine club where I select all the wines wine access.com normal now let’s get to the show food and wine pairing is complex
But many of us are trying to eat healthier more plant-based diets and then it becomes an exercise and fres frustration because traditional Outlets barely ever talk about how to pair red wine in particular with vegetarian dishes Beyond eggplant and mushrooms that’s pretty much the go-to I’m guilty
Of this too honestly so when Wendy narby a wine educator and writer in Bordeaux and Sally Evans a wine maker and owner of Chateau George set in fronsac also in Bordeaux contacted me about their new initiative to create a site that would pair the of Bordeaux and wines like them
With vegetarian based dishes I was all in this show and then their site wine and2 veg which everybody needs to go to Wine and2 veg.com W NE the word and the number 2 and veg veg.com wine and2 veg.com is going to open new doors for
All of us in terms of how we can be healthier with our food and still enjoy the boulder wines that we love welcome when and Sally and thank you for doing this thank you for having us thank you so we’re going to start out with how
Each of you got into the wine world so I would like to hear about your day job since this project is a passion project for you both I can’t believe you’re pouring so much into this it’s amazing so let’s start out with Wendy can you tell us about your journey from growing
Up in the UK and then spending 30 years living and working in France and in Bordeaux now as a wine educator a writer and a tour guide yeah thank you yes well I was in Paris I came to Paris first to study so I did a master’s degree in food
And wine marketing Paris seemed like a pretty good place to do that and I lived in Paris for eight years and then I met a wine maker and what can I say I moved to bord so that was that was what got me down to bord and interestingly enough
Given the subject we’re talking about now I actually worked in a meat business in in Paris but talk about I know yeah I launched myself he was already in the Wayne business he was making so T so I launched myself into into the wine bu I started writing and then I went back
Teaching then the Wine Tours and I’ve been at it ever since so know well Sally how about you well I had a normal life before I discovered wine um I have I’ve lived in France for 30 years I had a corporate job living in Paris uh traveling a lot to the states actually
And all around the world and then I gave that up to spend some time with my youngest son before he left home because I’ve spent a lot of time traveling when he was young and was looking for a project so I was early 50s and I thought
Uh you know I’ve always meant to study wine started some wine courses and then thought that would be a great project let’s make wine so I moved to Bordeaux five years ago and launched a new winery chatau J set with an past the vines of old Vines and created a new wine Shadow
And here we are how did you just a little more specifically you took wine courses like enology courses or you took General wine courses you took wine making courses I started with wct the wine and spirit education trust I started with the levels one and two and
Then the level three and then I actually did the diploma after I had acquired the land so the diploma is about twoyear course and I did that after I had actually bought the property and then during that those first couple of years before I actually started making wine
Myself I then worked with local farmers here in fronsac on the right Bank to learn on the job as it were helping them out in the winery why did you pick fronsac as the place for your Chateau I prefer the right Bank um I love right
Bank wines I love the right Bank Country Side I think it’s a lot more interesting and a fun place to be I wanted to be quite near to Bordeaux so fronsac is only about 40 minutes from Bordeaux I couldn’t afford Sant am on Pomo so I I
Came to the next level of appalation so Frac is grouped with Santo and pomal and we have an amazing to here and we have a very pretty Countryside it’s very undulating and therefore it was the right combination of amazing Taha good price and potential to make really exceptional wines and some really good
Wines already being made here yeah uh Mok is probably the most boring landscape that you could possibly look at in terms of it’s good wine but the beauty comes in the buildings not necessarily in the terwa let’s say that’s right yeah okay so tell us the
Story of wine and two Ed how did you come to the idea of making a resource for pairing vegetarian food with Bordeaux wines and I am mainly a vegetarian I eat a little bit of fish it is impossible to find good pairings so this is right in my wheelhouse of things
That are frustrating everyone just ignores it it’s not that there’s contempt necessarily for vegetarians any more there used to be but now it’s more just like well we’re just not going to include that especially when it comes to bigger wines or wines that are a little
Bolder or red wines so what is it that made you do this is it Wendy has a focus on health and wine or what prompted this project well it was Sally’s idea I’m blaming Sally yes it was my fault my son came to stay with me during the lockdown in 2020
He was an avid meat eater or I thought he was and he turned up and said mom I’ve become vegetarian so I said well I’m not going to cook two different meals and he said no I’ll do all the cooking while I’m here I said yes he
Cooked vegetarian for the 10 weeks he was here and I never went back to meat I had never eaten a lot of meat and I think that’s actually an important trend is that there are more and more vegetarians and vegans but there are an awful lot more people who are now having
More plant-based meals more often during the week and I think that’s really important we’re not just looking at recipes if you’re purely vegetarian but more people want to eat more vegetables and so we’ve got lots of ideas for how they can do that with their favorite wines and Wendy you have
A really interesting Health background you’re very much into the wine world but you also have an entire other life of wellness and you wrote a book on how people can be fit and can you talk about that a little bit and and I’m sure that that plays into idea I think that’s why
Sally dragged me into into this project really I written this book it’s actually back in 2018 called the drinking woman’s diet it’s a little bit tongue and cheek but it’s really about helping people who want to enjoy wine to enjoy it in a healthier way as possible so and
