By Brian Hernandez | Photos courtesy of Francis Ford Coppola Winery
If you still think pizza belongs exclusively with red wine, first off, why? Is it because red sauce is…red? Well, Maria Karim has a $10,000 argument against that ridiculous theory.
The San Jose, California, home cook just won Francis Ford Coppola Winery’s fifth annual Perfect Your Pizza competition with a wild mushroom pizza paired with Chardonnay. And according to one of the country’s most respected pizzaioli, it wasn’t just the pizza that made the difference. It was how deliberately every ingredient worked with the wine.
Karim’s winning creation, “Golden Hour: Wild Mushroom with Thyme and Lemon-Honey,” featured brown butter, cream sauce, mushrooms and herbs paired with Coppola’s Diamond Collection Chardonnay. She emerged from a field of hundreds of entries nationwide (a victory in itself), including more than 130 regional competitors, ultimately beating three other finalists for the grand prize.
Given the choice between a wine, pizza and film lover’s home upgrade package or $10,000 in cash, Karim took the money. Tough choice, but it had to be made.
“This year’s winner is one of the most unique pizzas and pairings we’ve tasted in all the years of the contest,” said Dan Richer, chef and co-owner of Razza in Jersey City, New Jersey, and the competition’s returning chief judge. “Every topping component—from the cream sauce to the brown butter, lemon and herbs—connected back to the Chardonnay, as if the flavors of the wine had been translated into a pizza.”
That observation echoes something Richer discussed in a recent episode of PEEL: A PMQ Pizza Podcast: Great pizza isn’t necessarily about how many ingredients you can pile onto a crust. It’s about understanding why each ingredient belongs there. For pizzeria operators, that’s a useful distinction, particularly when developing specialty pizzas or building a wine-pairing program. A successful pairing should make both the food and the beverage better, not simply give customers two things to order.
Karim developed her recipe through years of experimenting in her home kitchen and backyard pizza oven. “My inspiration for this pizza was to incorporate brown butter, knowing those flavors would pair beautifully with Chardonnay,” she said. “That’s what I love about cooking and wine: when you’re willing to experiment, you can discover something really special.”
Richer joined Coppola Winery chef Tim Bodell and winemaker Andrea Card in evaluating the four finalist recipes. The other finalists were Troy Jenson of Toms River, New Jersey; Wyatt DuFrane of Livermore, California; and Christie Wanderer of Stillwater, Minnesota. Their creations ranged from Italian sausage and broccolini to cherry tomatoes and Gorgonzola with a Coppola Claret reduction.
For operators looking to take something away from the competition, Karim’s win offers a fairly simple lesson: Don’t let traditional pairing rules dictate your creativity. Sometimes the best combination isn’t the obvious one, and sometimes a glass of Chardonnay and a mushroom pizza can turn into a $10,000 payday.
For more from Richer on ingredient quality, creativity, restaurant operations and what makes a winning pizza, catch his conversation on PEEL: A PMQ Pizza Podcast.
Brian Hernandez is PMQ’s associate editor and coordinator of PMQ’s U.S. Pizza Team.
