DCist Considers a Wine List

Having entrusted its wine list to Dupont Market owner Kevin Sheridan, Rice's owners are trying to transcend the second and third categories by providing some wines that pair well with their decent Thai food. Until recently, Rice sported a conservative, uncreative wine list consisting mainly of absolutely boring, mass-produced wines, several of which –- a California cabernet sauvignon, for example –- showed significant tannins, oak and fruit that clashed badly with Asian flavors and textures. Sheridan, who recently told DCist that he has begun educating Rice's owners and staff about wine, has boldly introduced a Thai-friendly muscatel/gewürztraminer blend from Spain, two crisp rieslings and a grüner veltliner, the stellar Nora albariño (which Johnny Monis has spotlighted at Komi) and a versatile pinot noir. Many of the list's huge reds, though not bad on their own, will overpower all but a few dishes. Rice would do well to continue to bolster its burgeoning selection of whites and exchange its bigger reds for some lighter reds and a sparkling wine or two.

Three other Asian restaurants are tackling wine pairings and showing that Washingtonians' supposedly timid tastebuds won't protest too much.

• Sushi-Ko in Glover Park is the District's peerless leader in pairing Asian fare with wine –- or, more specifically, with wines from France's Burgundy region. Burgundy white wines are made from chardonnay grapes, though their style is significantly more restrained and elegant than the buttery oak bombs that have previously marked New World chardonnays. Burgundy red wines are made from the temperamental, but potentially rewarding pinot noir grape and often smell like muddy cherries. Lightly textured white Burgundies and red Burgundies share a defining feature: they're low in tannins, the astringently bitter substance that holds plant proteins together. According to Sushi-Ko owner Daisuke Utagawa, Burgundies pair especially well with Japanese food because many Japanese ingredients teem with "umami" –- the savory, can't-eat-just-one "fifth taste" after salty, bitter, sour and sweet. Mushrooms, which pair perfectly with red Burgundies, show umami in spades. As does Parmesan cheese. As do raw fish and soy sauce. Because umami smacks down the tannins in wine, the low-tannin Burgundies end up bursting with fruit flavors. Thus, Japanese food and Burgundies are like Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, whereas umami-laden ingredients and oaky, tannic cabernet sauvignons are like Renée Zellweger and Kenny Chesney.


• The Golden Triangle's Café Asia and the substantively similar, separated-at-birth Singapore Bistro are far less conceptual than Sushi-Ko. But their wine lists feature a few reasonably priced by-the-glass selections that are unquestionably right for the food options. Each pan-Asian restaurant offers a quality, umami-friendly pinot noir -– Oregon's lovely Big Fire at Singapore Bistro, and Sonoma's weightier Magnet at Café Asia. Singapore Bistro even goes so far as to make available by the bottle a rapidly aging but respectable 2000 Bouchard white Burgundy from Pouilly-Fuissé and a slightly less respectable, but A-for-effort 2000 Domaine de la Vougeraie red Burgundy from Pommard. The two restaurants also feature crisp, bright Alsatian rieslings, which pair well with sushi, and French sparklings, which pair well with just about anything. Singapore Bistro's stony Italian gewürztraminer will do justice to spicy dishes, and Café Asia's South African chenin blanc can take on richer, fruit-centered dishes and desserts. Not everything on their lists makes sense (Café Asia’s two shirazes and Singapore Bistro's massive California zinfandel, for example), but you stand a decent chance of finding at least one wine that does.

Do bad wine lists irk you as much as they irk DCist? Do bad wine lists matter if the food is good? Know of any Asian spots that pair food-and-wine especially well? Tell us. While we wait for your replies, we'll be sniffing pure umami through a rolled-up five-pound note. Just don't take our photo and send it to the tabloids or we'll lose our modeling contract with H&M.