duck and fruit sauce

snipped-for-privacy@aol.comdamnspam (Dale Williams) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mb-m07.aol.com:

I would think that the Amarone might class with the berries. Southern is much better than northern rhone (Can you imagine a big bacon smoked Syrah? hmm St. Joseph?), CdP might do the job, St. Emilion (or that oft of late mentioned Pomerol) might be my pick. But damn she couldn't find a harder one to match. Blue berries in the North American mode are damn sweet with a big broad taste. It is the flavor clash that seems to be the problem switch to rapspberries or cherries and it is easy!

It might just be me and my love of German wine but I always have a fine spatlese Reisling or Gewurtz with duck, had this combo recently at XYZ restaurant at W hotel in San Francisco- duck with diced roasted yams and pickled huckleberries in duck reduction paired with a reisling spatlese- wonderful!

I would put my vote in here for any good Paso Robles Syrah as well as a fairly powerful Rhone. Blueberries overwhelm everything to my taste buds so you will need something with teeth and not delicate. While Zindfandel is not a bad choice there seems to me some clash with a Zind and blueberries for some reason I can't figure out.

Kenneth, that's a good idea- I think a good Riesling matches surprisingly well with duck with red fruits. But I have trouble imagining Riesling and blueberries. I opened a Strub kabinett last night- will have it on the table, too. We'll see.

The unkown is how sweet and spiced the blueberry sauce will be. If made from fresh blueberries with little or no sugar and spice added, then a wide range of up to rather dry wies might work. If made from frozen sweetened blueberries, blueberry jam, and/or if highly spiced with cloves, cinnamon, and such, you have a very different animal.

If the sauce is somewhat sweet, I might try a late harvest Zinfandel that has a bit of residual sugar but that still has good fruit. Ridge has made some such Zinfandel in the past.

I believe you can shop in NYC where you can find a huge selection of wines. You might try a Ruelander Spaetlese, or even auslese if the sauce is rather sweet, from the Kaiserstuhl region of Baden in Germany. Some good wines are made at Steinfelsen, Achkarren, and Ihringen. These wines can be difficult to find in the US, so you probably will have to experiment with the few you can find. These wines have much more body than most other German whites.

If the sauce is somewhat sweet, you might try a Recioto della Valpolicella. This wine is slightly sweet, unlike Amarone, but is rather strong. Even a sparkling version sometimes is found. This wine is made by many of the better Amarone producers such as Allegrini. However it can be very difficult to find in the US. You probably can find a store in an Italian neighborhood of NYC that has it. Yes, I know many turn up their nose at a somewhat sweet red wine. However I have observed that many of the same people will gladly drink your vintage Port. Just because much of the worst US red wine was sweet in the past does not mean that all sweet red wine is bad.

An interestng garnish for the dish might be some preserved fruit with a bit of mustard in it. This sometimes is imported from Switzerland. It tasted much better than I thought it would, and the mustard taste was rather smooth and mild.

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Hmm. I would try something like a Ch Pibarnon or a Montus with about 8-10 years of age.

Ron Lel

Hi Dale In Oz one of the big (almost traditional now) food & wine matches in Xmas day Turkey, Cranberry and Sparkling Shiraz (or Durif or Cabernet). Whether or not the match will work depends on the sugar level of the sauce but I think it could work quite well. We had a Peter Lehmann Black Queen 1997 Sparkling Shiraz Xmas just passed and it was magnificent.

My Notes- An explosion of black fruits and chocolate on the palate, gentle tannins and a long finish. There are great Shiraz fruit flavours and an attractive cracked yeast character from the secondary bottle fermentation.

The results: I thought about the Petite Sirah idea, but only one I had was a Lava Cap that is WAY too tannic to serve with duck at moment. So I served : Claude Dugat bourgogne (rebottled in 375, refrigerated earlier in week) Strub Kabinett (because it was open) Charvin CdR

3 Thieves Zinfanfel (because my guests love Zin, and are always looking for budget ones)

the results: well, first of all the match wasn't as bad as I feared. Betsy said "duck in blueberry sauce", and I had visions of purple duck (a blueberry version of duck l'orange). But what she actually served was roast duck with a blueberry sauce (made with fresh blueberries, not extraordinarily sweet)on the side. With just duck, my favorites (in order) were: Burg, CdR,Zin, Riesling. With duck and a touch of sauce: CdR, Burg, Riesling, Zin. The couple of experimental bites heavy on sauce: Riesling, CdR, Zin, Burg (with only the Riesling being even a halfway good match). Thanks for your help!

Late Harvest Gewurztraminer, 5% RS and above. With the Blueberries, something older, with perhaps not as much spice as it would have had young, but more than a Riesling.

Craig Winchell GAN EDEN Wines