ROUSES_Summer2021_Magazine_PAGES

Conversely, if, rather than a ribeye, you instead went with a lean steak, you would want a heavier wine to complement it—again, to provide balance. A heavier red blend, here, would be ideal. One option is Abstract, a wine from Orin Swift Cellars, which is made from grenache, syrah and petite sirah grapes. Likewise, for a filet mignon, which has the lowest fat of the high-end steaks, a bottle of Volver, a Spanish wine made from tempranillo grapes, would be ideal, as the wine packs a lot of body. The factors that lead you to choose a bolder wine for a leaner meat apply also to seasoning. If your steak was prepared with little more than light salt and pepper, you can go for a bit more gusto on the wine. If it was seasoned with wild abandon, consider something a bit more modest. When choosing a wine, overall, you can go two ways: conservative or daring in terms of taste and complexity. A lot of it simply depends on your overall demeanor and the guests who might be sharing said bottle, but an enterprising host might consider both types and allow drinkers to work out the differences for themselves. Comparing and contrasting wines is one way that wine lovers try to figure out what’s going on, and why, with different labels. On the leaner end of the steak spectrum, and getting to the fattier side, you’ve got filet mignon, strip steak, and then the porter- house. (We’ve already covered ribeye.) When considering a strip steak, a daring drinker might cast a long, lingering eye on the aforementioned Toscoforte and its 100% sangiovese grape content. For your Steady Eddie sort of drinker, the best strip wine might be a Chianti, which is generally made with

about 50% sangiovese grapes. (No, Chianti is not generally thought of as a steak wine, but because it is packing serious tannins, it will balance out the fat and full flavor of the strip.) For a filet mignon, the mild wine drinker would be well served with a nice red blend such as a bottle of Conundrum, owned by the Wagner Family of Wine in California. It is made with petite sirah, zinfandel and cabernet sauvignon grapes. Another meek wine might be a bottle of Abstract from Orin Swift. From across the ocean, a Bordeaux such as Chateau Greysac, a blend of merlot, cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and petit verdot, would also do the trick. Indiana Jones, however, would reach fearlessly for the aforementioned Spanish wine Volver Tempranillo, or perhaps even Borsao Tres Picos Garnacha (which is grenache, translated, and known for ripening when conditions are hot and dry, and thus ideally suited for the Spanish climate.) Tres Picos lands somewhere in the middle between light and bold. So that you know what to expect, the website Wine Folly favorably describes the flavor of grenache as an “unmistakable candied fruit roll-up” and cinnamon. But what exactly, you might be asking, is a “bold wine.” It’s a fair question! I asked Joy what “bold” means to her, and she compared it to… a sandwich. “That’s what every glass is like: a sandwich,” she says. “A glass of bold wine has so much going on in it. The mouthfeel is very heavy. When you drink it, it completely takes over your

palate, and you know you’ve had something very distinct—the same way you feel after having a sandwich.” On the other hand, she defines a “light” wine as something like a palate cleanser—something almost refreshing, but not overpowering. Next on the lean-to-marbled spectrum of steaks is the mighty porterhouse, sometimes called the T-bone. “What’s fun about the porterhouse is that it is a single steak of a filet and a strip held together by a bone,” says Joy. Because of that mix of meats, she suggests having fun with it, and to drink a wine with a blend of grapes. She suggests for the timid wine drinker a zinfandel, because of its nice spicy flavors, and because zinfandels possess perhaps the most sugar of any big red wine. (She warns that that kind of flavor spectacular could lead to palate fatigue, so drink cautiously.) “For the explorer, I would recommend something called a tricorno,” she says. The Tuscan red contains three grapes: sangio- vese, for the lighter acidity, as well as cabernet sauvignon and merlot to bring depth. Such wines are often called “super Tuscans,” oftentimes made with grapes that are not indigenous to Italy. Walking through the meat department, it’s pretty obvious that every part of the cow can be made into one meat or another, but not all cuts of steak are created equal. If you are buying one of the less expensive, and perhaps lower-quality cuts (relative to, say, a ribeye), the truth is there is not much point in going all-out for a bottle of wine. Just being wine is credential

44 ROUSES SUMMER 2021