Pairing Wine with Pomegranate Pips, Summer Squash, and Torpedo Onions

Late Summer/Early Autumn Vegan Food and Wine Pairings

I had a few wine industry friends over the other night for another vegan food and wine pairing fête featuring late summer/early autumn produce, some that will be out of season soon.

Before getting into the matches, here’s the menu and wine selection.

1 — Arugula with pomegranate pips and shallot/fig vinaigrette.

2 — Summer squash roasted and marinated in olive oil, white wine vinegar, and bay leaves; baby corn roasted with butter, salt, and bay leaves; sauteed torpedo onions and peppers marinated in fig vinegar and olive oil.

3 — Polenta and mushrooms.

2006 Emmanuel Giboulot Combe d’Ève (Burgundy,France) $74 for the 2019

2016 La Garagista Vinu Jancu (Champlain Valley, Vermont) $53 for the 2020

2016 L’Austral Vigneux (Saumur, France) $35

2021 Tessier Zabala Vineayrd Arroyo Seco Skin-Contact Chardonnay (Monterey, California) $35

2018 Filigren Farm Anderson Valley Pinot Noir (Anderson Valley, California) $60

2020 Confederacy of Equals Wet Lunch Colombard/Muscat (Lake County, Lodi, California) SOL, this wine is unavailable.

I grabbed a few bottles from my stash, including the 2006 Emmanuel Giboulot Combe d’Ève, made from a 40-year-old vineyard (probably closer to 25 when this wine was vinified) above the Les Bressandes 1er Cru in Beaune. I discovered Giboulot in 2006 when he was one of Burgundy’s rare biodynamic growers and natural winemakers. Not only are his wines beautiful, but he was also one of the brave souls to defy the Confederation of Appellations and Vignerons de Bourgogne’s directive to apply a pesticide to kill the insects spreading flavesence dorée, a bacteria that damages vines. He felt it was an overreaction and, having waited years for his vineyard to transition from conventional to biodynamic farming, he didn’t want to poison it with a pesticide he deemed unnecessary. As for the ’06 Combe d’Ève, it had a matrix of tertiary flavors, with a hazelnut oil richness, ignited by vibrant acidity.

I’d been waiting for the right time to open the 2016 La Garagista Vinu Jancu, a skin-contact wine made from La Crescent, a hybrid descended from Muscat de Hambourg. La Garagista’s wines have a compelling eccentricity (much like the winemaker, Deirdre Heekin), with flavors that test my vocabulary. They don’t have volatile acidity, brettanomyces, mouse, but some might call them funky. I understand that they are not everyone’s cup of tea, but there are just as many, if not more, who think they are spectacular. I’m in the latter camp. The ’16 Vinu Jancu had an herbaceousness that I can best describe as dried leaves, with stone fruit and citrus aromas that reminded me of a dessert wine or sherry made from Muscat. Despite the fragrance, it was bone dry.

The third cellar wine was the 2016 L’Austral Vigneux, a Cabernet Franc from Saumur in the Loire Valley. I tasted it at WINeFare 2022 and bought a few bottles for my stash. Over the last year, I’ve opened a couple, and it never disappoints. Sometimes Cabernet Franc can have a porcini-like aroma, so I considered trying it with the mushroom polenta.

A couple of my guests were Kristie Tacey from Tessier Winery and her partner, Chandan Param, who works with her and can also be found behind the bar at The Punchdown in Oakland. They brought the Tessier 2021 Zabala Vineyard Arroyo Seco Skin-Contact Chardonnay, 2018 Filigren Farm Anderson Valley Pinot Noir, and a couple of others we didn’t open. Esteechu Dunatte, a self-described long-term staple at the Oakland Punchdown (she is much more than that), brought Wet Lunch, a Colombard/Muscat blend she made in 2019 when she and Ian McCarthy made wine under the Conspiracy of Equals label.

First, let me get this out of the way; I screwed up the polenta and mushrooms and won’t bother to discuss a pairing here as it was not my best effort. So much for L’Austral Vigneux. As the third course (and the one cooked after taking a cannabis intermezzo), my focus wasn’t exactly on point, so I added too much polenta to the mushroom broth.

We started with an arugula salad with pomegranate pips and a shallot/fig vinegar dressing. The Pinot Noir’s red fruits complemented the pips and vinaigrette. It had soft tannins so from a textural viewpoint, it didn’t clash; tannic wines generally don’t work well in salads unless there’s an ingredient with texture to match. The arugula was very pungent, but the juice from the pips and green apple fruit from the Chardonnay mellowed it out while the seeds added a crunchy texture. Despite six days of skin maceration, the Chardonnay had no noticeable tannin. Both Tessier wines worked, as Wet Lunch which lit up nearly every dish it touched.

The veg course was probably the highlight of the dinner, said by all. I sauteed the onions and peppers earlier in the day and let them marinate in fig vinegar for a few hours so they had a caramelized, figgy sweetness that matched the Pinot Noir’s cherry/strawberry/rhubarb flavors. It was also good with the L’Austral Vigneux (a relief since I nixed the polenta), with the roasted red pepper note in the wine complementing the dish. With zesty acidity, the Colombard/Muscat cut through the peppers and onions’ unctuousness and added g a subtle stone fruit tone. The Wet Lunch also matched the squash, bringing out the vegetable’s subtle flavors and tempering the herbaceousness of the bay leaves.

You might wonder about Giboulot’s Combe d’Ève and La Garagista Vinu Jancu. The former was good with the baby corn roasted with vegan butter, salt, and Tony Coturri’s bay leaves. I could see drinking it with pumpkin and other winter squash. Terrific as these wines may be — and to me, both are — neither stood out as great pairings. There was about a glass left of the Vinu Jancu, so I drank it yesterday while sitting under my lemon tree, contemplating life, and it was an apt pairing for an existential moment. However, I’d also love to try it with Ethiopian or Indian food.

To recap, the best overall pairing was the Wet Lunch, with honorable mention to both the Tessier wines. I started following Tessier in 2016 and am impressed with their progress. I always thought the wines were good, but they’ve developed more nuance and personality. Sadly, Conspiracy of Equals is no more. Ian started Behemoth Farm Winery in the Finger Lakes. I’ve been pressing Esteechu to make wine again; she’s also had an uncredited hand in at least one other winemaking venture and has fantastic taste in wine. For now, you can find her at The Punchdown, where she’ll help you find something delightful to drink.