French Onion soup with wine

I like a nice crisp SB, a Sancerre or a local Washington SB - something that has a nice crisp acidity to it, that can cut through some of the richness of the soup. Another thought, although I haven't tried it with the soup would be an Austrian Gruner Veltliner. Again, one with good acid and nice fruit.

Cheers,

Tom AZ alfazert at nwlink dot com

I know the other Tom (AZ) suggested white wine with this soup, but my first reaction was Pinot Noir or Burgundy. The base is beef boullion, and it has melted cheese on top. Seems to call for a red wine, but I wouldn't pair it with anything as heavy as a Cabernet, Syrah or Zin. A nice Chianti or Sangiovese might work well though, and Ian's favorite soup wine (dry Sherry) might be interesting too.

This might be one of the few soups that can actually work pretty well with wine.

Tom S

Unfortunately, onion soup has gone completely out of style in France, it is almost impossible to find. This is too bad, I love onion soup.

The last one I had was memorable, at Ian and Jacquie's. Served with Madeira, of course...

Cheers

Mike Tommasi, Six Fours, France email link

If the base is all (or even mostly) beef bouillon as you suggest, then red may make sense. The recipe I use, however, uses half beef broth & half chicken broth (and a 1/2 cup dry white wine for glazing the onions and garlic after they've been cooked down). IMHO, nothing is a more perfect match than that same wine used in cooking (therefore I cook with a drinkable white: SB, Alsace, or even Chardonnay all work well here).

And yes, as you say, this is one of the few soups that do work pretty well with wine (though I like Sherry more with chowder-type soups).

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Just to go slightly OT for a moment let's not forget the only onion with which to make this most delectable of concoctions.... white - IMNSHO of course.

"Tom S" skrev i melding news:fI7wd.34629$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...

Sounds like a Poliziano Rosso di Montepulciano to me... :-) Anders

Sorry about that, but that was my mistake. I pasted the wine, and the line-feed between "2001 Chambolle Musigny" and "Domaine Bertheau et Fils" caused my software to burp. Correctly input, I found it at $49.95 from the San Franisco Wine Company (lowest available in U.S.). Well that ought to make Wilson feel better at least.

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dry Madeira, (sercial) actually, though a dry Amontillado could be good too. My problem with ANY wine with soup, as Dale mentioned, is that it's liquid on top of liquid.

The advantage of the fortified wines, is that you drink little of them, but because they are powerful in flavour. they don't get swamped.

As Machael T. said, we DO from time to time actually go to the trouble of making a real French Onion Soup, and when we have wine lovers present , usually serve Madeira with it. Same goes for a good consommé, such as the one we did for Ken Blake when he came.

That said, I don't see much point _in general_ in serving wine with soup, though it won't do much harm to finish off the aperitif with it, as long as the aperitf is dry. But basically (with the exception of consommé and french onion), they don't really compliment/complement each other particularly well and it might be better to hold off serving a special "soup" wine.

All the best Ian (To reply by email PLEASE don't use "Reply to" but use my name at wanadoo.fr) Thanks.