Inspired by my stint in Shanghai, I often had friends over for dinner, after spending afternoons and evenings, or sometimes, even days, cooking up various culinary storms featuring the flavours of Shanghai and Sichuan, and these would invariably be washed down with wine pairings of all sorts…

I now live in a different part of town, but do return occasionally, to soak up the old-world charm of the estate with its Art Deco accented pre-war colonial public housing architecture, and of course, the wonderful food that can be found at Tiong Bahru Market.

Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to do something a little unusual. I had an “Alsatian Wine Brunch” at Tiong Bahru Market.

Now, what is so unusual about having wines with a meal at Tiong Bahru Market? Haven’t people already been doing this for a number of years?

The answer is a simple yes. People in Singapore have been matching their wines with their food at Hawker Centres since the idea was mooted by local wine personalities in the early 1990’s, but, they had invariably matched their wines with all-time favourites like Hainanese Chicken Rice, Dim Sum, BBQ Sambal Stingray, Chilli Crab and other serious dishes usually eaten during lunch or dinner.

This little excursion, would be a little different, as we were going to attempt to match a couple of Alsatian wines with some traditional breakfast dishes, something that was quite unheard of, as most people in Singapore tend not to touch alcohol before the sun sets…

Quite unintentionally, this little brunch also became a sampling of Singapore’s original Chinese immigrant cuisines, covering the Cantonese, Hokkien, and Teochew dialect groups, which make up the majority of Singapore’s Chinese population.

Taking part in this little excursion were, Etienne HUGEL, who runs the venerable house of HUGEL & FILS in Alsace, France, Jenny TAN, who writes the wine column for The Sunday Times, in addition to running THE FOOD CULT, a Food & Beverage Think Tank, and myself, the random academic, who would bring the wine glasses…

Etienne brought the wines, the 2007 Hugel Jubilee Riesling, an intense and racy wine with good ripeness, structure, minerality and palate weight.

This went beautifully with a Raw Fish Salad (which accompanied a serving of Congee, a thick Cantonese style rice porridge), which was made from thin slices of raw Wolf Herring, seasoned with a squeeze of Calamansi Lime, sliced red chillies, finely shredded Spring Onions (Scallions), shreds of ginger, and a lashing of sesame oil, with the freshness of the wine complimenting the citrus of the Calamansi Lime and delicate flavours of the raw fish.

Also well matched with the Jubilee Riesling, was the combination of Fried Fishcakes, especially when dipped in the tangy chilli dip. These included, You Tiao (deepfried dough sticks stuffed with fish forcemeat), Otah (spicy fish cakes), Fishcake and Fishballs. These, however, are technically not a traditional breakfast type food, but all day snacks…

The second wine, the heavenly 2001 Hugel Classic Tokay Pinot Gris Vendange Tardives, was sweet, ripe, slightly voluptuous, yet very elegant, and exquisitely balanced.

This was matched with Chwee Kueh (水粿), a Teochew breakfast snack, which can be described as bowl-shaped steamed rice flour cakes with a topping of finely chopped/diced salted preserved radishes that have been slow cooked in oil. This is usually served with a chilli sauce on the side, and in most cases, when the chilli sauce is combined with the radish topping, the sum becomes greater than the component parts… This paired beautifully with the Tokay Pinot Gris Vendange Tardives, with the sweetness of the wine foiling perfectly with the salty, spicy radish topping.

We also tried the dry version of Hokkien Hae Mee (福建虾面), a dish of yellow egg noodles normally served in a rich prawn and pork broth originating in Fujian Province and brought to Singapore via Penang, Malaysia. The dry version was served with a robust chilli sauce, and topped with boiled pork ribs, a pair of whole medium-sized prawns, a few sprigs of water spinach (Kang Kong), deep-fried shallots, and a few small cubes of deep-fried lard. The robust spicy flavours of the noodle dish were very well handled by the Pinot Gris, which tempered the fire with its sweetness and its vitality.