Interestingly enough the food and wine thing is one of the major messages of the book so it all kind of came together nicely I’m also a yoga teacher run into all that kind of stuff too but it really is this main message so when Sally talked about this it sounded perfect I
Was really really excited really happy to get involved it’s much more fun doing something together than it is trying to launch a project or by yourself so we both work you know by ourself it has been a lot of fun so that’s been a big
Part of it Wendy you had mentioned to me people in Bordeaux don’t actually eat lamb and beef and F gr every day however when you go there that’s all they present to us they present these heavy dishes occasionally if you’re there in the spring there’ll be some asparagus
They’ll just throw some on the plate for you but it seems like at least from the American and probably British perspective or visitor perspective that all that is available to eat to order to have and not just in Bordeaux but pretty much in all of France it’s really
Challenging like when we talked before I was we were joking the only thing for a vegetarian to eat in Paris is omelets like how many omelets can you eat that’s what’s presented so is that what French people eat in reality no it’s not and I
Think when you do visit if you look at the markets if you go around the markets and there are loads of markets all you see a vegetable you see all these seasonal all these fresh vegetables and yet when you do go to restaurants you tend to see meat potatoes right so I
Think part of it is this Desire by the French people to show especially when they’re in restaurants to show for what they consider Prestige food whereas vegetables are sort of more family cooking so if you dine with a French in the winter you’ll always start with
Soup and in the summer you always start with a plate of crudes or vegetable so it’s very much part of family cooking so I think traditionally that’s probably got something to do with it I do think it’s changing and we were chatting with with Sally the other day I mean when you
Do go to a French restaurant you can get salads there always be a goats toe salad uh or there always be okay there the Lae salad that’s always got four girl on it but so you you can get um you can you can can get vegetables there are
Vegetables I think it is changing but it’s true when people come on Wine Tours they’re gasping for a salad at the end of it so I know when I am organizing weeks for people we’ always make sure we’ve got lots of bed but what you said about the asparagus is really
Interesting because the other thing that’s very typically French I think especially in the countryside is this seasonality and it comes back again to looking at the market so yes you come in May you will have asparagus everywhere every restant oh I did so they do so yeah it’s seasonal but I
Think it’s Ely but I think that is changing now is with more awareness that people want to eat lighter fresher healthier and interestingly when you go to less glamorous restaurants you’re more likely to have a bouet of of crudy Tas and and salads and stuff than when you go to the Glamorous restaurants
Where they’re trying to show you Thea and the duck and you know and you do have the fish of well to go really close to the coasting border if we have f SP and great oysters yes well that kind of it’s interesting that you say this though Wendy because the first wine tour
That I had with my patrons in pedmont it was so meat heavy now pedmont is different from the rest of Italy but it was so meat heavy that people were complaining by the end they just said it’s too much food and there’s too many courses of meat and so we have changed
Especially when we went to Tusc it was almost all vegetarian it was peasant food it was you know kuchina POA as they call it in Italy because that’s what people really want and in Italy it’s much more accessible let’s face it they’re much more of a vegetarian culture they’ve really leaned into the
Idea of yeah you can get meat but we have a lot of vegetables but for some reason you never see that in France so it’s interesting to know and it is true you could walk around and see a market and see all these vegetables and then I
Have to say that in my head before I’ve looked at that and been like where do all those go because they’re not they’re not going on the plates I when they going to family homes it’s the family cooking and I think you know this is where you got this mismatch but I do
Think it’s changing the first time I visited France uh when I was 14 on a school exchange I was presented with a whole Ary choke in front of me and I had no clue what to do with it and I was in France in a family and we started the
Meal with the whole Ary choke and as a young English girl I had no clue what to do with it was it steamed it was steamed and then you as it wasn’t no no no it was steam and then you take off each petal and you dip it in the sauce and
Then you you take off the roots but I had no clue how to do it but that was in just a normal French family home all right Sally after your son revolutionized your cooking you really ran with this and you do workshops on the components of food and wine pairing
Or food and wine matching at Chateau George set so I looked at all of the things that you T talk about and it’s so similar in my book I have a whole chapter on food and wine pairing and one of the things that I really encourage
People to do is to take a systematic look at the food and the wine so that we make sure that any dish can be paired by anybody instead of just being as what I call the magic eightball pairing like Shake It Up and oh okay well it says
This is what you know do you did you guys have those magic eight balls when you were little the the little black balls that have the they’re like little for and Teller things they’re it’s the silly American thing and and so you shake it up and then it says oh it seems
Yes it seems like that’s going to happen you know one of these stupid things so I feel like that’s magic eightball pairing right is where there’s these books of pairings and pairing this goes great together this goes great together and it’s so prescriptive but it is really important to teach people the components
