WINE and food pairing
Out of context: Reply #23
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For the wine lover, though, finding an ideal match is more complicated. It will not be found with Gewurztraminer. That varietal's spicy profile can work every now and then, but it usually collides with the nuances of Indian food. Almost every Indian dish begins with a blend of spices, so our challenge was to find out which spices warm up to which wines.
We called on Ruta Kahate, an Indian culinary teacher and author based in the East Bay, for guidance. The three of us met to consider her list of the 10 most crucial spices in Indian cuisine -- mustard seeds, cardamom, turmeric, cumin, black pepper, mace/nutmeg, ginger, bay leaves, cloves and cinnamon. Cayenne we put in a class of its own, making 11. Then we devised a list of about 80 wines -- as obvious as Syrah and as esoteric as Muller-Thurgau.