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While you may be preparing your dinners for the upcoming weekend or for the "End-of-Year" holidays, Chef Frédéric Prouvoyeur, Château Magnol's dedicated Chef gives some precious advices on pairing wines with beef: Is your piece of beef fatty? Or is it from just underneath a layer of fat? Fat stabilizes flavours and fatty pieces of meat are more tasty then others. The more flavoursome the meat, the more you should turn towards aromatic, spicy, powerful wines. Will wine enter into the preparation? Will you be serving a sauce with the beef? If you make a beef casserole, the wine will reduce as it cooks and the aromas will become concentrated. The wine to accompany such a dish should therefore be more powerful than the one used in cooking. How do you intend to cook your beef? Beef can be served any number of ways: raw, grilled, roasted, fried boiled, stewed, etc. |
If you make steak tartare or beef carpaccio, it's because you like raw beef. The wine should neither mask the taste, nor be overly tannic. The juicy aspect of a steak tartare calls for a fruity, delicious red wine without tannin. A Gamay wine like Barton & Guestier Passeport Beaujolais or Beaujolais-Villages will suit very well. For a beef carpaccio, a Thomas Barton Réserve Saint-Julien can be a good choice.
If you are going to serve a grilled beef, you will probably choose a well-marbled piece. As it melts, the fat will stabilize and enhance the meat's flavours. In general, fibrous meat suggests a tannic wine with good structure. The great wines from the Médoc will do very well, e.g. a Thomas Barton Réserve Médoc or Château Magnol.
If you are preparing a wine and beef stew, the concentration of the cooking wine described above suggests two principles: drinking a more powerful wine than that which was used for cooking. Slow cooking softens the meat fibres which melt in the mouth and taste quite rich. There is therefore no need for very structured wines and light tannic wines, like B&G Réserve Pinot Noir can be an excellent choice.
If you are serving boiled beef, it is good to know that beef terrine with jelly is made much the same way as boiled beef (like a pot-au-feu), except that the "bouillon" is prepared with white wine. Again, the beef will be soft as the fibres lose their strength. The range of wines to go with boiled beef dishes is quite wide, and you might even try a smooth, rich white wine, like a Barton & Guestier Passeport Pouilly Fuissé or a B&G Réserve Chardonnay.
I wish you a great beef & wine pairing experience!
Frédéric Prouvoyeur
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