Welcome back to Perfect Pair, a series on where I get to connect with some of my pals in food, beverage and nightlife on their hard hitting burger opinions and what they love to pair with their patties.
For this edition, I sat down with Olivia, sommelier and vegetarian, on her wine journey and what drinks well with a veggie burger.
Burger Diva: We’re here at the new and improved Kellogg Diner with Olivia! So let’s learn a little about you, wine and burgers!
So me and wine definitely have a closer relationship than me and burgers. I am a vegetarian, full discretion, and a really great veggie burger is hard to come by. But it’s so easy to find good wine! My wine background— I worked at a wine bar all through college and I liked that more than what I’ve been studying. I moved to New York for an ad agency job that I hated and continued working in hospitality outside of that.
By chance I met some winemakers and ended up working for their winery in marketing. Marketing is what I had studied but I had this passion for hospitality in the back of my mind. They hired me to revamp their marketing to be geared more towards the U.S. market and they were based in Sicily. And I said “fuck it” and moved to Sicily for a few months, worked on their property. I helped with the harvest during that time and they paid for me to take my wine certifications, my WSET, and Italian language classes and just became super entrenched in the world of wine.
I had to leave Italy because of the pandemic and when I got back to New York I got a job at Eataly - Italian Disney. It was a really chaotic place but I had a lot of the company’s money to play around with as far as what I felt like buying I was one of the buyers there. Really cool access, insane producers would come by there and I got to taste some really important wines. I think because of my passion for sustainability and growing up on a farm, the more and more I learned about wine the more I wanted to become a natural wine person.
And eventually I ended up becoming the wine director at a place called Public Records. Venue, restaurant, bar, so I ran a Central and Eastern European wine program there. I had an absolute blast doing that until I got burnout from working til 4am so many nights. And now I’m at a wine shop called Verve in Tribeca, which leans a little classic but I’m really in it for the educational aspect. It’s another place where I can try really prestigious wines and keep learning.
BD: And how long have you been vegetarian?
I’ve been vegetarian pretty much my whole life and it’s for tummy reasons. I get really violently ill when I try to eat meat, especially red meat. I just can’t process it. And I’ll see a burger or fried chicken and I’m like “damn..that looks good.” And sometimes I’ll be able to take a few bites and it goes down fine. Most of my life I’ve had no choice but to be a vegetarian and my mom is the same way.
BD: What do you look for in a veggie burger? I know you were saying it’s kind of hard to find, and we were saying before that so many places will just sub out the patty for an Impossible patty.
First of all, NOT being an Impossible or Beyond burger. There are a lot of evils in those companies that are no better than what a lot of mass produced meat brands are doing. Just bad for the environment, bad branding and not a good look for the face of being vegan and vegetarian. I don’t typically jump for those.
I think that texture is the most important thing in a veggie burger. My favorite veggie burger in the city is at No 7, which is seitan based and broccoli based and has a really great chewiness. It doesn’t just fall apart in your mouth, it’s not soft the whole way through. It gives you that really satisfying chew.
Flavor obviously , I like something with a little spice. I don’t want it to necessarily remind me of meat, fake blood in the middle of it. Superiority Burger is also always a winner.
BD: You want it to have a good chew, be filling and nourishing in the way a meat burger can be.
I don’t need to be convinced that it could be meat, it’s okay being its own thing.
BD: Well that all being said, talk to me about the wine we have in front of us and why it pairs well with a veggie burger.
So the wine we’re sipping is from Emilia Romania in Northern Italy. It’s a Trebbiolo which is a blend of two red grapes: Barbera and Bonarda. It’s juicy, low tannin with a little acidic kick and I think it balances a veggie burger very well. I think it also has enough depth that it can stand up to a regular burger.
For what we had on the menu tonight I think it’s a perfect pairing since it also has a little spice, some black pepper. The burger here has cashew crema and pickled red onion goes well with that brightness. Overall I think something easy drinking is really great with a burger. I’d say my top pairing with a burger is a Beaujolais.
BD: For a wine novice, what are some notes or things to look out for - acidity, tannins, body…
Definitely tannins is a big one to look for. Tannins is that mouth feel that puckers your mouth and stays with you, that grippiness And that’s great sometimes with red meats, especially a steak. I think something a little lower tannin is my lean for a burger.
You typically want to pair acid with acid so that neither the food or wine are overpowering the other. And then profile - tasting notes to compliment the flavors of the burger.
Body is another consideration. An analogy I always like to use is skim milk versus whole milk versus heavy cream to talk about the body of a wine. If it’s light in your mouth, goes down smooth that’s a lighter bodied wine and also what I’d usually look for in a wine with a burger.
BD: So if you had a more classic burger, lettuce tomato onion pickle, what would you say compliments that?
I would go higher acid! I would want to match that energy and brightness.
my queen