Last Sunday I finally went to a wine dinner that paired specific wines to a specific meal. True to my nontraditional way with wine, this dinner featured wines paired with In N Out burger, Southern California’s best fast food burger. All of the wines paired with the burger were made by a single winemaker, Doug Margerum. Doug apparently came up with this idea a few years back and it has been a success each year he’s done it, and for good reason. Doug makes wine for several wineries up in Santa Barbara county and good wines at that. Surprisingly, I have never visited one of his wineries in my trips up to that area, but thanks to the dinner, I had the opportunity to sample them all without leaving Los Angeles.
When I arrived at the dinner, I received my ticket for a burger and a wine glass. I was one of the first to arrive, so I decided to take advantage of the down time to go talk with Doug Margerum to get his opinion on which wine I should pair with my burger. He said hands down that his “M5” wine, a Rhone blend was the drink of choice with the burger, so after talking with him a bit and hearing all about his different wines and the wineries that he works for, I got a glass of the M5 and went off to get my burger. As always, In N Out made a great burger, and the wine itself was good, but I didn’t think much of the pairing to be perfectly honest. I didn’t think that the spicy, tannic wine did much to go with the cheese burger. I just feel like the burger overpowered the wine and that it kind of ruined the wine’s flavors. I think that the pairing would have been much better if I had gotten a burger without cheese. I told Doug this and he disagreed with me of course, but it led to a good conversation about how he thought the wine balanced out the heaviness of the rich, cheesy burger and how I thought that the richness overpowered his wine. After talking with him for a little bit, I decided to try some of his other wines.
For the most part, Doug makes wines that are typical of Santa Barbara county- French style wines that are either blends heavy on Syrah or Bordeaux blends that are heavy on Merlot and Cabernet Franc. I enjoyed most of his blends, but wasn’t really a fan of any of his single varietal red wines. The one that I did like was a Sangiovese made from a single vineyard up there and made in extremely small quantities. Overall, the highlight of the day wasn’t the meal or the wines, but talking with Doug and learning more about what he was thinking as he made all of the wines that I was trying. As the wine maker and someone that knows the wines he makes inside and out, it was nice to hear his commentary on what I was drinking while bouncing my own opinions off of him. He was quickly able to peg me as an avid fan of Sangiovese because that was the wine that sparked the most conversation between us, and that was the wine that I felt most comfortable talking about.
To second my opinion from my post a few weeks ago about wine dinners, I think that every fan on wine should try an organized dinner at some point in their lives. While some are extravagantly expensive, many others are reasonable and are as simple as a small winemaker pouring his wines to match with a fast food cheeseburger in the parking lot of a wine store. Keep your eyes open and if you ever see a wine dinner that sounds like it’s right up your alley, try it out, you won’t be disappointed.
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