You guys know I’m trained in wine, right? Because like a Harvard grad, I bring it up every time I have the opportunity that I scored 93% for the wine exam. June is California Wine Month and for the entire month, you can find promotions at supermarkets, restaurants and online platforms like Shoppee and Redmart.
I tried 7 Californian wines at two restaurants, Bedrock Origin all the way at Oasia Sentosa and the one Michelin-starred Whitegrass at CHIJMES which serves Japanese-Western cuisine. Comparing the two experiences, I prefer Bedrock to Whitegrass and here’s why:
- I thought the wine pairing at Bedrock was so much more exciting and bolder. They take risks. It’s not always white meat-white wine pairing. We had the red La Crema Sonoma Pinot Noir 2021 with oysters. Understandably, Whitegrass chose the safer option because they have a Michelin star! They can’t fool around. That’s the disadvantage of getting a star, right? You need to play by the rules.
- The Rutherford Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2018 pairing with lamb at Bedrock blew my mind. Now cabernet sauvignon isn’t the easiest wine to pair – the flavours are so overpowering that you need to pair it with food of equivalent strong flavours, if not the wine would make the food taste like ash. The lamb at Bedrock was coated with this super sticky and sweet sauce and that countered and balanced the Cabernet Sauvignon. When you find a wine that matches the food so well, the sum is greater than its parts! It was orgasmic. Truly memorable.
At Whitegrass, I also had a CS, Lander-Jenkins Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 with Omi Wagyu. The CS is way more complex and sophisticated than the previous one, really befitting for a Michelin-star restaurant. As you drink it, you’ll run a gamut of flavours. And the Wagyu was fantastic too, fat but not greasy, tender and juicy. Each was great on its own, but together, they just didn’t produce the WOW gestalt that the previous pairing had.
- Wines are very personal and I’m a cheap drinker. As someone who is trained in wines (hey! I manage to sneak it in for the 4th time in one entry), I can tell you that the best wines aren’t the most expensive ones; the best wines are the ones you like. I went to my rich friend’s birthday party and he opened a wine that cost $1000++ and I was, “Yuck, this feels dense.” There were also $40/bottle wines at the party and I liked those so much better.
At Whitegrass, they have 2 Lander-Jenkins wines, the other being Chardonnay 2013. (My eating companion liked the Chardonnay.) Both are great and complex and I’d love them at a drinking session with just some cheeses. But I often think, when pairing with a full meal, so complex for what? Give me easier-to-drink wines.
At Bedrock, there was a really easy-to-drink wine, the Julia’s Signature Pinot Noir Cambria 2015. Smooth, delicious, unobtrusive, not distracting you from the food or conversations.
It’s me, it’s not the wines. All the wines are great but I recognise that I’ve unsophisticated tastes in wines. A more experienced wine connoisseur would probably prefer the more elevated Lander-Jenkins, but for me, I like my wines like I like my men: easy.
Written by Dr. A. Nathanael Ho.
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