Continuing my wine pairing education, I attempted to do the (near) impossible by cooking a spicy Asian seafood dish and pairing it successfully with a wine of my choosing.

I am happy to admit that I failed miserably.

This month's Food & Wine ran a feature on Eric and Sophie Bahn's Monsoon, a modern Vietnamese restaurant in the Capitol Hill section of Seattle, WA. Eric and Sophie provided a recipe for spicy shrimp in chili sauce. The dish is made with a quick caramel sauce and two serrano chile peppers -- which register up to 22,000 scovillle units (or about 5 times hotter than your run-of-the-mill Jalapeño pepper) -- an interesting mix of sweet, sour, and spicy. It's the ultimate wine pairing challenge.

Still relying on the fact that Gewurztraminer pairs well with Asian food, we went with a Gewurztraminer from Alsace we had lying around waiting to be consumed. The 2004 Cave de Turckheim Gewurztraminer was possibly the worst possible pairing ever.

The nose on the Cave was more delicate than the Schoenheitz Holder from our previous tasting. It showed notes of dried apricot, honey, and touches of lychee. With the spicy shrimp, the wine seems to go limp in the mouth. It was as if, after eating a hot pepper, you were to eat burnt hay. The spice completely overwhelmed the wine.

After putting the food away, we finished the bottle and were surprised on the balance that it showed without the effect of the chile pepper. The issue was that the wine was missing the key ingredient to good food wines: acidity. Gewurztraminer is not known for its high acidity, the lack of the mouth-puckery really had a negative effect on its ability to play nice with my dinner.

The lesson here is that, no matter what a wine steward tells you, your wine needs acidity to pair with food, especially spicy food. If I had one ready, I would have gone with a Riesling from Alsace, which is more regarded for its high acid content.

On a side note, it's International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Avast, me hearties! You bilge sucking dogs should know that me pre-grub drink was a Dark & Stormy.

Image credit: La route des vins, d'Alsace