Big Macs and Pinot Noir: Practical Pairings

Episode Transcript

Hello! And welcome to the Wine Pair podcast. I’m Joe, your sommelier of cheap wine, and this is my wife and wine-pairing partner Carmela. And we are the Wine Pair.

So, I had to change my title to sommelier of cheap wine because our youngest son was confused by what I meant by crappy wine sommelier. I think the sentence structure got him confused. He doesn’t think I’m crappy, he just wants it clear that I am your wine steward for cheap wine. 

I am really excited about this episode. We get to combine a couple of my favorite things: burgers and Pinot Noir.

Man, I love a good burger. And I love a good Pinot. And I think people feel sometimes that wine has to be paired with something fancy, but that is just not true! Wine is meant to be enjoyed every day, and today, like we do in all of our episodes, we are going to taste and rate everyday wines - wines you can find in your local grocery store or wine shop or online. And we will always be brutally honest in our ratings. We promise!

Ok, so for this episode, we are going to pair some easy to find Pinot Noirs with Big Macs. So, time for some truth, Carmela. How do you feel about McDonalds in general?

Did you know, according to an article in Entrepreneur magazine, 1% of the world’s population eats at McDonalds every day! They serve 68 million people a day! Amazing!

Now, I’m not the biggest McDonald’s fan, but I do like a good Big Mac, so we are going to see how a Big Mac and Pinot Noir stack up together. 

There is actually a well known book called Big Macs and Burgundy that pairs up common foods with wines from around the world. And, if you didn’t know, in one of the most famous wine regions of the world, Burgundy in France, Pinot Noir is the wine that makes up red Burgundy. So file that one away and use it sometime when you want to impress someone. We are not going to be drinking any fancy Pinots, BUT we do have a pinot noir we are going to taste that actually comes from Burgundy that you should be able to find pretty easily and is in our under $20 price range. 

Now, before we get too far, I need to give you a hard time, Carmela, about Big Macs. A few years ago, we were on a walk in Woodinville in an area where there are a number of tasting rooms, and a hard, difficult to absorb truth came to you. I am going to share with everyone that you did not know that a Big Mac had a bun in the middle. Defend yourself.

Can you recite for me the famous Big Mac song? (Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, onions, pickles, and a sesame seed bun)

I do have to admit that the song does not mention a bun in the middle. Which feels like an oversight. Since that and the sauce are the signature parts of a Big Mac. A Big Mac without the bun in the middle is, well, not a Big Mac. 

A Big Mac is kind of a fun food to pair with wine because it mixes up a bunch of pretty powerful flavors. You’ve got meat, you’ve got cheese, you’ve got several buns, and you have the special sauce. Special sauce is key. The Big Mac, honestly, tastes like cardboard without the special sauce. In fact, I hate to say it, but other than the Big Mac, McDonald’s hamburgers are pretty rank. I know they are very popular, but compared to most burgers, they kind of suck. 

But that special sauce - it’s damn good. The special sauce is like Thousand Island dressing, but I think it is a bit sweeter and more vinegary than the Thousand Island you put on a salad. And by the way, it is Thousand Island, not Thousand Islands. I hate it when people say Thousand Islands. In fact, one of my pet peeves is when people put an “s' ' at the end of things that don’t have esses. Like Nordstrom. It’s fucking Nordstrom, not Nordrstoms. What other businesses do people put the s on the end of?

Ok, now back to the wines. Before we just jump in, let’s geek out just a tiny little bit on Pinot Noir. And, you’ll get sick of me saying this to people in listening land, but I LOVE Pinot. 

Pinot Noir is a pretty popular wine, and, in fact, the most expensive wines are the wines from Burgundy, France. Which may surprise some people, since Cabernet is a more popular wine, particularly in the US. But that’s mostly because, in my opinion, the average person doesn’t know jack shit about wine. Burgundy is not a big fat fruit bomb like cabernet and merlot. It is more of a mature, subtle, graceful wine - although we’ll see if any of the wines today meet that bar. The flavors in the wine are pronounced, but not overpowering. It tends to be lighter in body and sometimes tannin than other red wines. It is an elegant wine. When done right. When done wrong, it might as well be a fucking cabernet. 

Pinot is also grown all over the world, and outside of France, most famously in California and Oregon - although I tend not to be a huge fan of those pinots because they tend to be heavier and more cabernet like. There are some fantastic Pinots from California that I have been tasting, and I just got a few wines from the hard to buy Domaine de la Cote. Chile, Italy, and Australia and New Zealand also grow Pinot. I am actually becoming a big fan of New Zealand pinots. They tend to be lighter, more flowery and subtle, and cheaper, which is a good thing. 

Unlike cabernet, Pinots tend to be bottled as its own varietal and not blended. Which is different from a cabernet which is often blended. 

So, we have a nice Big Mac here to taste along with these Pinots - we actually have a couple of Big Macs. And I think this is the first time you have tried a Big Mac, right?  I am not going to give you the typical flavor profile of a Pinot - I want our tasting to be unbiased, and to reflect shit that real people say. 

Ok, so let’s see what we’ve got and get to some tasting

Wines

Wine by Joe Pinot Noir

Region: Oregon Willamette valley

Producer: Wine by Joe, a guy named Joe Dobbs

Year: 2017

Price: $13.99 (on sale)

Retailer: Rite Aid

Rating: Carmela 4, Joe 6

Barefoot Pinot Noir

Region: California. Seriously. Just California. No region named.

Producer: Barefoot cellars

Year: NV. Seriously. There is no year. 

Price: $5.50

Retailer: Fred Meyer

Rating:  Carmela 3, Joe 4

Rue de Perle Pinot Noir

Region: Burgundy, France

Producer: Rue de Perle 

Year: 2018

Price: $14.99 (I think it was a slightly reduced price)

Retailer: Fred Meyer

Rating: Carmela - 3, Joe 3

So, we’ll review our wine ratings in a bit, but I want to go over some classic flavors and smells of Pinot and see how we did, or maybe more how these wines did. 

The classic taste profile of a pinot noir is cherry, raspberry, clove, mushroom, and vanilla. Other tastes you sometimes find are cranberry, pastille candy - which is a fancy way of saying gumdrops or jujubes - plum, strawberry, roses, hibiscus, and gun smoke. You heard that right - gun smoke! Cola and potting soil come up sometimes, too. Yum!

Let’s check our ratings one more time, just to see if they have changed at all. 

So, here are the wines again, and whether we think you should buy them or not.

Alright, that was fun! 

If you have ideas for wines you would like us to try and give you advice on for future podcasts, let us know. We are more than happy to oblige. And you’ll find that we just have topics that we talk shit about, so if you just have topics that you want us to argue about and hear my overly emotional opinion about, just let us know and we’ll try and weave it into an episode. You can reach out to us at joe@thewinepairpodcast.com

Thanks for listening to the Wine Pair podcast, and we will see you next time. And we hope you will stop buying shitty wine.