I have no experience at all with older Grüner & this weekend we are planning on a dinner with a few friends. We will be drinking '91 & '93 Nikolaihof Vinothek, '85 &/or '86 Mantlerhof Spätlese & a '01 Prager Smaragd (Weissenkirchener Zwerithaler?, though I’m not sure). I will be cooking & am looking for pairing suggestions. My notion was to serve the above listed wines with the entréees & am leaning toward something pork or veal-based with some sort of a cream sauce. Am I on the right track? Any “can’t miss” pairing ideas that I should be serving instead?
I’d love to hear any ideas from folks with more experience.
I think those would be fine as entrees. There are pretty classic Austrain versions of what you describe that I’ve had with aged Austrian whites that paired very well.
I suggest you try cooked Beef like Tafelspitz with horseradish, root vegetables, Sauce Tatare, the Ensemble lukewarm or hot with GV. Take care that the wines are dry because I have the feeling that the Mantlerhof Spätlese has rs.
You will experience a match in heaven between Beef and white wine.
Aged Gruner is a lot of fun. I think the best examples really need at least a few years to show their potential. I’ll probably get clobbered for saying this, but those Vinothek bottlings are always way too funky for me. They are very complex and interesting to try, though. This will be great because you’ll have some very different styles represented.
first you should check if the '85 &/or '86 Mantlerhof Spätlese are dry (trocken) or off-dry (halbtrocken) …
If they are dry the suggestion of Hans (Tafelspitz) is spot on, but any pork or veal can also be fine, provided the sauce is decent and not to spicy or strong. In any case you should serve wines with residual sugar definitely after the dry ones, otherwise you will ruin the later wines.
A dish I am very fond of with GV is “Styrian Root-Meat” (Steirisches Wurzelfleisch) - cooked pork-shoulder (in a soup) with root-vegetables and potatoes …
Also stronger roasted or smoked fish (not too delicate) is good with GV …
Same for Wiener Schnitzel or cordon bleu …
… and of course for mushrooms, e.g. an omlette with mushrooms (and white truffels )
Please give the GVs enough air by slow-ox … and don´t serve too cold, just like a fine white Burg …
Had the 93 Vinothek in Mautern in September. It’s a beautiful wine. The extended time in the barrel gives the wine a roundness that is just beautiful and makes the wine extremely versatile. We enjoyed it across a range of courses.
Thanks for all the suggestions everybody. I’ll make sure & follow up with a post after the weekend.
As far as treatment of the wines go, based on my experience with the '95 Riesling Vinothek, I was planning on decanting both Vinotheks (maybe 2 hours ahead of time?). Thoughts?
Not what you’d expect to find at a Viennese restaurant, but I’ve had wonderful success pairing Gruner – both young and aged versions – with dishes that highlight top-quality extra virgin olive oil: for example, shrimp or other shellfish sauteed with maybe some greens and a little garlic over pasta (drenched in the oil, of course). Also, Gruner is delish with lentil soup, cooked either with ham/pork or with Dijon mustard and a very fruity olive oil such as Mausanne.
This is the first pairing suggestion thread ever where I think almost every suggestion is excellent. Smoked fish obliterates the taste of any wine for me, though, especially dry wines (even if those Mantlerhof aren’t technically dry, they will taste pretty dry by now). I wouldn’t want it with these.
Agreed. My mouth is watering thinking about most of the suggestions. This raises an interesting point though: for wine lovers like us, it’s probably a better idea to start with the wine and come up with various food matches than the other way around. That would also be a pretty fun way to explore different foods/dishes that you otherwise wouldn’t think of on their own.
Absolutely. Usually when I’m opening something that I am particularly excited about (at home), I will design a dish to go with the wine. The hard part for me is branching out from flavors and techinques with which I am already somewhat familiar. I wish other wine lovers could be a greater resource for that, but the vast majority of suggestions in other pairing threads seem really misguided to me. I guess I should ask the question more often (than never) and wade through the suggestions looking for ones that seem good. My self-imposed dietary restrictions make that even more difficult, but there’s still the potential for some great discoveries.
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