In short, the Lonely Guy’s Dream Dinner with a modest amount of pretension.

2007 Wolf Blass Shiraz/Cabernet (South Australia) Reg: 9.99 On Sale: 7.99

But I respect hamburgers. Luscious, red and juicy and in Guy cuisine, not that far from a steak.

To Guys, a good burger calls for a steak wine; to call for a lightweight red is dissing the burger. And any good steak wine is happy to dance with beef in all forms.

My answer was Wolf Blass’s 2006 Gold Label shiraz ($17.99) from Barossa. This one was fat with flavor, berries and plums with hints of licorice and smoke. Not monstrous in weight or harshness, despite a full load of alcohol (15.5%) a very luscious drink.

It would have liked an inch-thick Delmonico — and it made the burger taste just as rich.

The Wine Speculator puts it at 91, and I agree. Especially at $17.99. You need a couple.

- Chris Sherman, The Blogging Nibbler

2008 Garnacha de Fuego (Calatayud, Spain) $6.99

It’s still just me bach’ing in the kitchen so I treated myself to a thick pork chop, dusted it with cinnamon, clove, curry and ginger, and grilled it on the stove top with garlic onions and baby bok choy on the side. Asian on the manly side, not particularly delicate but surprisingly fiery.

Fight fire with Garnacha de Fuego especially in the Year of Grenache. That’s the Catalan bargain in the flaming bottle. This deep purple Grenache has the weight to go with grilled edge, dark cherries that dance with the the fatty pork and plenty of pepper to match the seasoning.

Wine Advocate says 89 pts.  B-21 says $6.99.

That’s a fire sale.

2008 Domaine Mas Carlot Rose Tradition 9.99

That‘s a toughie with all those big flavors. But if I put it in context “on the summery sidewalks of New York” it might clue you in that the answer is … Rosé. Right. Dry rosé, well made, is perfect when you want refreshing and the ability to match strong and, well, crazy foods. Which is what we eat today, especially from smart young chefs.

In this case, it was David Banks, clever young Jean-Georges grad, who is from an ostensibly simple, farm-based little place called Recipe on the New York’s Upper West side. One great appetizer is indeed crostini spread with chicken liver pate, topped with fat, shiny Portuguese sardines garnished with salmon, crumbled hard-boiled eggs and garlic crisps.

Yep, all in one bite that would challenge the blackest Malbec or sharpest Alsatian. Yet a solid Mediterranean rosé matched perfectly. Likewise with the pork chop that followed or again the next night with a platter of duck salad, mesclun and potatoes.

That’s the power of rosés, they’re bright and strong, not just playful picnickers.

Drink bold. Think pink.

- Chris Sherman, The Blogging Nibbler

2009 Montes Chardonnay Classic Series $7.99

This is a similar recipe at our house as shrimp and grits and takes a little bit longer but not as long as if you labored to make a roux. I skip it and depend on sauteeing fresh okra with onions and garlic to make the goopiness. Then comes the tomatoes and such protein is at hand, shrimp (with heads or clam juice) chunks of chicken, sausage, bacon, ham and crabmeat. And hot sauce, Tabasco or Crystal.

What match?

The answer could be a very crisp sauv blanc or a zin if it’s particularly spicy, but again we found the answer down in Argentina. 

Not a torrontes but a chardonnay of all things. The entry chard from Montes, the 2009 classic ($7.99). This is not a flabby cheapo that smells of margarine, this has spice, apples and pears and crisp enough to refresh and encourage those tastebuds. Montes is a label I trust at all levels. A chard that can go to a fais-do-do is a Cajun at heart. 

- Chris Sherman, The Blogging Nibbler

2008 Alamos Torrontes Mendoza 7.99

My posting on the night we had shrimp and grits with Alamos Torrontes got a query: How’d you do that? In truth I make shrimp and grits without much thinking, one of those old recipes that are quite flexible and forgiving. Here is a rough structure and formula for ingredients. 

Make grits (Dixie Lily or Jim Dandy) according to package directions for two: Boil water, add grits, cook briefly and remove from heat. You can do the same with polenta (we use Bellino), which also takes 5 minutes or less.

For the shrimp and sauce, you need:

• One-third cup onions, chopped
• Three cloves garlic, chopped finely
• One half vell pepper, if desired
• Two tablespoons olive oil or butter
• Tablespoon Herbes de Provence (or substitute Italian seasoning) mix
• Twelve extra large shrimp, preferably heads on
• Four medium tomatoes, ripe and chopped.

