Taste: Surprising Stories and Science About Why Food Tastes Good (58 page)

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n 2004, I got a visit from Pat Galvin, a soft-spoken, talkative man with a marketing background. Pat worked for Levi Strauss & Company, as well as a few major food brands while he worked for a respected advertising agency. He wanted to discuss a new beverage business.

His new idea was Vignette, a line of sparkling, nonalcoholic beverages made from wine grape juices like chardonnay and pinot noir. Pat appreciates wine, after years of living in the Bay Area, but when his wife got pregnant with their first child, she could no longer share a bottle with him. He realized that there was an untapped niche for nonalcoholic, yet sophisticated, wine-like beverages for people who wanted something to drink when wine is not appropriate.

Pat had worked with an independent chef to create the first two varieties, which were good, but he wanted something a bit more sophisticated for his next flavor launch. His goal was to create an adult, wine-like beverage that someone could choose instead of wine: all the complexity and sophistication without the alcohol.

One of the varieties he hired us to develop was zinfandel. At the time Pat and I started working together, I was on a bit of a zinfandel kick, indulging in a glass every night with dinner. This product was the anti–egg salad: something I could get really excited about developing. Just to make sure you understand the huge distinction between zinfandel wine, which is red, and white zinfandel, which is pink: I’m talking about the red stuff.

I recruited Anne Marie Pruzan, one of Mattson’s best food technologists, and her team member Saji Poespowidjojo to create the beverage. First we had to find a supplier of unfermented zinfandel grape juice. There are purveyors of varietal grape juices who sell mainly to winemakers—both commercial and hobbyist—who eventually ferment the juice into wine. We were going to use it in its virgin state.

When it arrived, we quickly learned that unfermented zinfandel grape juice tastes nothing like zinfandel wine. It contains none of the characteristic flavors we were expecting, like cherry, raspberry, black pepper, or earth. Instead, our zinfandel juice tasted like Welch’s Concord grape. Not exactly the complex, adult flavor profile Pat wanted for Vignette.

In wine, these complex, characteristic flavors are the result of the fermentation process, which our grape juice wasn’t going to go through. We were going to have to create the flavor of fully fermented zinfandel wine from the ground up. Here’s how we did it.

First we had to draw the outlines of the Basic Tastes. We started with sweetness. When zinfandel grapes are crushed, the resulting juice is really, really sweet (again, like Welch’s). During fermentation, the sugar gets converted to alcohol until there’s very little sugar left, and as a result, very little sweetness. We were aiming for a semisweet flavor (the semisweet initiative strikes again!), so we diluted the zinfandel juice with water to achieve the level of sweetness that was appropriate. This became the base of our beverage.

Next we adjusted the sourness. In order to get the flavor right after dilution, we had to add acid to the beverage to get the sourness back in balance. We could have used lemon juice, but we didn’t want lemon aroma in our wine country soda, because there’s no lemon flavor in zinfandel. Instead, we chose citric acid—the pure acid that comes from citrus fruits and other produce. As its name implies, it lends a sharp sourness akin to citrus, but without the lemony or grapefruity aromas. We’d arrived at citric after we’d conducted a thorough exploration of other sources of acid. We tried tartaric acid, because that’s what occurs naturally in grape juice. Not sour or sharp enough. We tried malic acid, the source of sourness in a Granny Smith apple. Too sharp. Citric acid had just the right sour taste profile for our beverage.

After dismissing umami and salt as inappropriate for zinfandel, we moved on to bitter. Good red wines contain tannin, a compound that comes from the skins of the grape, which adds that characteristic red wine mouth-drying effect. Our zinfandel juice had a naturally low level, which we decided was perfect.
We’d develop a more bitter, tannic cabernet sauvignon variety in the future for the Tolerant Tasters out there.

Now we were ready to move from taste to aroma. The combination of these two senses, plus texture, would create our zinfandel Vignette’s signature flavor. We ordered samples of dozens of natural flavors, including blackberry, raspberry, leather, smoke, green bell pepper, spices, and more. Flavor chemistry allowed us to add blackberry aroma to Vignette, without adding any blackberries or juice.

We continued to tweak the sweetness, sourness, and flavor until we had them in perfect balance. The beverage is then carbonated which adds a pleasant irritaste that most drinkers read as refreshing. We considered adjusting the color of the drink, but the zinfandel juice on its own, diluted by the carbonated water, was a gorgeous purple-red. It would need nothing else to attract the eye. The result is a complex beverage that tastes of intense—if not quite fermented—zinfandel with a low level of carbonation and a touch of sweetness.

While cooking at home is not the same as formulating a carbonated soda, there are parallels. You still need to craft the Basic Taste outline of the dish. You need to add the aromatic ingredients to fill in the outlines. And you still need to make sure all the flavor elements are in perfect harmony.

There are a few secret flavor ingredients in Vignette Zinfandel Soda that gave us the profile we were looking for. Yet the overall flavor is so subtle that it is almost impossible to figure out what they are. All you know when you savor it is that it tastes just about right.

I can be amazingly creative in the kitchen, which is what I do for a living, after all: dream up new food ideas and make them come to life. I have the uncanny ability—which most professional chefs have—to put ingredients together in my head in a way that I know will taste good. However, this does not mean I am always successful in the kitchen.

I also view recipes as rough guidelines. I will look at a recipe and try to figure out what each ingredient is bringing to the party. If the recipe calls for fish sauce, I wonder if soy sauce would work as well to provide umami. If I read a recipe for collard greens I immediately start wondering if the same ingredients and techniques would work with the bitterness of broccoli or kale.

The one thing I simply cannot do is make the same recipe twice. The execution
of a recipe is where I fall down. But from experience I’ve developed a way to ensure that my dinner guests have a good time. In case my main course bombs, I always have a backup, even if it’s just the ingredients for pizza or pasta. I also tend to serve a no-fail dessert, like the season’s ripest fruit topped with the very best vanilla ice cream I can buy. When guests end the meal with a smile, they tend to overlook failures earlier in the meal. Equally important is good wine that flows like water. Wine is the fuel, lubrication, and current that keeps a dinner party aloft.

I want you to feel equally free to experiment in the kitchen. Each time you cook, make it an educational experience. Don’t be afraid to fail. I do it all the time.

The following recipes proceed, slowly, by having you add critical flavor elements one at a time. By stopping to taste the dish after each new flavor component is added, you will begin to see how the tastes and aromas play against each other to create flavor. I can’t teach you how to cook. You’ll need lessons or a cookbook for that. Rather, these recipes are meant to teach you how to balance flavor. Once you do, you will develop confidence in your palate.

As a benefit, these recipes double as delicious meals, so make sure you have willing test subjects to help you evaluate the results at the table.

Counterpoint Ingredients for Your Pantry