Going to DWCC15 we analysed 3 Mavrud wines, and presented preliminary conclusions during our workshop on wine & food pairing. Now it’s time to give you the whole thing.

1. Short guide to
Mavrud grape and wines

2. „
„
Going to DWCC15 we analysed 3 Mavrud
wines, and presented preliminary conclusions
during our workshop on wine & food pairing.
Now it’s time to give you the whole thing.

3. „
„
About the report
We analysed 3 wines from Zagreus winery for this report, all
single varietal – 100% Mavrud grape:
1) Premium Reserve Mavrud: regular, oaked aged Mavrud
2) Vinica: oaked aged Mavrud from outdoor dried grapes,
Amarone or Ripasso style you may say
3) White Mavrud Bio: curiosity, white wine from red grape
variety, unoaked
Based on the sample of 900 cooking recipes from our wine-
recipe pairing database, we were able to put each of this
wine in context of wines from well known international
grape varieties. And to give some guidelines which food
recipes go well with each of these wines.
We’ll take you through the finding and methodology along
the way.

4. „
„
Premium Reserve Mavrud
Aromatic fingerprint partially similar to:
1) oaked Cabernet Sauvignon from South Africa
2) oaked Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Merlot
blend from South Africa
3) oaked Merlot, Cabernet Franc blend from France
4) oaked Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec blend from Australia
Wine and food pairing guidelines:
1) beef based recipes (especially roasted,
grilled, fried)
2) duck based recipes (fried, stir-fried,
oriental cuisine)
3) chocolate based, warm recipes (if tannins
are not a problem for you)

5. „
„
Vinica
Aromatic fingerprint partially similar to:
1) Barbaresco from Italy and other Nebbiolo based wines
2) oaked Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Merlot
blend from South Africa
3) oaked Cabernet Sauvignon from South Africa
4) oaked Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec blend from Australia
Wine and food pairing guidelines:
1) duck, beef, pork based recipes (with
exception of salads)
2) pasta based recipes (minced meat,
Bolognese sauce, tomato, basil, lasagne,
puttanesca style, smoked fish)
3) chocolate based, warm recipes

6. „
„
White Mavrud Bio
Aromatic fingerprint partially similar to:
1) unoaked, dry Riesling from Australia
2) dry Spätlese Riesling from Germany
3) oaked, dry Chardonnay from Australia
4) oaked, dry Viognier from France, Northern Rhône
Wine and food pairing guidelines:
1) eggs based recipes (variations of waffles,
pancakes, scrambled eggs)
2) cheese based recipe (mainly baked or
fried)
3) chocolate based recipes (toffees, cakes,
tarts)
4) fruit based recipes (cakes, tarts, pies)

7. How it’s done

8. „
„
Finding similar
aromatic fingerprints
To find similar aromatic fingerprints to Mavrud wines,
we applied a three step process to over 120 wines in
our database.
Step 1
Building a wine sample, selecting all wines
with similar point score to each of Mavrud
wines, for given recipe.
Step 2
Calculating level of similarity of selected
wines and Mavrud wine aromatic fingerprint for each
recipe. Finding cut-off threshold.
Step 3
Selecting as similar, wines with most frequent
occurrence above cut-off threshold.

9. „
„
Finding wine and food
pairing guidelines
If median is smaller than mean (grey bar) most of scores are better than mean.
Otherwise (black bar) most of scores are worse than mean. Based on % data we
know, that places up to 15 mean very good pairing, up to 30 good pairing, and so
on, as we indicated by changing colour of lines.
A word of advice, places spread for most categories confirms, that saying “this
wine goes well with beef and hard cheese” is just wishful thinking.
best place in
this category
worst place in
this category
median
mean
mean
median
To visualise wine and food
pairing guidelines we used
Excel’s “stock chart”.
For each recipe’s category
(egg based etc.) we
calculated the wine’s best
and worst place among 123
wine scores for 900
recipes. As well as wine’s
median and mean.

10. „
„
Premium Reserve Mavrud
wine and food pairing
Plain, oaked Mavrud is not a wine-food pairing powerhouse by any means.
However after analysis of recipes in most promising categories (chocolate, duck,
beef) we were able to give some guidelines to have successful wine pairing with
recipes including these ingredients.

11. „
„
Vinica
wine and food pairing
Vinica, thanks to the aroma depth given by dried grapes, makes a much
stronger candidate for delicious pairing.
With chocolate based recipes, as long as they are not ice-creams or chilled ones,
you can’t go wrong with Vinica. Duck and beef meals are also a safe choice,
except few. With pasta and pork you have to be a bit more picky but its still do-
able.

12. „
„
White Mavrud Bio
wine and food pairing
Although a curiosity, White Mavrud Bio has a potential with certain recipes
categories.
Egg based recipes are a safe choice, mostly. Cheese also presents good
opportunities with White Mavrud. Delicious pairings with chocolate and fruits are
mostly about tarts, pies and cakes. And as you see, despite conventional wisdom,
fish is not a right choice here, and poultry is mostly abysmal.

13. Got the recipe?
Looking for the right wine?
Find it now on
delipair.com