Directions:

• Saute onions and garlic until limp. Add herbes de provence.
• Meanwhile remove shrimp heads and shell shrimp.
• Add heads to one side of saute pan, add chopped tomatoes to the othert.
• Cover and cook over medium heat for five minutes.
• Remove shrimp heads when they turn pink, set aside in scant cold water.
• When cool to the touch, scoop out head meat and return to the pan.
• Add water from bowl of shrimp heads.
• Stir, taste, add salt and pepper as needed.
• Add shrimp and cook uncovered, turning once, until shrimp are just cooked. About three minutes per side.
• Remove shrimp, place on polenta.
• Turn up heat on sauce to reduce and thicken. Add additional butter or oil to sauce if desired. Pour sauce over shrimp and grits.

Serves two as entrée, four to six as appetizer.

N.B. Sauce is eminently flexible; You can add hotter peppers, hot sauce or wine. You can use chili, cumin for a more Latin flavor. I sometimes add spinach or whole basil leaves at the end with the uncooked shrimp. For a French accent, add half teaspoon thyne and marjoram.

If you do not have heads on shrimp, add one bottle clam broth and two tablespoons dry red wine.

- Chris Sherman, The Blogging Nibbler

At our house it depends on fresh tomatoes. We usually have colossal shrimp in the freezer from Bama Seafood (don’t miss the sales when their shrimp comes in) and Dixie Lily grits in the pantry. Saute onions and garlic with Provence or Italian spices. Add tomatoes and shrimp heads and cook down. Remove heads (and pick their meat if you want), add chopped spinach leaves and shrimp. Cook a few minutes, just until spinach wilts and shrimp cook through.

2008 Alamos Torrontes $7.99

The key is that the sauce taste fresh not like a sausage sandwich or pizza, and the sweetness of shrimp remains.

The usual wine pairing is a light red, but I chose an Argentine torrontes.

This is not showoff obscurantism. At $7.99 you could make this fragrant lovely your go-to refrigerator white. That price is for the torrontes from Alamos, a value label from the great Catenas and it’s a surprisingly good introduction to the grape, full of peaches and flowers in the nose a friendly citrus on the tongue, more oranges and melons than grapefruit. But a round texture and a lively acid finish. Only 13% alcohol. Sends most sauv blanc and chard to Dullsville.

If this is not the year of torrontes, it’s at least the summer of this flirtatious grape. Get to know it.

- Chris Sherman, The Blogging Nibbler

Dutschke Old Codger Port $14.99

Keeping the fires burning after dinner when one of my friends lit a prime stogie, I found a good match for the other side of the globe:  Old Codger Tawny Port, a 10 year blend from Wayne Dutschke.

Dutschke makes more expensive stuff  but this $14.99 is delicious in the true tradition of Australian stickies. Indeed he dedicates it to a nameless old vineyard worker who taught the young Dutschke that a glass of tawny was the best end to a hard day in the cellar. He’s done the old man proud: the Barons of Barossa named him winemaker of the year, James Halliday gave the label five stars. And this lowly offering gets 90 from Parker.

It’s a rich blend from crazy-quilt solera of old fortified wines. The final blend is thick and rich and honeyed, with flavors of  caramel toffee, butter scotch and roasted nuts. Not exactly smoky but big flavors. A fine complement to a good cigar, I have it on good authority. Or a substitute for us non-smokers with as much postprandial pleasure on a spring night.

- Chris Sherman, The Blogging Nibbler

2007 Black Slate by Celler Cal Pla (Priorat) $19.99

It was my kind of dream dinner party, a simple salad and all the rest cooked on the grill. The salad was watermelon and feta, the most refreshing idea from Greece since democracy, plus almonds and cucumbers on romaine dressed with oil and vinegar. The mixed grill was more Mediterranean global than a parillada, certainly when it came to the sausages, spicy lamb merguez, chicken-feta spinach and of couse bratwurst. (How can you fire up the grill and not put on a sausage?). Meanwhile there was a small chicken rubbed with olive oil turning on the rotisserie. BTW, a Bell & Evans chicken is the rare designer bird I think well worth the price.  Organic, no antibiotics, vegetarians and wide-roaming chicks, and most important to me,  bursting with flavor and juice. And in the last ten minutes a small steak with garlic and my own Provencal herbs.

So there’s char, smoke, fat, spices pork, lamb, beef and chicken with ample and divergent spices, plus a fruity salad. First one to say rosé is taking the easy way out.

