heART on CenterThe 2005 Pinot Grigio out of the Napa Valley's Trinity Oaks winery goes well with lots of dishes, like fish and chicken and salads and pastas and chocolate and stuff. Nothing new there; wine-eats pairings make good merchandising PR and once inspired the greatest author in the history of the universe to wax rhapsodic. "Wine," Robert Louis Stevenson once said, "is bottled poetry. And the food!"
Bob died in 1894, way before the wine-food phenomenon took on a life of its own. Today, lots of wineries even employ their own chefs, charged with creating dishes that wrap themselves around the beverage. Trinity Oaks is one of those places-in fact, it publishes a number of recipes to that effect (see www.trinityoaks.com and click accordingly). That's not to say that you can't drink this Pinot by itself. It's just that you probably won't like it that way.
There's a definite chemistry to this entry, one that's unlocked only with food. Try it with chicken, for example. The wine downright coats the fiber, almost like a veneer or a light paste; the same happens with whiter fish and less heavy pastas. And you almost don't need a dressing with your salad-in the presence of greens, this one almost doubles as a good oil and vinegar.
At $7.99 a bottle, it's a serious bargain. Think of the money you'll save as you cook-no condiments to buy or run out of in the middle of a meal. Wine should go with food like a number goes with your phone. And the folks at Trinity Oaks make certain it does.
