18 Reasons Pairs Wine with Vietnamese Food

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This is the first of what 18 Reasons promises will be an occasional series focusing on wine and Asian food.

The problem of pairing wines with Asian foods is trickier than settling on a bottle for Thanksgiving dinner, only more so. And with a cuisine as herbal, fresh, and either fleetingly delicate or piercingly spicy as Vietnamese, assembling wines can be particularly thankless.

Trac Le and Linh Phu to the rescue.

The team from Bi-Rite Market is offering a pairing-intensive evening at 18 Reasons next week, breaking down the cilantro, fish sauce, basil, and chiles of Vietnamese cooking into flavor components capable of enhancement with the grape. This is said to be kickoff to an occasional dinner series featuring wine and Asian food. "We will punctuate tasting with conversation and learning," the course description reads. How civilized.

Paring Wine with Vietnamese Cuisine
When: Fri., Oct. 15, 7-10 p.m.
Where: 18 Reasons, 593 Guerrero (at 18th St.)
Cost: $75 for 18 Reasons members, $85 for everyone else
Tickets available via BrownPaperTickets