How to Find Wine Matches for Sushi

Divya Gugnani: Hi I’m Divya Gugnani and I love sushi and while most people love sake and beer with their sushi, I’m always in search for a good wine pairing. So let’s go behind the burner, and meet the 00:00:09. Alexis when I go out for sushi I don’t know what wine to have. Alexis Ewing: Yeah, it’s pretty hard to pair wine with sushi because they’re so many different things going on, there’s saltiness from the soy sauce, there’s a lot of spiciness from Wasabi and then there’s a lot of different textures from seaweed paper, rice, fish. I’d really like to pair it, sushi with an oak fresh clean whites, oh nope, it’s 00:00:38. And also high acid, maybe even a little bit of sweetness and richness. So Pinot gris, you know Grigio? That’s the same grape by the way. Pinot Gris Alsace in France, Pinot Grigio, usually from Italy. There is a 00:00:53 of horrible Pinot Grigio out there, my trick to avoid that is to look for Friuli, that is the. Divya Gugnani: That’s that region in Italy, where has good Pinot Grigio. Alexis Ewing: Pinot Gris, specially from the Alsace region for France, it’s on the border of Germany, very cool there. These wines are going to be more complex, usually more expensive but it’s worth every penny with sushi because there’s some richness, more complexity than Italian Pinot Grigio usually. Also German Riesling. Divya Gugnani: I love Riesling. Alexis Ewing: Yes. Divya Gugnani It’s that 00:01:20 from College. Alexis Ewing: You can get very high acid from Riesling, floral tons of fruit, a total palette cleanser, almost works like a sorbet in between course. My personal favorite, Chenin blanc so there’s lots of different areas of the world that Chenin blanc is grown, Vouvray is a very famous wine in the Loire Valley of France, it’s an area of called Savennieres. This particular producer is Nicolas Joly; he’s a biodynamic producer as well. Divya Gugnani: And what does that mean? Biodynamic? Alexis Ewing: It’s a step beyond organic, so naturally growing the fruit, there’s a lot more 00:01:54, it’s very complex way of farming but very very 00:01:58 in terms to the wine. So Chenin blanc in general can be 00:02:02, rich but 00:02:04 high acidity so the wines can be very very ageable, I mean twenty plus years. Divya Gugnani: A lot of sushi restaurants, Japanes cuisine restaurants that aren’t upscale don’t have the kind of wines selection you’re looking for to pair with your food. Alexis Ewing: Don’t be shy about bringing your own wine to a restaurant, cork, it is usually free to twenty dollars. Divya Gugnani: What are we tasting? Alexis Ewing: This is Benvolio, it’s from Friuli. Divya Gugnani: So soft, pretty. Alexis Ewing: Exactly. Divya Gugnani: It seems like a 00:02:31 really nicely. Alexis Ewing: And then we’re going to try this wine. First we want it to decants it. People don’t really think to decant white, they also think about decanting reds, because reds tend to be tight and 00:02:42, the whole point is to expose the wine to oxygen and allow more to come out of the wine. You can notice the color here, it’s so gorgeous. Divya Gugnani: It’s so beautiful, it’s like golden. Alexis Ewing: You’re going to get a lot more complexity 00:02:53 and this is amazing match with sushi, that nuttiness in the sesame oil that’s used a lot of the time. Divya Gugnani: That’s true. Alexis Ewing: It’s amazing. Divya Gugnani: Been a lot of Japanese dishes. Well, thanks so much Alexis for having us. Alexis Ewing: Thank you. Divya Gugnani: Stay tune to Behind the Burner, where we give you tips, tricks and techniques that are lighting the culinary world on fire.