Strong wines stand up to ragin' Cajun food

My grandparents were from Louisiana and Mississippi, and I edited newspapers in both states. I learned to love Cajun food.

What I have not completely learned is how to match wines with the basics you find in that kind of spicy cooking. Nearly every dish I learned to cook started with the "holy trinity" of onions, green peppers and celery, to which all sorts of things could be added: sausage, chicken, seafood and, most importantly, hot red-pepper sauce.

You pick wine for these foods as much to deal with the spices as well as the kind of meat or fish in the dish. A restaurant recently served the wine tasters a jambalaya made with andouille sausage, chicken, the holy trinity and red pepper. It was mild-to-medium spicy.

The tasters compared four reds and a white first by themselves and then with the food to find their favorites. Because the sausage in the jambalaya is heavy on salt, some tasters sought to find a wine that would stand up to the salt as well as the spice and sausage in the dish. Here is what we found:

-- 2002 Encore at $14.99. This wine was sort of a "knockoff" of the more expensive Conundrum, a delightful white blend. The Encore had a floral and fruity-sweet nose that reminded us of lime, minerals and butterscotch. On the palate, the wine was dry and sensuous, with more butterscotch on the finish. With the jambalaya, the food was enhanced by the wine, but not vice versa. The Encore, after a bite of the jambalaya, did get the palate clean for the next bite.

-- 2001 Turkey Flat "The Turk" at $16.99. This is a new entry level wine from Turkey Flat made in a similar style to the Butcher's Block -- a blend of shiraz, grenache, cabernet sauvignon and mourvedre. The aroma suggested butter sauce poured over cherries. This was a fruit-driven wine that had a short finish. The food brought out the higher notes of the wine -- the best of the fruit, but the food still dominated.

-- 2001 Norman "No Nonsense Red" Meritage at $19.99. This wine was 73 percent cabernet sauvignon, 17 percent merlot and 10 percent cabernet franc. It offered a meaty, dusty aroma with bell peppers and a hint of oil. In the mouth it was fruity with good tannins, those chemicals in grapes that can give wine structure and make your mouth pucker. The food brought out the vanilla from the oaking. It also helped the texture of the wine be smooth and silky, which was needed with the spices in the dish. This wine placed first in our tasting, both with and without food.

-- 2002 You Bet Shiraz at $10.99. The least expensive wine in the tasting had a complex aroma of strawberries and other bright fruit, chocolate and a hint of oil and leather. We tasted herbal tea on the finish. The food brought out medicinal tastes with a lot of smokiness. The wine and food seemed to battle each other with no clear winner.

-- 2002 Francis Coppola "Diamond Series" Syrah at $16.99. This syrah had various aromas of burnt sugar, strawberries, bananas, vanilla wafers and blackberry pudding. The tannins were plentiful enough to deal with the food. The jambalaya's sweet sausage enhanced the fruity sweetness of the wine and made the strawberry in the wine come out. This wine finished in second place.

Questions may be sent to Frank Sutherland, editor, The Tennessean, 1100 Broadway, Nashville 37203, or e-mailed to editor@tennessean.com.