Straight.com: Pastrami and Grenache: a perfect pair
Straight.com’s Kurtis Kolt recently authored an interesting article entitled “Pastrami and Grenache: a perfect pair”:
On a random trip to Los Angeles a few years back, following up on a recommendation by colleagues, he went out for a pastrami sandwich at a place called Langer’s Deli. The place looks like any one of a zillion classic diners out there, but it’s widely touted as having the best pastrami sandwich on the planet. Yep, not a place in Montreal or Brooklyn but in L.A.’s Westlake neighbourhood.
Having had the sandwich (dubbed the No. 19), I can attest that the pastrami—with sweet coleslaw, melted Swiss cheese, and Russian dressing on double-baked rye bread—is nothing short of perfection.
Davidson had a revelation, as he savoured bite after bite, that the meat’s aroma was reminiscent of Grenache, the famous red grape with homes in France and Spain (there known as Garnacha) as well as, yup, Australia.
There was enjoyable follow-up research on the pairing possibilities, and Aussie Grenache just seemed to take it to the next level. What followed was a few years of sitting down with sommeliers in cities across the U.S. and Canada and guiding them through a series of antipodean Grenaches as pastrami sandwiches were tucked into.
