SEEING RED
Indian-American sommelier turned winemaker, Rajat Parr, on challenging mindsets and pairing options
How to pair red wine with vegetarian fare
Just when you think only a meat dish can pair with the Pinot Noir that Rajat Parr crafts at Sandhi and Domaine de la Cote at Santa Rita Hills in the United States, he picks the Cocogarganelli—a vegetarian dish of homemade pasta made with cocoa in the dough cooked with a parmesan broth, sauteed button mushrooms, enoki and shimigi and edamame, busting the myth that red wines need only meats as a suitable match. Mushrooms and morels with their earthy vegetarian flavours, he says, make great pairings with complex wines such as an aged Syrah from the Northern Rhone region of France or a hearty Italian Barolo. “Complex reds can pair well with vegetarian food,” says the chef, sommelier, winemaker and wine educator who was born in India but now lives and makes wines in the US. An easy tip from him is to pick wines and food which have the same “weight” which can be loosely explained as the intensity or the body of a wine. A heavy bodied wine complements more robust food flavours. Raised in Kolkata, Parr first trained to be a chef and discovered a love for wines while studying at the Culinary Institute of America in New York. Working as an apprentice to master sommelier Larry Stone at Rubicon in
San Francisco, Parr developed a special liking for wines from Burgundy, a region known for its acclaimed red wines and started making “Burgundy-esque” red wines in the Santa Rita Hills of Santa Barbara County in 2011 and then in Oregon from 2014.
Old and New world
Even as wine drinkers the world over debate the popularity of Old World and New World wines, Parr says that both have their unique strengths. “The Old World is influenced by history and are bound by rules and regulations while the new world has more freedom to plant whatever they want wherever they want. The New World can learn from the old world which has created the template for making wines,” he says. Even though he primarily works with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, Parr uses “minuscule quantities” of 18 varietals including the Gamay, Syrah, Chenin Blanc, Poulsard, Trousseau and Pais to to make wines in the western region of the United States.
Indian food with wine
While Indian cuisine isn’t always the first choice for sommeliers, Parr suggests an off-dry Riesling or a Gamay to complement the spices and flavours of vegetarian Indian food. If the spice is high, pick a wine with lower alcohol. He also recommends matching the wine with the acidity of the dish to enhance the experience of both, the food and the wine. It’s all about a fine balance.