In my wine classes I often point out that acidity is the wine lover’s friend. A wine with crisp acidity pairs with many more foods than a lower acid wine because so many foods also contain an acid component. Acid in food makes a wine taste less acidic and in giving us the perception our wine is less acidic, we also feel it is fruitier, which in my wine book is a pretty neat trick.
In addition, crisp acidity cuts through fat in food and balances salt (in fact, salt helps reduce the sensation of acidity in wine as well as reducing bitterness in food such as tannin). So, acid is our friend and after a recent level two course in New York with a great group of students who asked a lot of questions about wine and food pairing I decided to put the teaching to the test.
Our New York classes are held at City Winery in the SoHo neighborhood, and a short walk from the winery there is a wonderful restaurant called The Clam. I had heard about the restaurant and was eager to try it, and I’m happy to say it exceeded my already high expectations. The Clam is a neighborhood seafood bar, a sort of upscale bistro that has a small wine list filled with interesting selections.
If there is one classic wine I turn to frequently in class to demonstrate food and wine pairing, it is Chablis, the quintessential un-oaked chardonnay from close to the fringe of Europe’s grape growing region. Chablis is bone dry, has high acidity and no oak at all to bring tannin into the mix. Seeing a Chablis on the list at The Clam, I asked for a taste. It was a very well made, village-level Chablis from the husband and wife winemaking team of Nathalie and Gilles Fèvre. Surprisingly, the acidity of this wine was slightly softened by letting it go through malolactic fermentation, but it lost none of its sunny crispness, nor did it have unwelcome dairy notes or unnecessary weight. It was a charming wine on its own, but how would it fare with the classic pairing of oysters?
Chablis at The Clam
Chablis and oysters are a marriage made in wine heaven and clearly blessed by Bacchus. The flinty, steely nature of a good Chablis like this one from the Fèvres accentuated the salinity and minerality of the oysters. Most wines would interfere with such simple, pure flavors, but not Chablis, and this one was a champ. But I had more tests in mind.
A special at The Clam the night I visited was a ceviche made with razor clams, so a light dish of thinly sliced clams, radish and shallots “cooked” by mixing with mild citrus juice for a few minutes. Here the challenge to the Chablis was to stand up to the acidity of the ceviche, and it did so without flinching – as the theory tells us to expect, the acidity in the ceviche balanced that of the Chablis, making the wine appear fruitier without detracting from its lovely minerality.
Finally, I couldn’t help myself – I had to test the Chablis with salt so I ordered some of The Clams exceptionally good French fries – thin, crisp, a little bit of fat clinging to them and doused with a salty seasoning. That may have actually been my favorite pairing because the fries tasted fresher thanks to the cleansing acidity of the wine, and the salt helped keep the wine from seeming overly acidic.
All in all, it was a triumphant experiment. I’ll tell you another time what I did with the red wine!
If you want to go, here are the restaurant’s details (you can book a table on their website or, in the US and Canada, on the Open Table app):
Lyn Farmer is a James Beard Award-winning wine and food writer and educator who has been sharing his passion for wine around the world for more than 35 vintages. Lyn holds the WSET Diploma and has been teaching for Fine Vintage for 10 years, sharing not only his keen sense of wine and culture, but an entertaining raconteur sharing stories about wine and wine people around the world.
Lyn is among the most widely traveled and well-regarded wine experts in the United States and, addition to teaching courses in several US cities for Fine Vintage, Ltd, he frequently leads seminars and masterclasses for VinItaly, the Italian Trade Commission, SOPEXA, Comité Champagne and many other wine industry groups. In addition to his WSET Diploma, Lyn is also certified by the Society of Wine Educators and the Sake Education Council and has been an ambassador for both the Champagne region and the Port Wine Institute. He is a member of several honorary trade groups, including the Confraria do Vinho do Porto and l'Ordre des Coteaux de Champagne. Formerly wine and spirits ambassador for Silversea Cruises, he is a widely published writer who served as restaurant critic for two major newspapers and was senior editor of The Wine News magazine for 20 years.
Lyn is also the director of VeritageMiami, a popular wine festival in Miami, Florida that benefits United Way and attracts thousands of wine lovers each year.