The other thing that you you both say is that food impacts wine taste more than the other way around so can you just talk about the interaction of wine and food and the main components in vegetarian food and how it might interact with some of the components in
Wine sure I think that first of all you need to kind of understand a little bit about your own palettes and your own sensitivities because I think if people think about coffee Everyone likes their coffee differently there are people that cannot stand an espresso it’s far too
Bitter it’s far too strong they love a long milky coffee whereas others want a double espresso and anything with milk I don’t get the hit so from that you get a clue that we’re going to taste tannins we’re going to taste acidity we can taste all of that very differently from
One person to the next so understanding a little bit about how you perceive acidity and bitterness in other parts of food or drink is a useful hint as well as you start to get into your wine pairing journey I think that the food impacts the wine often more than the
Other way around in the sense that we probably got a mouth full of food and we take a snip of wine wine but also you’ve got a heavy food and then the sort of delicate wine just kind of gets lost in it for example you know that when you’ve
Got a white wine uh and you’ve probably done this uh in your classes and the typical trick is to show people they they taste a wine that tastes lovely and acidic and then they suck on a piece of lemon and then they taste the same wine
Again and it’s just flabby so if you’ve got something very acidic suddenly you’re impacting the wine so I think that the food interest ly enough can impact the wine more than the other way around and we see that also with red wine when on desserts for example
Suddenly that red wine that was fabulous with meat the meat Co or the mushroom risoto suddenly tastes awful with the apple crumble I think that’s very funny what you just said about the acidity because I do that to show people that you can take the edge off of an overly
Acidic wine so something that is like a sha it is can be very acidic for people I encourage people to pair that with the lemon or you know Sans or something that is so high in a city but it is true that with a Bordeaux Blanc if you pair that
With a lemon that’s going to taste flabby because it’s already slight bit lower in acidity so it does depend on the acidity level but a very highly acidic wine is going to do very well with acidity so I always say you can pair acidic food with acidic wine but
You’re saying the opposite so again it’s just preference yeah and and I think but that’s a really good point because once you understand the concept behind it by testing it yourself then when you’ve got some acidic wine that somebody’s brought they’re insisting that you think well okay I’m
Going to put a little bit more vinegarette or maybe I’m going to mix some lemon on the fish before I put it with the with the other ingredients or the other way around so understanding that principle really helps you then adjust and seasoning obviously is a really important such as salt salt
Reduces the impact of acidity um you know and it will you know lots of salty food will make a low acidic wine flat like if you’re eating feter cheese which is really salty you need to have that acidity to balance out with it so understanding some of these principles
Are really important whether you’re meat-based or plant-based and so that’s where what we’re trying to do with wine and two veg is help people on their own Journey we don’t want to say right this is what you’ve got to drink this is what you should eat we want them to kind of
Understand and learn and experiment and share those findings back I I think it would be helpful if we gave some examples of how that works and and again it’s fun the salt thing right so salt is one of the components that I pair with in my wine and food pairing class and it
Impacts everybody differently so if you pair a muscade day with a salty Briny then sometimes it winds up magnifying it and makes it extra salty right so oysters will become saltier and some people absolutely hate that but it depends on your individual palette and with tannin also some people hate it
Because it can taste more salty it can amp amplify the salt and some people find that it mitigates it so again I think that’s an highly personal thing also salt is the one that I always say acidity generally speaking you’re right it’s going to calm down the acidity salt
It affects everybody differently it is so interesting every time I do that exercise of people just saying oh my gosh I I hate that or oh I love that I love sh and oysters because it tastes extra Briny or I love I don’t love it because it tastes flat it’s very person
So can we get a little specific on some foods in the vegetarian diet I mean if we think about vegetables you have things like broccoli and dark leafy greens you have Peppers you have tomatoes and then you have lentils and legumes and cheeses I mean what are some guidelines for pairing with vegetarian
Food like that because those are some Staples and I’m notice I’m specifically not mentioning eggplant mushrooms because with we’ve overdone that so what would be the rules for pairing with things that are common vegetables well for example I think one let’s tackle one of the one of the
Difficult ones such as bitter food um because I think some of the others like you said eggplant mushrooms and they they are easier so what about bitter food you know you’ve got chory or you’ve got rocket arugula um and and I think it’s actually instead of shying away and
Thinking no bitterness I think it’s actually having something with some tanan to stand up to it is really good because I think if you’ve got a plumper wine such as a Mero you know a soft smooth moo then it can make it seem kind of too sweet and lose character and
Therefore bitter is matched well with bitter and I think that is a tough one is chel Rockets So I think that’s probably quite a good example because people like what am I going to put with that coming back on the salt I think the great thing about salt level is because
It is accepted that you put salt on also when you’re at the table I think that’s great because you can adjust and the person who’s made this can say right I put this level of salt in and there some people cook without salt at all these days but I think it’s actually quite
