Most of us likely consider a grilled cheese sandwich served alongside a piping bowl of tomato soup to be a bit of childhood comfort—especially if that childhood was spent sometime between Maynard G. Krebs and Fonzie.
Boomers will get it. The generation experienced the handy lunch in its proletarian glory: processed cheese, white bread, canned soup. Served on a formica countertop and…
Yeah, we’re approaching a nostalgic precipice. Because a wine pairing could swerve wildly, however, depending upon the type of cheese, the quality of bread and care involved in preparing the soup, a return to the basics seems in order.
So settling in for a bit of comfort in this case means canned condensed tomato soup, white sandwich bread—buttered on the outside—and a reasonably sharp cheddar. (Yes, American cheese would be more proper under the circumstances, but no. Just no.)
Bread and cheese have been a staple at least since ancient Roman times. One would think selecting a wine for the meal should be almost automatic by now.
Yet as Jeremy McCarter at the Pierce Ranch Vineyards tasting room in Monterey points out, the flavors range from sweet to toasty, with a little nip from the cheddar. It’s enough to make any expert tap the brakes.
“The first that comes to mind—let me think about it,” he says. At issue is the tannic weight of the wine. “You don’t want anything too heavy. You can pair with a medium bodied wine.”
McCarter suggested a good Petite Sirah. But he believed a blend from Pierce Ranch’s stable would complement soup and sandwich with more flair.
The winery’s 2018 Cosecheiro is a 72-20 percent mix of Touriga and Souzão—both commonly used to make Port—with a little Alicante Bouschet thrown in.
“It has a spiciness and decent acidity,” McCarter explains. “But it’s not overwhelming.”
On the nose it welcomes you with fresh and jammy fruits with hints of bramble, dry fall leaves and earthy paving stone.
It’s pleasantly fruit forward when sipped. Plums, cherries and blueberries spill from the rim, almost obscuring a delicate floral note and a notion of tobacco curing in a weathered shed. Dusky spice, cracked pepper try to muscle through, but are swept into the background as fruit splashes across the palate.
All of this pairs nicely with the sandwich. The wine deepens in flavor, taking on a richer hue like stewed fruit, but with a floral plume. Tomato soup brings the spicy trace forward in the Cosecheiro, benefitting both foods as it lingers.
As it turns out, pairing wine with a childhood memory is indeed relatively easy.
The experience also answers an unrelated question. Why did popular music of the Baby Boom era have so many lyrics pitting young against old? It wasn’t just war, the draft, voting rights and such.
Canned tomato soup is enough to turn any generation against their parents.