How to pair wine and tuna?
I once heard a fellow sommelier say, to justify why our protagonist of this article on pairing goes so well with some red wines, that “tuna is the ox that swims in the sea”. It may sound funny, but one thing is certain: this beautiful warm-blooded or endothermic fish, an excellent swimmer and hunter, provides us with meat with an incomparably meaty texture, if you’ll pardon the necessary redundancy.
The wines most often mentioned by sommeliers around the world to accompany a succulent grilled tuna steak are New World Pinot Noirs, with generous fruit and very velvety tannins, or Chardonnays, also full of ripe fruit, but without aging in wood. Other wines constantly mentioned by wine and food professionals are the delicious and vibrant reds of Beaujolais or of the Loire, in addition to young, fruity and very soft Merlots from various origins.
But does tuna always go well with red wines? And what are the characteristics of this fish that make it pair so uniquely with wines? The “tuna with red” experience is already widespread worldwide, but the fundamentals of this interaction have rarely been discussed.
DO RED WINE ALWAYS WORK WITH TUNA?
As we saw in last month's article on sea urchins, sommeliers practically agree that tannins, present in grams in red wines versus milligrams in white wines, do not mix well with the iodine present in fish, seafood and algae. Wines become metallic, that is, they lose their fruitiness and acquire an unpleasant aftertaste that tastes of steel or iron, especially in the final sensations and aftertaste. Treasures of the sea such as cod, horse mackerel, haddock, lobsters, lobsters, shrimp, barnacles and sea urchins themselves contain much higher levels of iodine than tuna, from double to five times the concentration in meat. From this perspective, red wines would indeed be eligible to pair with tuna at the table.
However, we also address the complex interaction between the iron present in some wines, especially red wines, which are vinified in contact with the stems, skins and seeds, from ferruginous soils, and the polyunsaturated fat of fish. Great for health, omega-3 is a disaster in wine-food pairing when it meets iron in the glass. Chemically speaking, Fe2+ ions can catalyze lipid oxidation by breaking down lipid hydroperoxides found in tuna meat. In practice, wines with iron levels above 5 milligrams per liter - much more common in red wines - acquire that unpleasant mouth-watering aroma of decaying fish.
Thus, although tuna has a low iodine content that invites it to be paired with red wines, on the other hand, its high concentration of polyunsaturated fats imposes restrictions on red wines with high doses of iron. Logically, there are species of tuna within the genus Thunnus that have almost 30% fat in their meat, with 20% of this fat in polyunsaturated form. This is the case of a noble and gigantic bluefin tuna caught in the Sotavento Algarve. And there are also relatives such as the bonito tuna. Katsuwonus pelamis caught in the spring with less than 1% of polyunsaturated fat in its composition. But in general, among the 8 species of the genus Thunnus, the true tuna, we can expect fatty meat, which can promote an unpleasant fishy rancidity if there are higher iron levels in the wine to be paired.
Let's therefore avoid very tannic and extracted reds, which are more likely to have higher iron levels, or even more accurately, red wines (and even white and rosé) that come from very ferruginous soils.
UMAMI AND WINE
Another essential aspect to be addressed in this article is the interrelationship between the umami very characteristic in various tuna preparations with the gustatory and tactile elements of the wines accompanying them.
The fifth essential taste known as umami, in addition to sweet, salty, sour and bitter, was discovered by the Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda in 1908, when he isolated the active principle of the broth dashi made with seaweed kombu, glutamic acid. By itself, this acid is merely sour, but when dissolved in water and neutralized with NaOH, Ikeda discovered a powerful flavor enhancer, monosodium glutamate. Similarly, in 1913 a student of Ikeda isolated disodium inosinate from dashi made with dried bonito, a relative of tuna, and discovered another powerful promoter of umami, even more so when in synergy with glutamate and also with disodium guanylate, the latter extracted in the late 1950s from dried shiitake mushrooms. Ikeda patented the process of obtaining MSG (monosodium glutamate) and made a fortune in the food industry. Interestingly, only after the first symposium on umami carried out in 1985 in Hawaii, this flavor gained scientific recognition in the West.
Glutamate occurs naturally in tomatoes, garlic, scallops, sea urchins, shrimp and especially in seaweed, anchovies, cheeses (Italian Parmesan is a food bomb). umami), soy sauce and cured ham. Foods rich in inosinate are dried bonito, sardines and tuna. Guanylate is strongly present in mushrooms, and in higher amounts in dried mushrooms: shiitake, morels and porcini. This trio of amino acids – glutamate, inosinate and guanylate – act in synergy and enhance the flavor of everything around them: a grated Parmesan cheese on pasta, or a can of tuna in a salad, and the magic is done.
