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Mike Supple and Matt John kick around a few ideas and settle on the right wine to have with a spice rubbed filet mignon.
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Matt: Alright, so I'm here with Mike Supple, and we're going to have some dinner - because we're hungry. And we like to have some wine with dinner, and it's important that we pick the right wine. We're going to have some steak. Is that ok with you?

Mike: Steak's good, but let's bump it up a notch. Instead of just steak, what should we have?

Matt: Ok, so we'll have filet, some potatoes, some gravy and some sort of random vegetable. So let me pull out some wines and we're going to see what Mike thinks, because I don't know what I want.

Mike: Food and wine are really important to have together. That's something the French know, the Italians know, the Spanish know...Americans, we're working on it, but food and wine work together, so try to get them together.

Matt: Mike, how about some Chardonnay from J. Lohr?

Mike: Alright, so this is what he just pulled for me. This is a good bottle of wine. The 2003 Arroyo Secco Chardonnay from J. Lohr Vineyards. It's a pretty high quality Chardonnay. Aged in some oak, has a nice heavy body, classic butter, rich California Chardonnay flavors. Some lemon in there, some apple. Apparently, this is Clone 5 Chardonnay (nobody knows what that means except these guys). [That's not actually true. Clone #5 is a particular clone of Chardonnay that was developed at UC Davis and is known for producing rich, full-bodied wine.]

Matt: What are you telling me, Mike?

Mike: We're having steak, so we want something a little bigger, a little bolder. I think the filet will over power that wine. It's just not going to have enough body, enough to support it. Why don't we go with a "no" on that one.

Matt: The second wine I was looking at out of the wine fridge was some Pinot Noir. It's very popular these days. I love Pinot.

Mike: Everybody loves a good Pinot. I love a good Pinot. So what we have here is the Au Bon Climat Pinot Noir, the Rincon from Talley Vineyard. Au Bon Climat is a great producer; one of the first producers to experiment with Pinot Noir down in the Central Coast of California. Fantastic wine.

Pinot Noir is not full-bodied enough, like the Chardonnay. It's a little bit of a lighter red - yes it's a red, which is a step in the right direction for steak - but it's a little too light. It's got some good acidity to it, but it just doesn't have enough body to hold up to that steak. You've had steak before, it's heavy, powerful meat. It's just not quite enough. They're going to fight rather than work together.

Matt: You're picky, Supple.

Mike: Hey, you want it to work! You want some good wine, you want some good food.

Matt: What about some Champagne?

Mike: I love Champagne, and I never turn Champagne down [except right now]. Champagne can work with just about everything. You're going to hear some people disagree with me. This particular Champagne is a non-vintage Champagne. It's a blend of some Chardonnay, some Pinot Noir, from France in the Champagne region. It's pretty good quality Champagne. However, if I'm having meat and I'm having Champagne, I still want something a little heavier, a little darker, so maybe something that's vintage because vintage has a little more body to it, maybe a little more richness. I'm also going to stick maybe with a rosé Champagne if I'm going with meat, because rosés are going to have more of that strawberry flavor, a little bit of that dark cherry flavor. So I'm going to pass on that. Plus I'm really hungry and really thirsty, and I don't really feel like spending five minutes chilling that bad boy down. Let's get back to the red country.

Matt: Ok, this is something I've been holding on to, and even though I know everybody knows this winery, it's about time we drink it. What about this?

Mike: Alright, now we're talking. This is the 1996 Silver Oak Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Silver Oak is a very well known winery in California. They do a Napa Valley Cabernet and they do a Sonoma Alexander Valley Cabernet. '96 is good. We're in 2009, so we have 13 years on this bad boy, so it's had some time to settle. Napa Valley Cabernets can be very tannic, particularly from strong producers like this. You don't really want to drink them young; you want to give them some time. This has had some time in there so the tannic acid, that's the stuff that gives you the bite in your throat and back of the mouth, as those tannins settle the wine fleshes out a little bit more, feels fuller bodied and rounder. I think this will really wrap around a thick steak well. It'll have that nice thick, juicy black cherry flavor. This should be a pretty badass selection.

Matt: So basically what he's saying is that first bite of steak that you have, the loveliest bite ever, after time, it doesn't taste the same. But, if you drink this in between, every bite will be the first bite. That's the point.

Mike: You want to refresh your palate. Because your mouth gets tired tasting the same things. Try some steak, try some wine. Go back and forth. You'll love it. And when you have a badass steak, you want a badass wine. Let's do it up.