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2 2 | t h e c l e v e r r o o t NAPA VALLEY KNOW-HOW Cassoulet of confit chicken, sausage, egg and yellow- eyed beans at Press, served with Mira Hyde Vineyard Pinot Noir. For Chef Sharon Li's recipe go to www.thecleverroot.com. For Napa Valley's chefs and cooks, wine is an inescapable part of life . . . and an inescapable part of cooking. Who better to talk to about food- and-wine pairing? In this new series, wine writer Karen MacNeil talks with the valley's top talent for a behind- the-scenes look at how they create flavor marriages of the 1+1=3 sort. SHARON LI IS CHEF OF PRESS restau- rant in the Napa Valley—a restaurant that many consider ground zero for extraordinary food and wine. Press, which specializes in dry aged beef, has a huge dedicated garden in the moun- tains above the valley, one of the most renowned butchers in the country (Bryan Flannery) and a 10,000-bottle wine cellar with 1,000 separate labels, specializing in the wines of the Napa Valley. For The Clever Root, Li shared her famous recipe for cassoulet and the wine she most loves to drink with it—MIRA Hyde Vineyard Pinot Noir from Napa Valley. Karen MacNeil: In a few words, can you describe your approach to cooking? Sharon Li: Simple but refined. The dishes Grandma made, but with more sophisticated technique behind them. Do you ever tweak dishes to make them more wine friendly? Yes. We recently made a salmon dish for the wine critic Robert Parker. He wanted to drink Bordeaux. So we cooked mushrooms in an intense beef stock and added them to the dish. Press is known for phenomenal access to ingredients. Does working with such in- gredients make your job easier or harder? Easier because we have so much from the garden to work with. But harder because we want to find a way to use everything. Where does your inspiration come from? My cooks and I dream about food, and sometimes have nightmares about it. Really! We recently made a kabocha squash soup with wild boar bacon. It came out of a dream my Sous-Chef had. In your opinion, what's the most impor- tant guideline in pairing wine and food? Balance. You can't have a wine that's so big the food can't handle it. Or vice versa. They have to hold hands. They need to write a story together. Has wine ever taught you anything about food? Yes. When I'm building a dish, I want the pairing to trigger emotion. Wine helps to do that. Having a great pairing should put you someplace else emo- tionally—it could be a grassy meadow or the attic. But the pairing should trigger something inside you. In this cassoulet, what are the key ele- ments in choosing a wine? Because of the sausage, the egg and the beans, this dish needs brightness and lift. A Merlot or Cabernet would have thrown a heavy blanket over the dish. This Mira Hyde Vineyard Pinot Noir is bright. It made the overall experience lighter. Press is known for Cabernet Sauvignon and for dry-aged steak. What makes those two work together so well? They are both confident. Do you always drink wine with your food? I generally prefer wine. But tacos need a good cold beer. Writing a Story AT PRESS IN ST. HELENA, CHEF SHARON LI SAYS A GREAT FOOD-AND-WINE PAIRING SHOULD PUT YOU "SOMEPLACE ELSE EMOTIONALLY" by Karen MacNeil / photos by H. J. Cha Chef Sharon Li with author Karen MacNeil. Karen MacNeil is the author of The Wine Bible and the editor of the digital e-letter WineSpeed. Contact her at karenmacneil.com. ■cr