Pinot tNoir & Sushi

fokker

回應 b2323234 #17 的帖子

In one of my earlier replies to an article on Pinots, I recalled my experience of having this bottle of Volnay Taillepieds in a restaurant in Beaune in deep winter. The sommelier served the wine straight from the cellar and the wine was cold enough to have condensations on the bottle in the warmed up dining room. The wine tasted great nevertheless. Room temperature in Europe really means 14-20 C.Your chilling of the wine renders the Pinot more restrained and less expressively fruity, which is the way it should be, ESP with sushi.
When it comes to sushi with Pinot, you need oily fish and lighter style Pinot. Americas' Pinot (North & South) are generally tool powerful. With Burgs, my suggestions would be one from Cote de Beaune, i.e. Beaune 1er Cru, Volnay, Chassagne rouge etc. With Cote de Nuit rouge, I prefer a Chambolle (of course better still be a Musugny). Nuit St George is way too earthy, Vougeot too fruity, Morey too oomphy( think Clos de la Roche), Gevrey too complex (with the exception of Latriciere Chamertin), Vosne too gutsy (Echezeaux is the exception).
The fish should be oily or fishy type, O' toro, salmon, horse mackerel, archi, saba, shimachi, hamachi, etc. Delicate types are not as good: Tai, kimei, fluke, Shellfish like prawns ( raw and cooked), crab, arkakei etc.
NZ Pinots are good if you drink the delicate yet fruity ones: Marlborough ones are better, IMHO, to go with Sushi. Central Otago Pinots are great wines themselves, but too much of a fruit bomb with sushi. Felton road, esp the block 5 is a  winner itself, but not with seafood. I don' know if this is available in HK, but I tried this 2003 Rippon vineyard from central Otago in a restaurant in Queenstown: it really was the best NZ Pinot I had so far. It was very much like a Vosne 1st Cru. But the meal itself was a modern NZ type, and I would not think the wine worked with Sushi.
Australian Pinot wise, well let me inform you guys  that way back I lived in various states in OZ for more than 10 years, were not that good until the last 15 year or so. They just weren' t true to the varietal. Funnier still they made Hunter River "BURGUNDIES" in the 1960s and 70s, from Shiraz. Very tasty,  individualistic, charismatic, and stylish wines, but definitely not Burgundian-styled and not Pinot.
The top pick from OZ is Bass Phillip (ESP. the Premium with the price to match). Other good ones are Cold Stream Hill reserves and Paringas. BUT they are no good with sushi. The Tasmanian ones would be fine.

Ozching

Yeah, Bass Phillip Premium or Reserve Pinot are without doubt a beautiful wine if they are in "drinkable conditioning".
I have 2 bad experience with Bass Phillip wine.  One is cork taint and the other bottle is off like vinegar.
My tip is you can open the wine at home but do not take it out for dinner with friends as you will end up with a bottle of beer.