Rating: 5/5
Chickpeas and chopped dried dates put into a masala (a mixture of spices) created from tomato paste, garlic, cardamom, star anise, yellow onion, cumin and cayenne pepper.
Wine: Yalumba Shiraz/Viognier 2008
Notes:
Yowzah!! This was fun. If you ever have a night where all you feel like doing is wrapping yourself up in a blanket and listening to the cold winds whipping around outside, this is your meal. As a bonus (for some; not me), it’s vegetarian and vegan friendly if you’re in to that sort of thing. The cayenne actually plays an interesting role in this dish in the fact that if you just put a dash, it acts as a supporter to the warmth in the spice blend. If you put in more than a dash, the rest of the spice blend acts as a warm supporter to the heat “pricks” of the cayenne. I went with the former which paired beautifully with the wine from Eden Valley, Australia. Now, to avoid some confusion, there was only 3% Viognier in this bottle so it’s hard to really call this a blend (but this is how they do it in Côte-Rôtie, France!). Yalumba could have legally said the whole thing was Shiraz and that would have been fine. Most of the world states that if you have at least 85% of a varietal in a bottle you can just call it by that varietal. However, I always appreciate a vintner’s honesty when they go the extra mile and tell me what the exact blend is. The best part about this pairing was how even though the fruit tones were muted because there was nothing in the food to enhance them, the wine still was incredibly balanced and took on a darker life that was very interesting and enjoyable. It also helped greatly that the finish on this wine lasted as long as the warmth from the spice blend did.
Aaron Berdofe's Wine and Food Experience 