What we’re about
“A real friend reaches for your hand and puts a wine glass in it.” – Unknown
The Perfect Pair aspires to aide group members in making better choices when buying wine from a favorite retailer, ordering wine when out with friends, or matching a favorite dish with a tasty wine selection.
Pairing food and wine is not magic or an art. It’s part chemistry, part physical, and part psychological. We’ll explore how our brains synthesize hundreds of datapoints through our five senses: taste, aroma, touch, sight, and sound. And how instantaneously, our brains let us know if we’ve “hit it out of the park”, if the pairing is just “OK”, or if it’s “nice try, but better luck next time”.
We’ll learn to utilize common industry tasting notes and scoring systems like the Davis 20-point tasting scale. We’ll develop our wine and food description vocabulary. And with this new vocabulary, we’ll apply culinary tools to identify ingredients that should go together nicely.
We’ll call on our creative self to try new ideas and combinations that might surprise us (I know people who swear by Cheetos and Sancerre). We’ll share our observations, perceptions, likes, and dislikes. And we’ll practice.
Along the way, we’ll meet some awesome folks, learn more than we ever thought possible about the foods we eat, and develop confidence in our ability to make great wine choices.
The goal of the meetup is to learn something new, meet like-minded people, and have fun. Whether you’re a foodie newbie or just learning about wine, the intent is to create a welcoming and supportive group. We’ll tend to follow a meetup agenda, but the timeline is, and will remain, loosely structured to allow plenty of opportunities for questions and sharing.
The organizer is a wine industry veteran with stints in sales, winemaking, and executive roles. He served as winemaker for Napa Wine Company where was instrumental in the production of wine for brands like Pahlmeyer, Staglin Family, Benziger, and others. Later, as VP Wine Production for the Jackson Family, he oversaw 30+ powerful brands like Kendall-Jackson, La Crema, Cambria and others. He is currently studying Culinary Arts continuously learning at College of the Desert.
Upcoming events (1)
See all- Life is a Cabernet, Old Chum. Come to the Cabernet.75797 Cam Cielo, Indian Wells, CA$40.00
“A bottle of wine begs to be shared; I have never met a miserly wine lover.”
― Clifton FadimanEveryone knows Cabernet Sauvignon is a great accompaniment to help showcase a Prime Roast Beef feast. In previous Perfect Pairing Meetups, we’ve learned that’s because wine’s inherent bitterness from tannin and anthocyanin (color pigments) perfectly balance the fat in the roast.
However, many of us just want to enjoy a bottle of Cabernet and don’t always feel like - or have the time to prepare - a huge roast dinner. In this Meetup, we’ll explore a few pairing options that allow us to satisfy our Cabernet “craving” without spending hours cooking.
Our Meetup will begin with a short tutorial to help understand “the fine print” on a wine label – what things like vintage dating, alcohol content, and sulphite warnings mean - and if we should even care (we should).
Then we’ll evaluate the evening’s wines comparing 2021 vintage Cabernet Sauvignons from Napa, Sonoma, Paso Robles, Lodi, and a few other appellations just to see if a $50.00 bottle is really 5 times as good as a $10.00 bottle. The wines will be tasted “blind” to keep everyone honest in their assessment.
Last, we’ll wrap up the evening pairing a few non-beef food pairing options to see if we like the results and think they might work to satisfy our desires.
The cost for the event is $40.00. Please RSVP and pay by Venmo to Lynne Ryno@Lynne-Ryno (last four of the phone number are 5172). Or mail a check to Jack Ryno, 75797 Camino Cielo, Indian Wells, CA. 92210 to confirm your seat. You will not be confirmed until payment is received. There are fourteen (14) seats available.
Please bring your own wine glasses. I highly recommend six (6) glasses for the event to facilitate the tasting format we’ll use. If you don’t have six matching glasses, click on this link https://tinyurl.com/yb455u3w for a set of eight glasses offered by Amazon at $19.99. The box is a handy way to transport the glasses to and from the tasting.