Good to say look I’ve made this I think the dish or whatever it is will go really well with this red wine but just let me know I want to let you know that heavy salt does not go well with heavy Oak therefore I’ve chosen an oak wine so
You may just want to taste it with the wine before you add extra salts so those are the sorts of things which are good gu guidelines and Wendy have you got any suggestions you want to dive in I don’t want to keep talking well well it’s kind
Of your area speciality I think what is interesting is this notion of weight of the food as well so when you’ve got heavier dishes so if you’re thinking pulses if you’re thinking lentils if you’re thinking root vegetables those are things that go really well with a heavier weightier wine and then you’ve
Got that that fruity notion so you know in bord we always say Left Bank right Bank I know it’s an oversimplification but you do have the more tanic cabinet wines peria and then the the brighter more fruit driven row molo wines and I think you’ve got the two things you’ve
Got the weight of the tannins but you’ve also got that fruity expression and another thing I think it’s really interesting as we talk about acidity with white wines but you know it in most vintages and most areas although the climate change conversation is a whole different conversation buto is known for
Having a freshness and an Elegance to the wines and so you’ve got acidity in the red wines too and you do have the lighter wines I was listening to your podcast about the coat wines great example you you got these molo fresh fruit driven wines that go really well
With lighter food so it doesn’t just because it’s a fresh food doesn’t mean it has to be white wines you’ve got these fresher red wines that go really well so think about lenal you can have slow cooked sort of lentil stew with onions and spices and perhaps even
Tomatoes that will go really well with a heavier wine but if you serve them as a salad mixed in with some fresh ingredients they’d go really well with a lighter red wine so you’ve got this notion of weight which is also really really important when you’re looking at
At matching so there’s a lot going on just want to ask you another question a little more specific because you’re getting specific here which I think people really want I love a red pepper sauteed Red Pepper or broccoli or things like that and the complicated thing about something like broccoli or Peppers
Is that they have both a green note to them but they also have a little bit of sweetness then what do you do with the wine like does everything just go back to Mero I mean is is like you know Mero the answer around there and s’s wine is
100% Marlo so she’s all over that I mean do you go white you know what do you what do you do like how would you approach that okay so let’s think about broccoli you can steam broccoli or you can Grill broccoli and you can serve it with something so with
Broccoli you can throw on some grilled nuts you can throw on some cheese on top of it so I think a lot of what we do with vegetable-based dishes it really depends how it’s prepared and what you’re serving with it the sauces the spices the herbs makes a huge difference
If you’re roasting your red peppers for example and you can put Oregon or Rosemary on top things like that you’re going to open up those lovely flavors which go really well with a caban wi whereas if you haven’t got the her then you’ve got that sweet sness in a in a
Grilled red pepper which will go better with a Marlo so I it’s not just the first ingredient and it’s the same with meat really in a way or fish you know depending on what sauce you’re serving with it it also affects it really affects the The Sensational the palette
And how it matches with the wine and I honestly think that with vegetables it’s much more exciting there’s a lot more that you can do and it takes a little bit of imagination but if in doubt Frozen Grill love got a little bit of o
In your wine but you know you do you have those grilled notes and those slightly mocka not grilled nuts help everything I think that’s very very help so my three-step pairing process is weight first right weight heavy with heavy light with light think about the structure of food and wine so how does
What the acidity the tan and the sugar all of that and then the third thing is the nuance and the Nuance is where okay you already know that you’re going to do red but the problem I think when vegetarian pairing is actually that first step it’s actually figuring out
What the weight of the dish is because everyone well I mean again we’ve already discussed this everybody ignores vegetarian pairing but everyone assumes that vegetable dishes except eggplant and mushroom are light and lentils right everyone assumes that but I think that the idea with vegetarian dishes is maybe
Ignore the weight and go to the flavor maybe it has to be reversed maybe you think about the flavor first and then you think about the structure of the wine based on the flavor because weight in vegetarian parlons is a little different isn’t it I agree I’ve actually
Got a really good example where where you look at the flavors so for example if you’re thinking and this is just because we’re thinking about our spring recipes already even though we’re we’re eating all our winter recipes but the spring ones are coming up just think about lovely fresh green peas green
Beans those lovely new Fresh Light and bright vegetables coming through that you might want to put on top of a risoto you’re probably going to include maybe some lemon zest in that so think about wines that have kind of grassy and Herby and they’ve got this cool citrusy feel
That kind of seasonality kind of go together so that’s where you’re going to be going for a lemony s BL to go with those so um that sort of illustrates your point and when you actually think about it it does make sense it kind of brings the season together the wine and
The vegetables can think about Ros also as being kind of an MVP for a lot of a lot of dishes can take Rosé people say that P Noir is the chef’s wine I think that in vegetarian cooking that is less true I think Ros is actually the MVP for
Vegetarian cooking and Mero honestly because the acidity is medium you know everything about Mero is more medium I think that there’s a lot of possibilities for vegetarian food and maybe the idea is think about the flavors first and then back into what the weight is based on the whole widths
