Wine For Beef

4 Sustainable Wine and Cheese Pairings

You love hosting: the friends, the laughter, the food, the compliments. As a purveyor of all things delicious, you decide to host a wine and cheese night with your nearest and dearest. Time to go shopping. Your eyes skim the dairy shelves and marvel at the selection. Here is where your environmental ethics come into play.

A report published last week by Environmental Working Group indicated that cheese consumption is surprisingly costly to the climate. How can cheese cause global warming, you might ask. Researchers did a comprehensive analysis of common foods, considering the greenhouse gas emissions generated before and after the food leaves the farm, as well as the pesticides and fertilizers used to produce them. Cheese generates the third-highest emissions of any food, behind only lamb and beef.

The reason being, cheese shares many of the same impacts of meat, since its made from the milk of cows, goats and sheep. (The Environmental Working Group analysis considered only cow's milk cheese, but at least one other study found goat and cow's milk cheeses on par, and sheep's milk cheese worse.) Emissions come from the use of fertilizers and pesticides – both derived from fossil fuels – to grow feed, from the gas produced in the stomachs of ruminant animals, and from their manure. Off the farm, refrigeration and shipping add to cheese's carbon footprint, but two-thirds of the emissions happen on the farm. (While air-shipped imported cheese creates almost 50% more emissions than domestic cheeses, fortunately most imported cheese arrives by ocean freighter, with a marginal impact on emissions.)

It’s no wonder that dairy products are in one of the smallest groups in the recommended food pyramid (2-3 suggested daily servings). To stay healthy and reduce the impact of your diet, Environmental Working Group recommends cutting cheese out of your meals, at least one day a week. (Americans ate an average of about 30 pounds of cheese per person in 2008, 50% more than in 1975, according to the USDA. That's more than an ounce a day.) Also choose less-dense soft cheeses like cottage cheese, over dense, hard cheeses like cheddar; the less dense the cheese, the less milk was used to produce it. Finally, look for locally made cheeses from organic farms and grass-fed pastured animals.

Cesar Olivares, fromager at Pastoral Artisan Cheese, Bread & Wine, said it all depends on the source. "If the farm can minimize its footprint by reducing waste, treating its animals well, and implementing sustainable practices, the cheese will be green," Olivares said. His company strives to buy only from sustainable suppliers that manage small herds of pasture-raised animals, grow their own feed, and compost animal waste to return nutrients to the soil.

Best Wine to Pair With Beef Ribs - Wine Recommendations | Into Wine

Rumor has it that beef ribs are often overlooked, as pork ribs are what most people visualize when they hear “ribs”. French politician Jean Glavany claims: “Those restaurant chains that are withdrawing beef ribs are . . . participating in this psychosis and should try to avoid it, . . . There is no question of banning beef ribs in our country.” And posts can be seen on American forums begging for good beef rib restaurant recommendations. Evidently, pork prevails in the ribs race. plural, as rib meat is found on several locations: short ribs come from a cow’s underside, spare ribs, AKA “back ribs”, are located at the cow’s top back, and the chuck cut of beef, used when short ribs aren’t available, is sliced out of the rib section. Short ribs, considered the most flavorful, are also more meaty than spare ribs, and are the preferred rib in France, where chefs tend to sear the meat, combine with vegetables and stock, then simmer several hours. Texas cooks favor spare ribs, preparing them by covering with a rub and smoking throughout the day at a low temperature. Interesting fact: Germans who settled in Texas in the 1800s learned barbeque methods from Mexican residents, then added their own twist that created the now-traditional Texas barbeque.

Preparation of beef ribs generally includes removing the tough membrane from the bone side, washing throroughly and trimming much of the fat, but not all, to ensure tenderness. Aficionados use several methods for cooking: grilling, baking then grilling, braising then broiling or stewing in a pot of water.

Among avant-garde foodies, rib visionaries also exist who must be different. They’ve conceived rib recipes that range from a coffee rub to a soy sauce/wheat beer concoction to a coconut-curry treatment to spinach and horseradish cream accoutrements. I don’t claim experience with any one of these, but am considerably intrigued.

Beef rib fans may have a variety of penchants for cooking and treatment, but what do they like to drink with them? Many choose beer, but if your inclination is wine, we offer the opinions of several experts to guide you to the best match according to their favorite rib recipes. Recommendations are by one master chef, one visitor center owner, one wine writer and one winery designer. Be sure to scroll to Heather Young’s section for a quote from award winning chef, Michael Chiarello.

N.A.R.D. notes

BBQ Makes Everything Better

The lancet

Biggest Book of Slow Cooker Recipes

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