WINE WITH…Meatloaf

WINE WITH…Meatloaf

“For really ‘tis so fine,” wrote the English poet, John Keats, praising wine’s comforts:  “it fills one’s mouth with a gushing freshness—then goes down cool and feverless.”  He declared wine less aggressive than spirits, because “you do not feel it quarrelling. . .no, it is rather a peacemaker.”  That comforting quality is precisely what makes wine such a fine companion for comfort foods.  To Keats in 1819, those included “the breast of a partridge [or] the back of a hare.”  But for Americans nearly two centuries later, nothing is more of a comfort food than meatloaf.  So, we wondered—which wines prove most “fine” with it?

We made our meatloaf with equal parts ground beef and pork.  Using about a pound of each of the meats, we blended in about ½ cup of Pepperidge Farm bread stuffing, which we find a satisfying alternative to more traditional breadcrumbs.  Our favorite meatloaf spices include rosemary, oregano, cumin and garlic, along with a splash of Worcestershire or A1 Sauce.  We like to cook meatloaf in a commercial baking bag, not only because of the convenience, but more importantly because they keep the meatloaf—as well as the potatoes and carrots we added to the bag—exceptionally moist and flavorful (these foil or heat resistant plastic bags are made by McCormick or Reynolds, and are available in most supermarkets). 

Our loaf did, indeed, turn out moist and tasty—in a word, comforting.  To make the experience even more so, we served an equally comforting side dish, and a simple green salad.  With the meal, we sampled thirteen different wines.  All were red, and given the soft texture of meatloaf, we tried matching the dish with older wines as an experiment.

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To our surprise, none of the wines was a poor match.  The lighter reds, including a couple of Pinot Noirs and a Chianti, proved sufficiently hearty, while the more robust ones did not seem overpowering.  The very best matches, though, were those with wines characterized by fresh (rather than dried) fruit flavors, and subtle rather than overt secondary characteristics.  That was because the satisfying juiciness of the dish emphasized the fruit in the wines.  It didn’t really matter whether that flavor resembled cherries or plums, red or black berries; all that counted was its vitality, a quality accentuated by the sweet taste of the tomato catsup that one of us used as a condiment; the other—a purist—eschewed this traditional accompaniment.  So, at the end of supper, we concluded that Keats was right.  At least with this particular comfort food, “gushing freshness” is exactly what you want in a wine.

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