We humans atavistically worship the umami - it is no coincidence that the translation of the Japanese term coined by Ikeda means “tasty” - because we have learned in our evolution that it indicates the presence of proteins in food. After all, it is the chains of amino acids that form them. Normally, foods need to be cooked, cured or fermented to release the amino acids.. It seems that throughout history we have come to idolize the umami not only because it indicates a source of protein, but even more precisely, protein foods that have undergone a detoxifying process for our body. Thus, a tuna or bonito in sashimi It is less “tasty” than when canned, grilled on charcoal, or cured like the Algarve muxama.
Precisely because it has only been recognized as the “fifth flavor” for a few decades in the Western world, sommelier schools on this side of the world have not yet incorporated it. umami definitely in their harmonization methods. There are very few references, tests and even fewer conclusions from the classical schools about harmonization with the “tasty”. And even in the East, when we research harmonization with umami On the internet, almost all results refer to sake, not wine.
Possibly the only school that deals with the harmonization of wines with foods rich in umami with some propriety is the ubiquitous Wine & Spirit Education Trust.According to WSET, the presence of umami on the plate it makes wines more bitter, hard and drying, attenuating their fruit and eventual sweetness. It then highlights the hard side of wines and softens the soft side. The corollary of this is that we should choose more fruity wines, generous in alcohol and softness, and less tannic and acidic with dishes and foods full of tannins. umami, such as tuna that has undergone some cooking or curing.
In addition to this interesting proposition from WSET, I particularly believe that the umami It makes our mouths water, both figuratively and literally. To dry out the succulence on our palate, sommeliers work with two elements in wine: tannins and alcohol. However, since tannins and bitter substances are accentuated by the “fifth flavor” in dishes (the hard side), the smart option for drying out our mouths after the salivation caused by the presence of the glutamate-inosinate-guanylate trio would be the alcohol in wine.
In conclusion, tuna, a fish rich in umami When subjected to some cooking or curing process, it will yield soft, fruity wines with a good alcohol content. Wines with a balance leaning towards hardness should be avoided, except with raw tuna, in which the amino acids responsible for the “taste” have not yet been “released”.
TESTS
I've spent the last month eating tuna almost every day. Meats of the trade. I've tested a large number of wines with various tuna preparations, focusing more on the grilled steak and its interaction with the reds.
The practical experiment confirmed the theory. All the fruity reds, with a balance towards softness and with light, ripe and velvety tannins, turned out divinely. And even better were the wines from granite soils, such as those from Beaujolais in general, a Cinsault from Itata in Chile and the entry-level wines from Dão, or from limestone or clay-limestone soils such as a Castelão from the Lisbon region, a Burgundy of communal category or a Valpolicella, or from alluvial soils like a New Zealand Pinot Noir and a cheap California Merlot. The wines from schist soil, usually very structured and prone to higher iron levels, were definitely not successful. Among the whites, some tasted did not have the structure for the “meaty steak” of tuna or the umami It sharpened the hardness – acidity and flavor – of these wines too much.
It is important to emphasize that the rosés, wines that have one foot in the world of whites with their freshness and lightness and one foot in the world of reds with their structure and aroma profile, also went very well with grilled tuna. In this case, the rosés were more “repas” than “plaisir”, as the French say, balanced more towards the fruit, body and softness than the freshness of white wine: Tavel, Bandol, rosés from Spain, clarets and rosés from Alentejo. I recall here a classic pairing, the “salade niçoise” with canned tuna accompanied perfectly by a rosé from Bandol, the most serious Provençal appellation in this type of wine.
Finally, not to say that I didn't mention flowers, white wine with this profile can be fabulous with tuna. But with tuna that is still raw, with its fabulous fat marbled in the meat fibers and its strong umami still hidden behind its rich, creamy marine flavor. There's nothing better than a bull or kicker, cuts from the belly of fatty tuna in sashimi, accompanied by a mineral Riesling from the Mosel or an explosive Arinto from the Azores.Or a tuna ceviche with avocado, coriander, aji, lime and other South American perfumes enjoyed with large sips of a high-altitude Torrontés from Argentina or a fuller Sauvignon Blanc from the Casablanca Valley in Chile.
Champagnes and other high-quality sparkling wines with long aging on limestone soils can also be umami seasoning raw tuna, just as the shoyu and wasabi duo know how to do. At the risk of taking this gastronomic experience to the level of extreme joy.
William Correa