Salmon Nigiri, Seared Tataki & Delicate Asian Fusion
Pickled ginger, light umami soy, and touch of chili find an extraordinary mirror in Trepat's peppery-floral notes and refreshing palate-cleansing spine.
- Trepat style
- Vintage Trepat Rosé or Sparkling Brut Nature
- Temperature
- 10 - 12 °C
A salmon nigiri is vinegared rice, fish fat and a trace of soy. Pickled ginger and wasabi, if they stay moderate, add a sharp sweetness and a short heat. The problem in the glass is the same as with oily fish: salmon fat and dry tannin do not speak. Green chilli or a light soy, on a tataki, also asks for a wine that cools.
Trepat rosé carries strawberry, citrus, flower and white pepper, with a light body and high acidity. Acidity cuts the fat of the fish and the rice. Red fruit follows the sweetness of the rice without competing with the salmon. The pepper in the wine echoes the wasabi and the ginger, as long as the heat is short. A sparkling rosé brut nature adds the bead, which cleans still more. A red with oak, or with marked tannin, would cover the fish and leave the metallic note we already know from oily fish.
The style is a rosé of the year, at 10–12°C, or a sparkling rosé, a little colder, without dropping all the way to a long flute of sparkling wine. Do not decant it. If the plate has more chilli than fish, stay with the cooler rosé: acidity holds heat better than any ageing.
Tip: a white-wine glass, and the wasabi on the side. The wine already has pepper. There is no need to add it until it burns. Nigiri rice that is only lightly vinegared lets the wine's saline edge show.
