United States President Barack Obama Celebrated His Inauguration With Wine

Oooooh, let's play the American version of "gossip about the Royal Couple" - what does the president of the United States drink? This is a fun opportunity, for those of you who regularly plan fancy dinners, to see how a professional matches food and wine. The menu description is downright dishy:

• 2007 Sauvignon Blanc - To accompany seafood stew. Great start! This is the absolute by-the-book choice. We start with a young wine, a light, white wine, to accompany seafood. Remember, light before dark, white before red.
• 2005 Pinot Noir - That's to go with "pheasant and duck served with sour cherry chutney and molasses sweet potatoes". Now, that's a much more interesting choice. I don't know if that's the wine I would have picked, but then that meal choice would make any sommelier's hair stand on end. Duck - gamey and strong, sour cherry chutney - spicy and cloying, and molasses sweet potatoes - great, let's get drowned in sugar so that any light, sweet wine wouldn't stand a chance! I can picture the chef laughing fiendishly in the kitchen - match a wine to that, suckers!
• Korbel Champagne - To go with the apple cinnamon sponge cake, which was hopefully light.

Of course, the event's menu was partly motivated to celebrate American products. They got the apple in there at the end, because, you know, it's "as American as apple pie". With such a convoluted agenda and the whole world watching, we can probably be relieved that the luncheon came off as well as it did.