What wine should we select after ordering a well-marbled Wagyu Rib Eye steak in a fancy restaurant in Manila?

Not so long ago Wayu and Kobe steaks were a raver’s topic of dinner conversation. Even so that would most probably of an academic nature as only the privileged few would indulge in that kind of decadence. Not so today as Wagyu is literally everywhere even in Manila, Pampanga and Cebu. Since they are reachable options for steak lovers it only follows that the issue of wine pairing is not far away.

Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon are the top two popular choices of wine to pair with steaks. Steak lovers feeling a little exhausted with drinking the same wine might reach for a Malbec from Argentina or a nice GSM red wine from southern Rhône, a Chateauneuf-du-Pape perhaps. Fans of Bordeaux often order something from the right bank, a St. Èmilion or a Pomerol. Seasoned Claret lovers cleverly go for a Château in Fronsac, Côtes de Castillon or even a Bourg.

None of these selections can be faulted and indeed no Wagyu or Kobe steak dinners will be spoiled by those choices. However we are not talking about a php1000 steak here. This is way past Black Angus territory both in terms of class and alas, price. If one is to fork out a serious amount of cash for a sublime piece of evenly Wagyu with a marble score of 8+ or an even pricier Kobe A3, A4 and dare we even think about it, A5, any hint of complacency in the selection of wine simply won’t do.

A more concise pairing can be achieved. All it really takes are (1) an understanding of what the dynamics and the pairing parameters and (2) a reasonably rich wine selection to choose a wine that exhibits the various qualities required for each pairing of wine and Kobe Wagyu beef.

So here we go.

Texture and Mouth-Feel

First one has to remember that the incredibly high content of fat as well as how even the marbling is with a Wagyu almost always result in meat with a uniquely mild, tender and smooth texture. Contrasting that with a wine that fails to deliver an equally velvety mouth-feel will simply degrade both the food and the wine. Because of this some wine lovers even go as far as to suggest drinking a white wine with Kobe beef. Is that really so crazy? Certainly it would have to be a mighty rich and full-bodied white wine, a Condrieu or a vintage Meursault for example.

Weight Matching

Smoothness in wine usually comes with a handicap in the weight department. For a Wagyu pairing, a lightweight wine can’t cut it. Wagyu steak might be smooth and tender but it is nevertheless a substantial piece of meat. If one asks a sommelier for recommendations, the choices might still have to come from a bunch of medium-full bodied wine. Luckily the world is not short on full-bodied red wine. But before reach out and grab one a blockbuster Shiraz and Zinfandel, take a minute to consider the issue of flavor intensity.

Flavor Intensity

The irresistible charm of a nice Wagyu can easily be muted by an intensely flavored wine, especially if it is high in alcohol and loaded with unresolved astringent tannins. The palate can easily be distracted by obtrusive tastes. That’s why the flavors of the wine have to be as subtle as the Wagyu.

Vintage Selection

Well there you (nearly) have it. The perfect wine for that perfect Wagyu steak is one that has medium-full body to match up with the naturally weighty piece of red meat, a smooth texture free of rough elements in the texture and has a flavor that is subtle, elegant but at the same time flavorful. We are almost home. There are just two more factors to consider.

Doneness

The doneness that each individual steak eater prefers for a given meal can prove to be a critical factor, one that if not taken into careful consideration can cause a wine selection to clash with the Wagyu steak. The effect on the doneness is not so much on the choice of wine but the age of the wine. The rule of thumb is the rarer one prefers for the steak, the older is the wine to drink with it.

The Cut

There is a difference, although less critical for a wagyu with high marble score than a more meaty steak from a corn- or grass-fed animal. For the leaner cut of Tenderloin or that Fillet Mignon, many people prefer a Red wine from Burgundy. This is similar to applying a sauce infused with fruit or berry flavors to a leaner kind of meat such as duck and venison for example. Those who prefer their steaks cooked rare or medium-rare often order a 20- or 30-year-old red wine. One should realize that very few wine regions in the world produce wines that are designed to age this long. But a beautifully aged wine – red or white even – can be a real treat to a wine connoisseur.

Hope this article is helpful the next time the question pops up as to what wine to order with a nice dinner involving a Wagyu steak. Those who have wine pairings to share with other wine lovers in Philippines may please do so by submitting their comments through Yats Wine Cellars web site.