And ins that’s what I call it the sauces and the sides also side dishes are quite important in the world of food and wine pairing but especially with vegetarian food I love the show I love Wendy and Sally and this idea is so long and coming I love that they are thinking
About normal food and wine pairings and wines that we all want to drink as people who maybe are thinking more plant-based but are having a hard time thinking of pairings so you’ve got to get on their site wine and the number TW veg.com but I also need to tell you that
If you want the wines to go with these the best choice that you have is wine access you’re going to go to Wine access.com normal and join the wine access wine for normal people wine club where you get six bottles for 150 bucks free shipping all you have pays the tax
On that these wines are hand selected by me I do the notes and I will start to include some vegetarian pairings after this show just to help us all with some other ideas besides just eggplant and mushrooms wine access has fantastic wines at Fantastic prices it is a standing collection of your favorites
Plus new wines all the time if you go to Wine access.com wfnp and get that 10% off your first order you’re going to click into the site and you will will see so many different wives they have a very robust selection of Bordeaux at all prices so if this podcast is inspiring
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Doing more community-based Live Events this year and there are lots of other things that are coming down the pipe that are going to make it definitely worthwhile for you to join for as little as a bottle of wine a year $21.60 us a year you can join and become
Part of part of the community and help keep the podcast going patreon.com fornorm people and new classes are up SRA we could talk about vegetarian pairings for SRA one of my all-time favorite grapes in the SRA class wines of France is coming up and we’ve got another one that will be launched soon
I’m not going to give it away but wine fornorm people.com classes is how you’ll find that now let’s hear some more from Wendy and Sally about great ideas for plant-based eating and wine you just talked about the spring risoto and things like that what are some awesome pairings that people can try
With various types of Bordeaux what are the things that you love that we absolutely need to try and then Wendy you’ve already given us some ideas about the banks the right and left bank and you are a Saturn fan so maybe we can think about that also but I would love
To give people some Direction for instance I’m not saying specific Foods because again I just said the magic eightball pairing or the fortune telling pairing is not working that does not work but Wendy you travel all over Bordeaux doing tours and taking people around and I think that the idea of
These different wine Styles which is very important I hate the idea that there’s Bordeaux because there’s many bordeau so what could people think about when they’re having things like paika or they’re having chili dishes or they’re H you know categories of food spicy or maybe something Bland and simple what
Are we thinking about when we’re thinking about the various types of Bordeaux and I think that listeners when you’re listening to this just know that you can extrapolate because one of the things that when we’re talking about Left Bank we’re talking about wines that are relatively tanic not always but
Relatively tanic pretty complex they’re not always fruit first there’s sometimes other flavors before you get fruit on the right Bank you’re more likely to get fruit and you’re more likely to get softness but you also can get some complex flavors but right Bank generally speaking is as we said before not heavy
Wines so just try to extrapolate as Wendy and Sally are describing these things to wines that are similar to this also well I think that’s a really interesting point because bordo people think of bordeau being cabinet in Reds right sadly but bordo is so diverse
There is so much it’s so cool that you mentioned Ros because Ros has a thing in bordo I’m sure when you were over here you saw that so there’s more and more Ros everyone everybody had R and we have this CL that people don’t know about so
This this wine that’s halfway between a rosé and a red which is fabulous and that’s really food friendly it kind of goes with everything you know from Pizza to salads sort of thing so it’s it’s a really useful wine so we’ve got this great diversity we talked about so
Driven wines but of course we have a lot of Senor uh and not just for the sweet wines and seor adds a weight to white wine it’s often Barrel age so it’s super food friendly and um you get that when it’s based again you get those slightly
Nutty caramelized nodes that can go with really well with real vegetables and of course you’re speaking my language and you’re talking about sweet white wines totally overlooked a category sadly but super versatile the sweet white wines that are coming out of Bordeaux now are a lot Fresher a lot lighter than they
Used to be I think there’s a move to lighter fresher Wines in general but specifically in soan and last summer there’s a hotel restaurant in so turn at chat and it’s actually Mission star during the summer they had this barbecue in the courtyard and they grill vegetables on the barbecue and they
Serve them with a glass of fresh chilled young soan and it was spectacular so wow I know and just unexpected but that little bit of bitterness from the slightly scorched vegetables and it just work brilliantly so I think as well this notion of experimenting and trying things perhaps a little bit different as
Far as Saturn is concerned as well if You’ mentioned spicy food there’s a recipe for um a spicy chickpea dish on the website for winter which is really good with a young fresh Marlo really good with that CL I was talking about but guess but it goes really well with a
SOA and a light bright sweet wine too so there’s a lot of flexibility in Bordeaux when you’re talking about the the more powerful wines the heavier wines I know I’m not supposed to say Mushrooms but I’m going to say Mushrooms but mushrooms as well when you look at Merlo driven
Wines Merlo driven wines we talk about them being bright and red fruit but they age quite quickly and one of the signatures especially for the grand maros like the pom rolls are truffles are mushrooms so yum when you allow these wines to age you’re getting a lot more complexity depth of flavors and
