Pairing wine with your meals can be a tricky thing, as it takes patience and knowledge to find the perfect match.

The rules of wine pairing can be found everywhere, but Stéphanie de Boüard-Rivoal who leads renowned winery Château Angélus in France, encourages people to enjoy wine by themselves and let their palate savors the flavors, instead of doing it by the book.

“People will tell you, ‘Red wine with cheese, white wine with fish’, but most cheeses don’t go with red wine. For instance, a strong cheese like camembert will overtake the wine,” De Boüard-Rivoal told The Jakarta Post on Feb. 17 in Central Jakarta. “So, what I’m saying is: Try the wine, try the food and feel the taste yourself.”

The wine cellar of Ch'teau Angélus. (angelus.com/File)

Compared to Western cuisines, pairing wine with Asian cuisines may be a bit challenging as they mostly contain more spices that can overpower the wine’s flavor.

De Boüard-Rivoal, an eight generation sommelier at Angélus, gave examples of the winery’s vintages that can go along with Asian dishes.

“It depends on the vintages. For example, 2007, 2011 and 2012 will go with poultry, pasta, noodles and rice and have some mild, gentle spices,” she said. “The 2006 goes with something stronger, perhaps lamb and beef. I’d add some grilled vegetables and spices – but not too strong.”

She later added that soto ayam (chicken soup served with noodles and aromatics) was a good match with wine.

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Located near the Saint-Émilion bell tower in Bordeaux, a city in Southwestern France known for its wine region, Angélus has received Premier Grand Cru Classé (A) status. Its wines have appeared in various films, including James Bond movies such as Casino Royale (2006) and SPECTRE (2015).

Known for its high proportion of cabernet franc, the winery started its organic conversion in 2018 and plans to be certified within five years.

The conversion is never easy, De Boüard-Rivoal said. She recalled the year of 2018 when heavy rain fell from January till June.

“It was the equivalent of one-year rain,” she said. “When working in an organic [winery], you only use natural products, such as copper. And [if] it's washed off [by the rain], meaning that all of it got diluted, you have to do it again and again.”

Stéphanie de Boüard-Rivoal (left), an eight generation sommelier at Ch'teau Angélus, with her father, Hubert de Boüard de Laforest (right). (angelus.com/File)

After taking over the château in 2012, De Boüard-Rivoal was joined by her cousin, Thierry Grenié de Boüard, in managing Angélus. They decided to adapt to the environment amid global warming concerns.

“People tend to say, ‘Oh, it’s global warming’. I think it’s not global warming only. It’s global extreme – rain, frost, heat. We really need to adapt and try to anticipate as much as possible,” she said.

De Boüard-Rivoal explained that the Bordeaux’s market share was increasing in parallel with the growth of the wine market.

“We can definitely tell that Bordeaux wines have a strong place here [in Indonesia] and that Indonesian people continue to enjoy them although the tax has increased. That’s great,” she said.

Furthermore, she wished to discover a new generation who can be introduced to wine.

“We also wanted to keep in touch with people who already know us, but they don’t necessarily know about the […] evolution and philosophy of wine,” she said. (wng)