And for those who are organizing social or corporate events, this may be of interest. Please read on.

Philippines’s leading wine supplier, Yats Wine Cellars is addressing this problem head on, offering specialized professional service to help Philippines event planners avoid being hammered for poor selection of wines. It is not always necessary to spend a fortune to entertain guests at weddings, parties and business functions with interesting wines that they can talk to their own friends afterwards. These are some of the advantages that this wine supplier in the Philippines can bring to your wedding reception to impress your wedding guests with a good selection of wines.
(Just click here to contact Yats Wine Cellars directly for inquiries and purchases.)

Selecting wines to serve at a wedding

First and foremost, by recognizing the fact that a wedding reception is basically a dinner that commemorates an important occasion, the wine supplier has to offer the same, if not higher level of excellence same as a wine dinner or a wine tasting event. The wines that this Manila wedding wine supplier offers for wedding dinners are not commonly seen in wine shops in the Philippines. This gives the dinner an extra dimension of class and exclusivity. Guests often talk to friends about this or that wine that they enjoyed at so-and-so’s wedding reception in Manila.

Average budget for wines in most wedding receptions in Philippines is about php500 to 1000 per guest. In general the consumption requirement is about one bottle for every two guests. An extra 10-20% is highly recommended for reserve. The reserve wines are not opened until the regular stock is nearly depleted. Yats Wine Cellars is one of the few leading wine suppliers which can deliver a lineup of interesting wines at this price range. This wedding wine supplier can even offer extra bottles on reserve, meaning that the customer can return unopened bottles of reserve wines the next day.

In most wedding reception dinners in Manila and other cities in Philippines, the wine list either does not exist or it is just a few lines on a piece of paper. A wedding wine list designed by this Philippines wedding wine supplier is no less than what one would find in a top fine-dining wine sensitive restaurant in Manila, Hong Kong, Singapore or Tokyo. There will be a short but interesting description of each wine. This description is not something extracted from the back label of each wedding wine. These are custom-written narratives about each wine on the wedding wine list, intended to entertain the guests while waiting for or even enjoying their wines during the wedding.
How do I get in touch with this wedding wine supplier?
That’s easy.
Just click here to contact Yats Wine Cellars directly here, or
Call (632) 637-5019 and ask for Rea.

SPECIAL COMMEMORATIVE VINTAGES

Modern wedding couples in Manila, especially those that have developed a penchant for fine vintage wines, prefer to mark the wedding reception with a few bottles of wine made from a year that has special meaning to them. It would be the respective year of birth of the bride and the groom or it would the year on which the seed of this relationship was planted for this wedding couple.

Philippines’s leading wine supplier, Yats Wine Cellars is probably the only wine supplier in the Philippines to have the depth of vintages in their wine collection to accommodate such as request. What’s more surprising is that some of the older vintage wines do not necessarily cost a fortune. Prices for older vintages can start from as low as php3000 a bottle.

This wedding wine supplier also offers advice and recommendations on what types of wine from what wine regions to select for a particular year in question. Almost every year in winemaking history there was one or more wine regions that were successful. Knowing what kind of wines to select from which wine region for a particular year makes all the difference in price and quality.

Yats Wine Cellars is a wine distributor in the Philippines that caters to the growing population of discerning wine lovers. Wine shoppers looking for good wine shops where they can buy wine in Manila, Pampanga, Cebu or other major cities in Philippines are pleased to find a large selection of vintage wines and lesser-known labels and appellations also. That is a wine story of the Philippines that wine lovers in Manila and Pampanga talk about.

The vintage wines of Yats Wine Cellars
are also purchased as gifts. One popular birthday gift idea is a “birth year wine”, a wine with a vintage year same as the year of birth of the recipient. Yats Wine Cellars is one of the few wine shops in Manila and Pampanga that carries wines dating back 100 years and offers advice on what types of wines from what regions are best for each year in the past. Special vintage cards covering older vintages are also available.

Yats Wine Cellars is one of the wine suppliers that devote a great deal of attention and effort to wine education aimed at enabling wine lovers to enhance their knowledge of wine as well as to develop a discerning palate for fine wines. To that end this leading wine supplier in Philippines frequently hold public wine events that are not sponsored by wine producers and not intended to promote a certain brand.

