Pigs and Pinot: The key to the perfect pairing

The 10th annual Pigs & Pinot event kicks off March 20 at Hotel Healdsburg, and it celebrates with a string of events the delectable synergy between pork and pinot noir. There’s something about how perfectly the flavors match. But what?

Last year’s winner was the MacPhail 2010 “The Flyer” Russian River Valley Pinot Noir. Vintner James MacPhail, who mastered the match, said there’s good reason why pinot and pork are so well paired.

“With pinot’s chameleon-like nature and pork’s lean yet slightly fatty density, it’s a marriage that works,” MacPhail explained. “It’s the sauces and the way pork is prepared, too. Some common accompaniments like a cherry reduction, or a creamy mushroom sauce, or even mustard glaze, lends so well with all the flavor components of pinot.”

Brian Mahoney of Santa Rosa’s DeLoach Vineyards also has insight into the pork and pinot coupling. The director of winemaking won the coveted Pinot Cup award in 2012 for his DeLoach 2009 Marin County Pinot Noir.

“Both pork and pinot have flavors that have some excitement,” Mahoney said. “Pinot noir and pork have a similar mouth-feel. They are both luscious and spread across your palate.”

Event founder and celebrity chef Charlie Palmer is clearly the biggest fan of pork and pinot noir, smitten by the pairing. In fact, about 10 years ago, he said, he was having dinner with vintner Daryl Groom over pork and pinot, and that’s what inspired the Pigs & Pinot event.

“Both pork and pinot noir are incredibly dynamic flavors/ingredients,” Palmer said. “Living in this region, we all so often hear about the fickle pinot noir grape; there’s so much depth of flavor there, especially for such a relatively light wine. Similarly, there’s so much you can do with pork: sausages, cured prosciuttos, pork belly, porchettas, pork chops. The list could go on forever.”

To celebrate all this pork and pinot mania at the event’s 10-year milestone, Groom of Groom Wines and Jesse Katz of Lancaster Estate, both in Healdsburg, have crafted a special bottling of pinot noir. This limited-production 2013 pinot noir is a blend of wines from 12 Sonoma County wineries. The contributing wineries are: Cirq, DeLoach, Paul Hobbs, Martinelli, Merry Edwards, Papapietro Perry, Kanzler, Rochioli, Roth, Williams Selyem, Woodenhead, and Kosta Browne.

Only one barrel of this blend has been produced, and the 1.5- and 3-liter bottles are priced at $175 and $300, respectively. For purchase information, visit pigsandpinot.com.

Groom said this bottling is expected to raise an additional $25,000 for local charities, contributing to the Pigs & Pinot goodwill that has raised more than $500,000 over the past 10 years.

For those with a love of competition and suspense, the most exciting of the Pigs & Pinot events will be Friday night, when the Pinot Cup winner and runner-up are revealed. While the metal, winged-pig trophy is whimsical, it still stands for quality in pinot circles.

Wine writer Peg Melnik can be reached at 521-5310 or peg.melnik@pressdemocrat.com.