Did you ever feel like your favorite Louisville comfort food was missing something? A glass of Merlot, maybe? 

Wine doesn’t make just fancy food sparkle. When you find the right combination, the "aha" glass that makes every bite a revelation, wine can transform anything, and I mean anything, into a dining marvel.

Fried chicken and sparkling wine anyone? What about greasy burgers and a bold red wine? 

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What seems like magic is really a science. And art. And an understanding of how certain flavors work together.

Louisville native Vanessa Price is the sommelier and brilliant brain behind the most fun wine pairing book I can imagine. Her "Big Macs and Burgundy: Wine Pairings for the Real World" kept my quarantine pod entertained and amazed during the (first) dark COVID-19 winter, and it still offers me gob-smacked moments of "how does she know this will work?"

After tasting some of her most fun pairings, like Sour Patch Kids and off-dry Riesling, at an event at Nouvelle Bar & Bottle, I wondered: how would she pair some foods close to our hearts here in Louisville? 

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Luckily, Price was more than up for the challenge of finding wines to make magic with a few of the comfort foods we know and love best here.

Note, some of these would need to take place in a carry-out situation. I’d recommend setting your table with your favorite dishes or grabbing your TV tray and leaving it in the to-go container.

Either way, prepare to have your minds blown with these comfort food and wine pairings.

Price may no longer live in Louisville, but she hasn’t forgotten the deep and abiding love many of us have for mock duck and crisp green beans from Vietnam Kitchen, 5339 Mitscher Ave. in south Louisville. In fact, her family “family grew up in the south end of Louisville right next to Iroquois Park and a stone's throw from [Vietnam Kitchen]. Definitely a life-long staple.”

When I’m at Vietnam Kitchen, I like to have fresh coconut juice. But Prices wants you to try Merlot next time. Specifically a Merlot from Long Island.

“The tip of Long island can have aggressively cold winters and summers with consecutive days as hot as parts of the Sahara,” she says. “This insane smorgasbord of never-ending challenges must be why the masochist in me recently decided to take on a vineyard project here (Ev&Em Vineyards). Winemakers also have to contend with mildew, rot, drought, floods, and every disease you can think of. Yet we still do it —because Long Island is a place that makes really good wine that’s too often spurned for its more glamorous American competition on the West Coast."

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Long Island Merlot "has tannin that’s as velvety plush as a fluffed-up hotel pillow and an earthy mineral thread that’s distinct to the east end of New York. There are a few places in California where Merlot is grown with so much unique terroir identity. You get the classic vein of plum that you might expect from Merlot intertwined with semisweet licorice and a crush of acid that the West Coast simply can’t match," Price says.

“The Mock Duck stir-fry [at Vietnam Kitchen] is lucky to have such a strong island beauty by its side,” she says, “as there’s a good kind of green pepper in the Merlot that helps support the sautéed green beans. Seitan is always more textural than it is flavorful, but that sharp bite and savory element to the wine bring out all the soy and sesame you can get from the sauce. The ‘taste of the wok’ will shine against the tar, earth, and mushrooms these wines can embody..” 

You all may know if I had my way, Tok Sel lima beans at The Mayan Cafe, 813 E. Market St., would be the official dish of Louisville. Bruce Ucan’s treatment of the creamy beans with toasted pumpkin seeds and a lashing of sesame oil transforms them into a dish you’ll never stop thinking about.

And there’s the perfect wine on Mayan Cafe’s menu to take this favorite to the next level.

“Vinho Verde translates to ‘green wine,’ in this case meaning young, and it comes from the area around Minho in northern Portugal that makes its wines in much the same way Provence does its rosés,” Price explains. 

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“They taste almost like someone made a tart lemonade, then added a little fizz and a dash of sea-spray fruit flavoring (all-natural, of course) — a refreshing and simple wine for a light and easy meal. Since these Lima beans are served with pumpkin seeds and cooked in sesame oil, there’s a richness to the dish that the bright acid of the wine contends well with. Aided by its soft effervescence and salt, Vinho Verde lights the fuse that gets the parsley’s flavors to detonate in your mouth. They’re practically breezy in body and not overly complex, so the fireworks don’t linger too long after you swallow.” 

“BBQ is in my blood, and I genuinely believe that the act of pit-smoking giant slabs of meat is one of the world’s great culinary art forms,” Price says.

She and her family had a standing date at the now-closed Hometown BBQ but we all have our favorite BBQ spots around town (I’ve been loving Louisville Smokers BBQ, 1500 W. Oak St., lately.)

“I also know that there are many bottles that can amplify the smoky, fatty sublimity of perfect brisket or a rack of tender ribs. But one above all, Côte-Rôtie from the Rhône Valley of France, can help BBQ achieve transcendence," Price says.

This diverse, dynamic region can be cut in half both geographically and stylistically, she says, with a magnificent red grape called Syrah in the north being used as the base in several appellations.

“What makes Côte- Rôtie such a unicorn among them is actually explained in its name,” Price says. “In English, it translates to ‘the roasted slope,’ because the steep inclines where the vines grow face south toward the Rhône River and get a lot of sunshine. That allows the grapes to ripen to their full and most powerfully tannic potential, and the resulting expression yields a robust set of aromas and flavors like olives, white pepper, bacon fat, and black fruits of all kinds, along with a distinct smokiness that’s a dead ringer for charcoal."

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No matter what type of barbecue you love, Price says "these wines will get the very most out of every juicy, smoky hunk. The appellation is small and prestigious, so the wines start on the pricey side and only go up from there. But Côte-Rôtie is so consistently good, you get what you pay for every time.”

I can’t recommend Price's book enough. As a casual wine drinker at best, I’m often mystified by the ways of the sommelier. Trying her funky combinations and reading her notes illuminated pairings in a way that makes it exciting and fun and something worth learning more about. 

I’ll leave you with two more Louisville pairings. Price loves her grandma’s fried chicken cooked up in an ancient cast-iron skillet in hot, bubbling lard. That sounds just like the soul-satisfying chicken coming out of Shirley Mae’s Cafe, 802 S. Clay St. With that, she wants you to have Champagne. Really. Look for a Brut Multi-Vintage, she says.

The high acidity bubbly with a hint of sugar helps to cut through the fatty, greasy chicken, she says.

“If you take a swig of Champagne in between bites, you're going to cleanse your palate and make you ready for the next bite. It becomes this way of heightening each bite’s experience.” 

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And for the next time you bring home a grease-splattered bag of Ollieburgers from Ollie’s Trolley, 978 S. 3rd St.? That zesty, spiced burger needs a big red like a Chilean Carménère, Price says. The green herbaceous character will complement the Ollie sauce and its cornucopia of spices, she says, while the higher alcohol content helps tame the fattiness of the burger. 

Pass me the Ollie fries and a glass, please. 

Tell Dana! Send your restaurant “Dish” to Dana McMahan at thecjdish@gmail.com and follow @bourbonbarbarella on Instagram.