Those are wait Wendy when you say age how many years are you talking about before they get the Truffle when you it depends on the weight of the wine when it starts but a Mur that is five to seven years old is going to start to get those Aromas already and that’s whereas
The Left Bank it’s going to take a lot long take a lot longer I think people age pomal for too long frankly it tastes better a little bit younger but they spend so much on it and then they think they should hold it forever I think that
Same thing goes on with burgundy doesn’t it it’s well I spent so much so I’m going to hold it but then you’ve missed the window haven’t you you know I mean you want to lay something down you go to the Left Bank and let that lay down but
Pleasure is pleasure and you should have it in the shorter window so you can enjoy that right too um because there’s nothing more disappointing you imagine you kept the wine that missed it opportunity but that’s a so when you talk about the semon driven Blends you’re talking about the Oak Aged ones
And those can be quite expensive are there any more affordable semi on driven Blends that people can look for and where would that be go to the answer the go to the ENT the you know it is a treasure Trove of affordable sustainable family-driven wines and there’s several
That we mentioned on the website and I think what is really interesting is the Entre demare has such a diversity of styles of wine coming out of it but there’s a lot of semal so if it’s an emare white it legally has to be a blend it cannot be 100% soeno sometimes they
Do 1% though SE at least that’s what I find sometimes here coat def Fran is also making some exceptional whites with a lot of sem on so yeah the coat wines a fabulous value for money and you get really yeah so you don’t have to buy you
Know a classified growth from p as fabulous as they are to get that depth of flavor from seor and um there yeah there’s a lot of choice there’s a lot of choice that you can get in boor out for that you just have to be a bit more
Adventurous Sally I want to ask you because you didn’t mention this but you grew up cooking for the family Pub and running the kitchen at your country in so what about pub food and pizza and veggie burgers and spinach and artichoke dip and hummus and I mean these are
Everyday foods that people love you know this even though they’re not always the most healthy they are delicious and there are Pub foods that are vegetarian so what do you pair with that would you pair I I don’t know I don’t know what people because obviously it’s a beer
Culture but people have those Foods in their homes now too so what would you pair with those uh if you are having that food in a pub in England or anywhere in Britain from my experience you’re probably not going to get a lot of choice of wine by the glass so they
Probably going to have just a small selection they’ll probably have a Mero they might have a malbeck they’ll probably have a s Blan and then maybe you know A Shard and so forth so thinking about it yes if you’re looking at a veggie burger it’s probably got
Quite a few carbs in there with the bun and then you’ve got the fries whether they’ve sweet potato or normal fries but the veggie burger itself is probably made with chickpeas or beans so I would think that something like that or a vegetarian lasagna which is I think
Probably a pub favorite too both of those I would say if you’re in a pub choose a Mero because then they will probably have a Mero you can have a lovely fruity Mero with medium tannins lots of approachable uh versions out there um potentially a malbeck depending
On uh whether you’ve got other different sources which should kind of make it a bit more meaty in inverta commer in terms of the burger um and they would probably have salads so again that would go for a white or they might might have a risoto and I think that if we’re
Talking like a a veggie risoto like we were talking about earlier with peas or beans then you’re going to probably go for a San Blan because they will probably have a svon Blan on the menu because it’s nice and citrusy I have a wine bar so a French version of a pub
Here at my tasting room it’s a wine bar rather than a pub and it’s very relaxed and I do a lot of wine pairings of the platters that I serve to uh people that come and I make sure that I do things on the plast that go with my wines so I do
Some fishy things but obviously goats cheese and so forth but one of the recipes that I would suggest that listeners really look up if they want a great Friday night if they’re entertaining A Crowd a recipe is the vegetarian musaka um the base is made with mushrooms and lentils and tomatoes
And herbs and it even looks like a meaty dish because the lentil make it look a little bit like a bnise or a minced meat and then you’ve got the layers of OB jeans you’ve got the the lovely cheesy topping with feta and Parmesan it’s so
It’s a recipe that I make a lot and I actually then tested it with a more complex wine that I make which is Barrel age Barrel fermented and my more approachable Mero which is fermented in stainless steel and then just has nine months of Oak guess which went best the
Simpler wine the fruity wine that’s not pretentious it cut through the cheese it just paired beautifully with it and that is a recipe that I would really recommend that’s on the way website and that’s a fabulous Pub style Friday night food Gathering event recipe and wine pairing that I would suggest Wendy is
There any pairing that you have had vegetarian pairing where you have said this is the best pairing I’ve ever had what is the best vegetarian pairing that you have had oh there’s lots it’s hard um it is hard but I just want to give people an idea of something that you
Have had where you’ve said this is every bit as good as a steak because when do you you still eat meat just to prove to people that this that it can be done yeah it can be done it can be done and it is done roasted root vegetables I
Love root vegetables there was a roasted root vegetable dish with beetroot and it was sprinkled with cheese and that went really well with a Marlo but there’s a recipe on the website for a sweet potato and chickpea recipe uh that’s really really good with red wine but it’s one
Of those recipes that has got a little bit of sweetness in it and it went really really well with so sorry I do keep banging on about so but it went really really well with the S well so we talked about asparagus a bit last spring I had green asparagus with a citrusy
