Pairing: Sauvignon blanc with Caesar pasta

Our Wine of the Week, Pellegrini 2013 Lake County Leveroni Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc ($20), is like the perfect guest, the one who always shows up on time, keeps conversation around the dinner table lively and inclusive, has no food issues and helps clean up, almost invisibly, so that you barely notice.

Year after year, this is a lovely wine that slips across the palate effortlessly, with an unfolding medley of flavors. First, you notice citrus, followed by Pippin apple and then a swirl of summer stone fruit, especially white peach. A bit of creaminess emerges just before the finish, suggesting yummy sweet things though not exactly giving in to them. If you let the wine linger long enough before taking another sip, you’ll find yourself thinking of jalapeños.

At the table, the wine has a broad embrace. Almost any green vegetable, from greens and zucchini to spinach and kale, are great matches. Seafood, especially clams, scallops, oysters and flat fish such as flounder, Petrale sole and sanddabs, are flattered by this wine, as are fresh goat cheeses and aged sheep milk cheeses.

For today’s recipe, I’m revisiting a fall favorite, a classic Caesar salad tossed with pasta to make a full meal. The anchovies, eggs and cheese create a richness that draws all the other elements, including the wine, into happy harmony.

Caesar Salad Pasta

Serves 3 to 4

- Kosher salt

8 ounces dry spaghettini

5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus more to taste

- Zest of 1 lemon

2 large fresh garlic cloves, peeled

1 to 3 oil-packed anchovy fillets

1 medium Romaine lettuce, outer leaves discarded, inner leaves torn into bite-sized pieces

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice, plus more to taste

1 large farm egg, cooked in boiling water for 1 (only) minute.

¾ cup freshly grated Laurel Chenel Tome, Vella Dry Jack or other grating cheese

- Black pepper in a mill

Fill a saucepan half full with water, season generously with salt and bring to a boil over high heat. When the water reaches a rolling boil, add the pasta and stir until the water returns to a boil.

Adjust the heat so that the water boils moderately and cook according to package directions until the pasta is just done. Drain, rinse, drain again and transfer to a bowl. Drizzle with about 2 tablespoons of the olive oil, add the lemon zest and set aside.

Grate the garlic on the ridges of a large grating bowl or suribachi mortar until it is reduced to a pulp. Add the anchovies and continue grinding until it forms a uniform paste. Add the remaining olive oil and mix well. Put the lettuce into the bowl and sprinkle it with a little salt, turning the leaves as you do so.

Continue to turn the leaves, pressing downward to coat them in the olive oil mixture. Continue to turn the lettuce with one hand as you sprinkle first the vinegar and then the lemon juice over it. Carefully break the eggs into the lettuce and use both hands to turn the lettuce until the egg is evenly distributed. Add the pasta and turn several times so that it, too, is coated by the dressing.

Add the cheese and turn the ingredients, add several turns of black pepper, taste and correct for salt and for acid. If the salad is not quite tart enough, add a little more lemon juice and toss.

Variation: If you do not have a large grating bowl (sold locally by Architectural Design Ceramics) or suribachi, make the paste in a small mortar and transfer it to a large salad bowl after adding the olive oil to it.

Michele Anna Jordan hosts “Mouthful” each Sunday at 7 p.m. on KRCB 90.9 & 91.1 FM. E-mail Jordan at michele@micheleannajordan.com. You’ll find her blog, “Eat This Now,” at pantry.blogs.pressdemocrat.com.