Just click here to contact Yats Wine Cellars directly for inquiries and purchases.

Yats Wine Cellars
Manila Sales Office
3003C East Tower, Phil Stock Exchange Center,
Exchange Road, Ortigas Center, Pasig,
Metro Manila, Philippines 1605
Tel: (632) 637-5019 0917-520-4393 0926-686-5955
Ask for Rea or Din din

Wine Shop, Cellars and Warehouse in Pampanga
Clark Wine Center

Bldg 6460 Clark Observatory Building
Manuel A. Roxas Highway corner A Bonifacio Ave,
Clark Field, Clark Air Base,
Clark Freeport Zone, Pampanga, Philippines 2023

Tel: 0917-826-8790 (045) 599-5600 0922-870-5173
Ask for Marissa or Jericho

Click here to contact Clark Wine Center to obtain further assistance.

FACEBOOK: The Facebook account of Yats Wine Cellars, called Yats.Wine is a media with which the professionals at Yats as well as fellow wine professionals in the trade throughout the world will share with our friends and wine hobbyists in the Philippines knowledge, findings, experiences, tasting notes, insights and opinions about wine, food-wine pairing and news about wine.

Click here to sign up to be a friend of Yats Wine Cellars to keep abreast of what’s happening in the wine scene in Philippines.

Yats Wine Cellars started opening small boutique-sized convenience wine shops in major locations of Manila. Through these wine outlets in Manila, Yats Wine Cellars hope to bring interesting selections of fine vintage wines to wine lovers in Manila at attractive prices.

Although there are plenty of good restaurants in Manila as well as a growing number of gastro pubs mostly in the Fort Bonifacio Global city and Makati areas, food and wine lovers travel out of town north of Manila to wine and dine in Clark Air Base which is now called Clark Freeport Zone of Pampanga.

Ranked as the top restaurant in Pampanga, Yats Restaurant and Wine Lounge not only offers good food, excellent wine selection and attentive service, it is also one of the restaurants in Pampanga that is great for group dinners, business entertaining and celebrating birthdays and anniversaries also. Semi-private and private rooms are available for groups of 5 to 50 here in this fine dining restaurant in Clark.

Yats Restaurant is one of the restaurants in Clark Air Base that is well known to residents of Angeles City, Subic, Manila, Tarlac and Clark Philippines as a good place to eat in Pampanga. Recently, event organizers and corporate planning departments have discovered that this famous restaurant in Clark Pampanga is also a very good venue for group dinners and corporate functions, not to mention parties and celebrations for other special occasions outside of Manila in North Luzon.

Just click here to contact Yats Restaurant and Wine Lounge directly for inquiries and reservations.

Private dinners can be accommodated in this famous restaurant located in Mimosa, at the heart of Pampanga Clark Freeport. Private rooms suitable for 4 to 24 can be reserved in advance at this impressive restaurant in Pampanga for company and personal functions and events in Clark. This fine dining restaurant in Pampanga is a very popular event venue for small wedding receptions, social events, company board meetings and annual parties. Even companies from Manila travel to Pampanga to hold their functions and events in this well known fine dining restaurant in Pampanga.

Besides good and impressive restaurants to wine and dine near Manila, Subic or in Angeles City Pampanga, Clark Philippines, those requiring assistance for hotel and resort bookings in Clark, Pampanga, Philippines may log on to http://www.HotelClarkPhilippines.com for more information and reservations.

Clark Pampanga is not only frequently visited for its good restaurants and fine dining establishments, it is also a highly recommended wedding destination especially for couples looking for outdoor garden reception venues and beach weddings. For assistance and information on wedding venues and how to organize a wedding reception, log on to http://www.PhilippinesWeddingVenue.com

Those visitors who plan to relax and unwind in Angeles City, Subic, Pampanga, Clark Philippines might make an effort to book a room at the famous beach and lake resort Clearwater Resort and Country Club. This famous hotel in Clark Pampanga is frequently visited by families with children looking for a good place in Clark to see, a good holiday destination for the family to relax and unwind in the beautiful outdoor facilities. For more information, log on to www.ClearwaterPhilippines.com

For information about working, living, doing business or finding a job in the Philippines, log on to http://www.yilp.com

Have a safe and pleasant trip to Clark Philippines.