Musine with a dry white Sor semor blend and that was absolutely spectacular so I got three choices sorry Sally what do you have just on that chickpea recipe I think that’s the Moroccan chickpea and the sweet potato recipe on the website and I think that that goes really well
With the red wine with a bit of Oak because you’ve got you know like in Oak win you’ve got that lovely sweet spice you’ve got that cinnamon so that kind of comes out with the Moroccan spices so that kind of marries up there I’ve got a
Couple of things and an everyday one I think that we don’t chill red wine enough if you have a really yummy it LS like comfort food a cauliflower cheese with a chilled red wine light red wine that chilled rine with that really bubbly hot cheese that you’re almost
Because you’re eating it too soon the chill wine kind of because you can’t wait to get into it and then another one that I love which is also on the website which is a squash or butternut squash or pumpkin soup and we do a lot of those
Don’t we over autum and winter and we’ve done a Nutty crumble topping and that crumbled topping with hazelnuts and you can also put some Parmesan in that if you want but if you’re vegan you obviously won’t um and that is lovely with some red wine that has some Oak as
Well because you’ve got nuttiness in there and earthiness and I love that so important to bring up the idea of when Oak is appropriate and when it’s not Wendy I do want to ask you this because you’re an expert in wellness and Felicity Carter who we all know is
Coming on the show to talk about this but you wrote the drinking wom’s diet a liver friendly lifestyle guide it’s a great book it talks about the lessons you’ve learned in maintaining a healthy body in an unhealthy industry but I would love to hear your thoughts on the
Attack on wine the studies on wine and health and whether you think that part of this new messaging is about healthy food and wine and social life not just as alcohol and I think you have some health facts on wine and Tu veg also that talk about Wine and Food
Consumption together and how we need to make sure that we’re doing that can you just talk about that yeah and this is this is actually one of the reasons why I was so excited when Sally talked about this project because what clearly comes out in the health advice mind you the
Health advice now some of the health the buas now says no drinking at all so you know and I’m sure solicitors talk about that in great detail don’t worry she’s gonna talk about that oh yeah um but I think what’s really what comes out in the health messaging is drink on a
Stomach don’t drink on an empty stomach and this is particularly important for women because it is true which is one of the reasons why I call the book The Drinking woman’s diet because it is true that women do metabolize alcohol differently to men but if you’ve got food in your stomach your stomach
Empties more slowly than if you just drink and so consequently your blood alcohol level rises a lot more slowly if you drink with food or even after food so this whole food and wine matching thing is really important from a health point of view as well of course it is
The other thing that I think is really interesting is if you start paying attention to everything that we’ve been talking about the sensation the weight the feeling the matching as you pay attention rather than just knocking it back you’re drinking more slowly and that also makes a huge difference so if
You drink more slowly you’re absorbing the alcohol into your bloodstream more slowly and there’s less damage being done there’s another thing that comes up and I’m sure Felicity will mention it because I read it in one of the articles that she wrote when she was at the that
Recent wine and health conference we talk about polyphenols and red wine I don’t believe that we should talk about the health benefits of red wine but there are poris Andals in vegetables and fruit as well and there is some belief that or some notion that when you have
The two together you’ve got this physical reinforcement of the health benefits of vegetables and wine to together now I’m not a scientist I haven’t read all the papers but I actually think that’s quite exciting uh this notion of combining but it’s certainly important as far as slowing
Down the alcohol in the bloodstream is concerned that’s super important and coming back to your notion of sociable we should drink wine for the Pleasure Principle not because some excuse because it’s good for me it is not one of your five a day so you know we can bu
That one on the head but the fact that you’re drinking sociably that you’re sharing a meal you’re sharing wine with friends you’re talking about it you’re having a a moment together I think it’s really important because especially when you’re looking at mental health and we’re looking at all these mental health
Issues one of the main reasons is a lack of social contacts and what better way to hang out with friends and over a you with a glass of wine by I you’re preaching to the choir here I absolutely believe that to be true I will say I’m actually quite happy about them putting
Calorie counts on the back of wine I’m Sally I’m sure as a wine maker it’s probably very frustrating but I think people somehow think that wine is highly caloric they think that it is really fattening and I think having the fact that it’s only about 120 or 130 calories
Of Glass on the back is actually a huge huge thing for drinkers everywhere just to understand that regardless of what no offense the health people you know there’s this whole an alcohol movement within the health movement and wellness movement it’s not fattening I mean if you drink the whole bottle it’s less
Than a Big Mac you’ve got to think about your choices most people aren’t drinking a whole bottle of wine at one sitting and it’s certainly less than your favorite candy bar important to understand that too and when you’re having it with food it definitely have health benefits all right so you want to
Make wine and two veg a resource for everyone who’s interested in sharing information on vegetarian pairing and vegan pairing so how can the the wine for normal people community participate in the site and add their own pairing ideas and ask you questions or offer recipes or whatever and maybe add
