Posted by Sasha Grigorieva in beverages, wine on March 10, 2007 at 8:07 am
I love pork so I am always on the lookout for really great pork and wine combinations - let's face the unwelcome but necessary truth (for wine and pork lovers), pork is usually just so much better with beer than with wine. And this time when I cooked some plump pork chops with fresh rosemary and garlic and roast pink potatoes in their skins (I know, I know, so unhealthy but sooo good!), I decided to try a decent Zinfandel with them. Ravenswood Vintners Blend Zinfandel 2004 from California ($20.15/750 mL, LCBO 359257) seemed to answer, although it made me wonder once more how on earth one manages to enunciate vintner wine names - especially after a couple of glasses!
Loads of people deride Zinfandel wine but even more drink it. I have a feeling that it's a kind of transatlantic brother-in-arms to Beaujolais - easy on the palate and not too complicated, somewhat on the plonk side. In fact it is a far cry from the harsh red meaty Primitivo of torrid South Italian vineyards although bizarrely they are geneticallly identical and as Hugh Johnson and other wine specialists tell us, without doubt one and the same varietal. Still, a balanced light-bodied but elegant New World Zinfandel might be the very thing for the pork chops (I discovered that I haven't been really all that inspired and ingenious when I read almost the same words at the LCBO website review for this wine afterwards).
Ravenswood is actually a well-respected Californian winery with a great reputation for their Zinfandels and a 'no wimpy wines!' motto. The bottle, sporting a haunting celtic/gothic (in the modern sense of the word) label design and indication of 2004 vintage looked promising enough. In the glass Ravenswood Zinfandel revealed a rich bouquet of petits fruits rouges as the French say, with most pronounced hints of raspberry. And there was also a lovely plummy – or to be more exact, plum jam or prune finish. There was only one problem - there was no body to speak of, so this Zinfandel literally tasted rather hollow to me, and as for combining it with meat... A charming enough aromatic wine but not good with pork chops at all (they just remained separate items on the palate not uniting in any way and were both much better on their own). Maybe I'll try a rose Zinfandel next time, although the blush white Zinfandels I have tasted so far have left me rather dispirited - too bland and even a bit cloying. Whereas this very berry Ravenswood Zinfandel will probably be a perfect match with elegant soft creamy cheeses like Brie and Camembert.
Next week it will be the turn of Australian Shiraz Viognier Yerring Station and New Zealand lamb - let's see what this New World blend created along Old World lines can do for us. In the meanwhile could you perhaps tell me which wines you personally enjoy with pork, if any?
