Rieslings complement many sweet-sour dishes

While on Maui recently, I ate a kale salad that really caught my attention. The kale from Maui Nui Farms was tossed with orange segments, macadamia nuts and a honey-miso vinaigrette, and served with grilled marinated prawns. The raw kale, nuts and shrimp gave the dish really good crunch. But it was the sweet and tangy dressing that made the dish come alive and taste so wonderfully delicious.

To complete the meal, we ate this salad with a well-chilled glass of 2015 Dr. F. Weins-Prum Riesling “Estate” (about $17 a bottle). It was a terrific pairing! Like the salad, the Riesling had a sweet-sour “tug of war” going on, which accentuated the flavors of the marinated shrimp. The wine also created magic with the vinaigrette. It was a dynamic and memorable pairing.

This kind of wine-and-food experience can make the dinner table so much fun. And it really doesn’t have to be complicated or require a lot of wine knowledge.

We paired the same wine (but from the 2014 vintage) at a top food and wine event on the mainland, this time with a roasted beet salad tossed with crushed walnuts and a sherry vinaigrette. To that was added creme fraiche lightly mixed with bits of fresh mint and celery leaves. (To make your own beet salad, I recommend Otsuji Farm beets, which are similar to the ones at the festival.) This was yet another magical pairing — so interesting and delicious.

At home, when making a salad or light vegetable dish using sweet-sour vinaigrettes, this would be the wine for you to check out.

While there are certainly other German Rieslings similar in style to the “Estate,” those from this particular estate are standouts because they start with fruit grown in some of the most hallowed vineyard sites in Germany, passed down through the generations.

Furthermore, owner-winemaker Bert Selbach crafts some of the most ethereal, mineral-driven wines in the world at sensational prices. Anyone with enough experience with his wines will be amazed at their incredible food-friendliness.

While dining at Himalayan Kitchen in Kaimuki, for instance, I thoroughly enjoyed one of Bert’s slightly aged Riesling Kabinett wines with the Aloo Tama Bodi, a Nepalese-style curry, and the Prawn Saag, served with ginger, garlic, tomato and curry sauce. The wine’s slight sweetness cooled and soothed my palate between bites.

Take this Riesling across the parking lot to To Thai for Restaurant, and one could enjoy it with my wife’s favorite dish, the Crying Tiger, thinly sliced beef with salad greens. Not only does the wine’s sweet-sour flavor pair effortlessly with the dish’s lime-fish sauce vinaigrette; it livens up the taste buds.

Chuck Furuya is a master sommelier and a partner in the DK Restaurants group. Follow his blog at chuckfuruya.com.