Restaurants and things like that thinking you guys are going to become the Trip Adviser for vegetarian food so how do we find you and how do we how do we participate in this well the first step to understand obviously you’ll probably have it in the show notes the
Wine and to veg it’s the number two wine and written out as a word and then to veg if you go on the site you can sign up you can also send us an email at wand Tove gmail.com what we would love is some feedback on the parts of the site
That you enjoyed the parts where you’d like more information because we have a wealth of information it’s just time to put up what we’re putting up at the moment what we think people might be interested in but we’re getting loads of great feedback so feedback on the
Content and we will do that but also to experiment with your plant-based food dishes and wines and share them with us we don’t only have our own recipes we actually use recipes from well-known chefs books OT toeni James Jamie Oliver and and so on and so we obviously give
Credit where it’s due so send us your recipe say I I look this up on you know cookie and Cate or whatever and I found this great pairing um so that we can be sure to give the right credit um and we would love to put it up on the website
Now we will obviously try them as well um but as we’ve said before not everybody tastes everything the same so it’s great to have a variety of different tastes we would be delighted to put them up on the website and then we will be developing the website from
Here I mean Wendy do you want to add anything no I think that that’s why I mean it’s exciting I mean we’re thrilled that people have picked up and run with this and we’ve had a few guest recipes we’ve got a few fun projects coming up but I’ll wait until they’re done before
Know and so I’m talking about sort of getting a bit more collaborative with people but it’s great that other people have seen the interest and you say it do doesn’t have to be for vegans or vegetarians but for people who are happy to experiment so they on no meat days a
Couple of days a week and we we’d love to hear from people and it’s interesting coming back to the restaurants what when you were talking about these restaurants in Bordeaux and is it changing and what have you we actually have this year they’ve given a green Michelin star to a
Restaurant in Bordeaux so things they changing so perhaps we can start talking about that a little bit and also uh some of the Shadows that are are receiving people they’re experimenting with this um field to table cooking so using their own vegetable gardens in the properties
And and so I think there’s you know we’re can have lots to talk about be great to have the feedback in what people are interested in but we’ve got we got lots of ideas so we just need a bit more time so where can everybody find you individually can we talk about
Where did someone get chateau George set wines how do we acquire them and then Wendy how do we meet you in Bordeaux well I have Instagram shat J set so George written as the the the first name George then the number seven so Instagram shat set chhat set I have my
Website is chhat jet.com I do have an online shop uh for the US you just need to send me uh an email um because obviously there’s a couple of States we can’t ship to but apart from that we ship directly from here to your door I just sent off 12 bottles uh today
To the us so we do do that and of course come and visit when you come to Europe and come to Bordeaux come to fronsac come to The Tasting Room try the Beet hummus or the lemongrass hummus and try it with the wines but yes chhat
Jet.com and uh and you can buy wines and then come and visit and taste them here fantastic and Wendy you can find me on Insider tasting. comom and then on Instagram the drinking woman’s diet and also Wendy nby on Instagram but the yeah the sort of healthy stuff is on them on
The drinking woman’s diet and they’re not so healthy stuff and Wendy Nai the moon Tes I love it hey you know what we all nobody’s unid dimensional right we can’t all be we can’t all be good all the time or perfect good all the time uhuh where’s the fun in that
That there’s no fun in that at all and we are in a pleasure industry so we should all be having fun you know what this was so great I really appreciate it I love that this is how happening I hope that you wind up being able to acrw
Enough recipes and things like that that you publish books about this and I really hope that that is in the cards cuz I think more visibility for wines of Bordeaux or heavier wines or things like that with vegetarian cooking and letting people know that it’s possible and that
It’s not weird your recipes are not weird that’s the other thing that I really liked about there’s things that people eat because there are are a lot of vegetarian recipes that are just like I’m not making that I’m just not like there’s too many ingredients right like
There’s so many things like that and people it’s almost like you’re embarrassed of the vegetables so you have to put a whole bunch of stuff on them but Simplicity and then finding the pairings is exciting and that’s exactly what you’re doing I think this is so
Relevant and so great and I know we have a number of people who are trying to eat better or more healthy in the audience and are feeling frustrated with Wine and Food pairing so this is spectacular do you have a newsletter yet not yet we launch a different recipes every season
That’s the plan for the moment so we’ll be launched so if people sign up they’ll get a notification when we put the new recipes up okay so there is a notification system fantastic so if you sign up for that yeah they’ll get the next spring ones when we get round to
Finishing it well it’s still winter you got plenty of time all right thank you both so much I can’t wait to come back and hang out with you and yeah you must okay and it is wine and two veg w i n and spelled out to the
Number two veg.com please go on the site check it out it is awesome and contribute please sign up and then also contribute because I think the more that we all add the better it is so even if it’s just one little thing like I had Mano and great Merlo this is helpful
This is helpful information so do it and and let’s all start building this thank you both so much you’re fantastic Elizabeth it’s great thank you and with that this has been another episode of wine for normal people thank you so much for listening and we will catch you next time