Nope, I pulled out a bottle of Black Slate from Porerra. At $19.99 you could call it the poor man’s Priorat but you get a full taste of Spain’s most fashionable terroir, the rocky schisty cliffs outside Barcelona that compress old vine garnacha and carinena into a dense sleek wine, packed with blueberries and thick with licorice.

This was not a robust Zin or Shiraz that matched primal flesh on the fire, but a strong elegant wine that kept its beauty when silhouetted in the flames. It stood up to all the big flavors and was admirable on its own.

2008 Craggy Range Sauvignon Blanc Te Muna Road (New Zealand) $24.99

We were in L’Escalier the grand wow- some dining room of the Breakers in Palm Beach, true clash of the vintages. Hotel was built in the 1920s in the style of Italy in the 1500s; the furniture from Louis XIV, up dated with Alphnse Mucha poufs from 1900.

The cooking was pure 21^stcentury with explosive diversity thanks to the shape-shifting magic chef Greg Vassos learned in Spain. He can can transmogrify butternut squash into a pair of dice, make tiny pearls of prosciutto and turn corn broth into truffles. When a single course may have peeky toe crab and mascarpone cheese in an open ravioli and across the table there was perfect duck breast, caramelized endive, walnuts, black raisins, spiced duck jus. And so it went, course after course, for three diners.

What to drink, the problem of wine-food pairing in any modern restaurant cubed. The old rules for careful pairing still make sense IF we’re all having the same thing or eating course by course in lockstep.

That happens usually at home but rarely when dining out. Which is why the smart move for most tables is to head to the middle of the wine list for crisp Whites, Rosés, Pinot Noir or the “alternatives” section which usually includes Rieslings and Rhone whites, lighthearted Med and Italian reds.

There’s one other route:  Ask for help… especially when you’re presented with a thousand choices on an award winning list. It’s the right call at the Breakers, which has quietly assembled a sommelier corps as first class and diverse as its wine list.

The solution to the specific riddle, sommelier Juan Gomez and I agreed was a New Zealand Sauv Blanc, but not the usual Marlborough stuff.

The choice was the 2008 Craggy Range Te Muna from Martinborough across the water on the North Island. It’s unusually rich, ripe and tropical, crisp where we needed it yet full-bodied too. A real multi-tasker, and one of the best SB’s on B-21’s shelves ($24.95) if you’re having peek toe and duck at home. Or any kind of crab, shrimp or fish. And I plan to try it with a roast chicken and prosciutto.

P.S. – Even if you don’t dine and drink in Palm Beach, you’ll soon encounter the Breakers school of innovative wine stewardship elsewhere in fine dining of tomorrow.

Virginia Phillip, one of ten female master sommeliers in the world, supervises three wine cellars and wine lists at the resort’s nine restaurants (Italian to Asian) and is dedicated to training the next generation of sommeliers, on site and in ongoing programs. Under her tutelage Gomez became the first master sommelier from Mexico. Newest wine staffer is Roxane Shafaee-Moghadam, moved to Palm Beach after three years running the wine program at Thomas Keller’s Per Se.

New foods, new wines, new ideas.  Start tasting.

- Chris Sherman, The Blogging Nibbler

2008 Yalumba Viognier Eden Valley - 17.99 (92 Pts. The Wine Spectator and a Top 100 of 2009!)

Take a dinner last week. It wasn’t the work of smart New American chef, just a something left-over stirfry. Call it Contemporary Refrigerator Fusion. I had wild mushroom ravioli from the Ravioli Co. one plump chicken liver from a bird the night before. Sounded earthy, so I added crumbled walnuts, hard ricotta cheese, and fresh basil, olive oil, pepper and a touch of balsamic. If that’s not your style, I’ m sure you’ve put together odd couples that would surprise me.

What to drink? The chicken liver and mushrooms made me think northern Italy, Barbera and an Amarone. But there were none on the shelf. Well, Pinot Noir is always mushroom-friendly. Again the cupboard was bare.

But then this was not a standard meal in any cuisine, so why kid myself.  I went adventuring and found a Yalumba Viognier. Why not? Viognier is not truly pegged down either, although I told myself that Condrieu and foie gras might work. My poorman’s version might – and did:  The viognier was dry but full bodied, its muskiness matched the mushrooms and livers, and the apricots gave it a surprise lift.

Fear not.  We’ve got new foods and new wines. Be your own match maker.

- Chris Sherman, The Blogging Nibbler