Hop Alley

We're at Hop Alley in Denver. Jeff Cox is executive chef. Jacob Roadhouse runs the wine. Today they're hosting Sam and Justin from Somebody People for a blind tasting paired against one of the kitchen's dishes.

The wines

Wine one opened with peach yogurt, brioche, tinned pineapple — a textured wine from a warm climate. Sam suspected a Marsanne-Roussanne blend from the Rhône Valley with a little phenolic ripeness and good acidity. Justin threw out Riesling because, he said, he knows that word. Reveal: Marsanne blend from the Rhône, $38. Sam wins by a mile.

Wine two was funkier — clay, salinity, soft pear with a strange blueberry note. "A red grape variety posing as a white grape variety," Sam said. "A dog dressed as a cat." Reveal: a textured Riesling — old-oak treatment, some skin contact, the kind of bottle that breaks the rules of the grape.

Wine three was the quiet one — pretty restrained, but the kind of wine Sam puts on the same level as a great suit jacket. Old-world, balanced. Reveal: Chenin Blanc.

The pairing

The pairing dish is what Hop Alley does — bold, structured, plenty of soy and ferment and umami. The Riesling-with-skin-contact was the unexpected pairing winner. The reductive note from the wine softens against the soy in the dish; the lemon comes forward; the bite suddenly tastes lighter than it should.

The banter

The banter throughout is the comfortable kind that happens when somms and chefs have known each other for years. "The Daniel-san is overtaking the master," Sam said about Justin's improving wine guesses. "Mr. Miyagi is going to have to retire." Justin: "I can retire now."

The somm got the last word. "It gives you so many different things — you can have wines for a lot of richness and body, you can have laser beams like this, you got sweet styles. This is one you'd want to eat with grilled meats."

The Riesling won the dish. The wine that wants the next dish is the one that didn't.

Thanks, Hop Alley. We had fun.