Finally, we tried the pairing of a few Nyonya Kueh (Straits Chinese or Peranakan Pastries) with the Pinot Gris Vendange Tardives, and happily, the wine managed to compliment Kueh Bingka Ubi Kayu (or just Kueh Bingka), a “cake” made from baked grated Tapioca (Cassava), but was over-powered by the Ondeh Ondeh, glutinous rice balls filled with Gula Melaka (Palm Sugar) and coated with grated coconut.

Etienne HUGEL who enjoyed the whole experience immensely, said: “I am posting this on my blog“, and he blogged about this experience of “Enjoying Singlish & Hawker Centre lifestyle”.  Jenny TAN followed close behind, writing in her regular column on The Sunday Times, about our experience at Tiong Bahru with “Alsace meets Asia“, and along the way, recommending the 2004 Hugel Jubilee Riesling as well.

And finally, the circle is now complete, with my perspectives of how the wines matched the food, as my little contribution to this very fun exercise…

Such is the stereotype, that Champagne is relegated to the role of the tipple that is used for toasting at these celebratory occasions, and is rarely taken seriously as a wine, to be matched with meals and savoured for it’s finesse and complexity…

Interestingly, the most commonplace occasions other than celebrations where Champagne is imbibed, seem to be at the Night Clubs, where they are used to slake the parched throats of the not so young, but, trendy party goers, gyrating endlessly on the dance floors.

Alternatively, Champagne is often poured at Cocktail Parties, where it is sipped, along with tasty morsels of finger food, canapés, and focused conversations.

Then, there are also the Hotel Sunday Brunches where many individuals are seen to be literally chugging away at the Champagne, like there wasn’t going to be a tomorrow…

The Champagnes that regularly appear at these “volume” outlets, tend to be from the larger producers, with the “Grand Marques” taking the largest cut in the pie that is the marketplace, due to their obviously larger available volumes, higher profiles due to much advertising, and their ability to muscle their way into the marketplace due to the strengths of their brands.

Due to the dominance of the “Grand Marques” in the marketplace and the marketing that enhances their desirability, these are the brands that people are most familiar with, and will ask for by name, something that is quite rare where regular wines are concerned.

Lower down in the pecking order of the Champagne market, there are specialist producers that produce Champagne on a much smaller scale, and sometimes, give the “Grand Marques” a run for their money, where quality is concerned.

These Champagnes very often only appear in smaller restaurants and specialist retailers, as they do not look for the same type of exposure, or sales volume as the Champagnes of the “Grand Marques”.

One such example is from the house of Champagne Marie Demets, a small producer from Guye-Sur-Seine, in the Southern part of the Champagne region, and, which used to supply grapes to Champagne Bollinger.

According to the available literature, Champagne Marie Demets was formed in 1987 when Marie Brement married Alain Demets.

Marie’s family have cultivated the land for many generations and Alain, who used to rent vines from the Brement family, took over the domaine on Marie’s father’s retirement.

This small grower produces all its Champagne from their own twelve hectares planted with mostly Pinot Noir.

I happened to encounter their Non Vintage Brut Tradition Champagne at a tasting, and I was so charmed by it, that I made an unprecedented purchase of a dozen bottles…

Champagne Marie Demets Brut Tradition NV

Made from 95% Pinot Noir, and 5% Chardonnay, from 100% Grand Cru vineyard sites, the Champagne Marie Demets Brut Tradition NV showed a vibrant medium gold colour, with a fine, persistent mousse.

On the nose, this Champagne displayed a distinctly creamy, and biscuity bouquet, with some hints of honey.

On the palate, it was dry, with pinot fruit that was rich, full flavoured, and fresh, with some yeast and biscuit notes, and, a light hint of nuttiness lingering in the finish.

This Champagne was beautifully balanced, with considerable elegance and finesse.  Furthermore, it was also absolutely delicious, and, eminently drinkable.

I have enjoyed this Champagne as an aperitif, and with simple pleasures like Cantonese Roast Pork (Siew Yoke), Deepfried Battered Whitebait, Deepfried Frogs Legs with Ginger Chips, Squid Tentacles with Salted Egg coating, and even Steamed White Pomfret Teochew-style.

From the case of 12 bottles, I now have just 3 bottles left, and I look forward to the day when the local importer here in Singapore (Lollapalooza Asia) brings in the highly acclaimed Marie Demets Brut Rosé NV.

