Denise Reid, Gleaner Writer

This cheese platter is presented with merlot. - photos by Denise Reid

It has been said that with great wines come great food and when GraceKennedy hosted an evening of wine tasting to launch their wines from the Bliss family recently in Montego Bay, they ensured they adhered to that rule.

Nowadays, food and wine pairing seems to defy the old rules of red wine with red meat and white wine with fish and poultry. With the intricacy of the various diets that are practised world over, it is only fitting that this should be so.

Food and wine pairing is a very subjective art and Grand Lido Negril's chef Gal Kotzez made this quite clear, stating, "you need to know each wine to match them with food". Kotzez explained that it took him about three weeks to pair the wines with appropriate appetisers, as he would "try to pick up something from the flavour of the food that complements the wine".

"Everyone has their own rules," chef Gal declared as he explained, "it wasn't about the food, it was about the wine. I tried to do things that would go well without taking away from it."

Little experimenting

The results made it clear that while Chef Gal is familiar with convention, he did a little bit of experimenting. The first station which boasted sauvignon blanc was complemented by stuffed cherry tomatoes, grilled rosemary shrimp crostini and vegetable crudités.

Chardonnay was served with spicy grilled chicken, gravlax roses with mustard sauce and mushroom crostini, while a rich Merlot was complemented by cheeses, fresh fruits and grilled lamb.

The cabernet sauvignon, which has blackberry notes and hints of cedar and spice, was offered with jerked pork crostini, duck roses with caramelised apples and peppered shrimp.

Duck roses with carmelised apples is presented with cabernet sauvignon.

Gravlax roses (salmon) with mustard sauce is one of the hors d' ouevres served with chardonnay.