Heavenly pairings of mooncakes and wine

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Heavenly pairings of mooncakes and wine

By John H. Isacs (Shanghai Daily) 10:45, August 15, 2013

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The Mid-Autumn Festival is so synonymous with mooncakes that I have even heard friends refer to this important holiday as the Mooncake Festival. These beloved treats are delectable by themselves but when paired with the proper wine they reach new levels of epicurean delight.

The traditional festival is one of the most ancient and important Chinese holidays. The first written account dates back 3,000 years ago to the Western Zhou Dynasty (c. 11th century-770 BC) when a collection of rituals named “Rites of Zhou” was composed.

Most historians believe the festival is actually much more ancient, dating back to the earliest periods of the Xia (c. 21st century-16th century BC) and Shang (c. 16th century-11th century BC) dynasties. The first written records of mooncakes date back 1,500 years, but as with the holiday, the history of mooncakes is most likely much older.

Today the stylistic breath of mooncakes is nearly endless. Thankfully, the style of wines to match these treats is equally diverse.

Sweet mooncakes, sweet wine

Mooncakes commonly have a sweet lotus seed paste or red bean paste filling and a outer pastry that’s flaky or chewy. These sweet mooncakes are undeniably delicious but there’s one drawback when we savor these treats, successive mouthfuls often leaves the palate overly sweet and somewhat sticky.

The ideal solution is a glass of semi-sweet sparkling wine. The sparkling wine should have enough sweetness to match the sweetness of the mooncake and also offer good acidity or freshness to cleanse the palate.

Two sparklers that wonderfully perform this task include Spanish CAVA Freixenet Carta Nevada Semi Seco and the Antech Cuvee Elegance Demi-Sec from Limoux in the south of France. Both wines have the requisite touch of sweetness to harmonize with the sweet filling of the mooncakes and the acidity to refresh your palates and facilitate digestion. The stimulating bubbles in these wines also act a pleasant mouth cleanser.

The levels of sweetness of the mooncake filling also dictate the ideal wine companion. The sweetest of mooncakes benefit from an equally sweet wine. Two sweet wines that admirably augment the flavors and textures of the sweetest of mooncakes are lightly-sparkling Moscato d’Asti wines from Piedmont in northwestern Italy and Pedro Ximenez Sherries from Jerez in southwestern Spain.