Yung Kee Century Eggs with 2002 Telegramme Chateauneuf-du-Pape

About a month ago, whilst on my way to a dinner that featured amongst other dishes, a Century Egg Salad, I decided to make a detour into a wine shop to pick up a couple of bottles of wine to try with dinner.

Knowing what the menu was, I decided to look for wines, which I thought, would match nicely with the other dishes, whilst totally ignoring the Century Egg dish.

Now why would I ignore the Century Eggs and not attempt to match any wine with them?

Well, this decision goes back to the time when I was a student at Hotel School a little more than 20 years ago.  At Hotel School, we were introduced to the principles of food & wine matching, and amongst those principles expounded, was a list of food items that were deemed to be “unmatchable” with wine.  Amongst the food items mentioned, were, artichokes, asparagus, and eggs.

Thus, was this the reason why I had totally ignored to attempt matching the Century Eggs with wine?  Perhaps so, as I had been programmed earlier in life to avoid matching eggs with wine…

Anyway, it happened that one of the bottles I brought for the dinner was opened first, and was sipped as the apéritif.

This bottle was the 2002 Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe “Telegramme” Châteauneuf-du-Pape, a once-off release of the famous Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe Châteauneuf-du-Pape, which was declassified due to the washed out 2002 vintage.

Grape varieties used for the wine included mainly Grenache and Mourvédre, and may have included Syrah and Cinsault in the blend.

The wine had quite intense sweet red fruit flavours, with hints of white pepper spice, and exotic ginger blossoms, a moderately fresh acidity, a medium to full-body, really soft, silky tannins and quite a long dry finish.

It wasn’t particularly complex, but very pleasant, and enjoyable at that moment, when served at a cool 16ºC.

When the first course of Century Egg Salad, which consisted of Century Eggs from the famous “Yung Kee” shop in Hong Kong, and pickled ginger from China, was served, I decided (for academic reasons) to try the wine with the Century Eggs to see if there would be any reaction worth noting.

To my surprise, there wasn’t an unpleasant reaction, and the wine actually went quite nicely with the Century Eggs, with the sweet red fruits, freshness and soft, silky tannins complementing the custard-like texture and mild flavour of the Yung Kee Century Egg.

Another foodie CL, who was seated at the same table was surprised at my reaction, and tried the pairing as well, and agreed that it was quite a pleasant and interesting match.

However, however pleasant and interesting the match was, it still wasn’t quite the “marriage made in heaven”…

At this point, before anyone starts crying foul, I must state that not all Century Eggs are the same.  Century Eggs do come in all sorts of colours and degrees of flavour, depending on where they come from, and how old they are.

Characteristics do range from those with amber gold whites with rather delicate flavours, to darkly coloured ones with oozing yolk, emitting ammonia fumes that can bring tears to your eyes.

The version from Hong Kong’s “Yung Kee”, is on the delicate side of the scale, and thus, would be more amenable to matching with wine.

So, after reading this, should you start to burn all your books on food & wine matching?

I think not, as most theories and principles of food & wine matching are quite general at best, and you might have to read into the context of where, and when the book you refer to was written.

To me, one should not to state categorically that all Century Eggs are quite impossible to match with any wine, it is just that a perfect match hasn’t been found yet…

On an end note, I’ve taken a look into both the 1986 and 2002 Editions of Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book, (the 1986 I bought many years ago, and the 2002 was a gift from someone for Christmas some years ago…) .  The venerable 1986 edition states: “Eggs: These present difficulties: they clash with most wines and spoil good ones.”, whereas, the 2002 edition’s comment on eggs with wine is quite different; “Eggs: Not exactly flattering for white wines, but try soft, unoaked Chardonnay, subtle white Burgundy, or California Chardonnay with omelettes, quiches, etc.  Reds clash bitterly with the yolk, especially hard-boiled.  Beaujolais or other Gamay may cope.  Other ingredients may be the things to match.”

I’ve basically picked up two differing editions of the same author’s work from differing decades to show you that principles or theories regarding food & wine matching do change with time.

Therefore, I encourage readers to try anything and everything with wine, even food items that are seemingly “impossible” to match.