What could be better on a cold winter’s day than a warm bowl of onion soup. A French style onion soup, gratinéed with croutons topped with blistered, stringy Compté cheese is soul satisfying, a bowl of comfort and warmth.
With such few ingredients, it is essential to tease out the best of each. The onions should be cooked very low and slow as to carmelize their sugars from the inside out. You don’t want to brown them, which would make the soup taste bitter, you want to coax out the depth and the natural sweetness. This is your soup base.
A good, homemade beef broth adds an earthy dimension. The croutons add texture, and the cheese brings salt, fat, and the string-like fun.
This is a complete winter bistro meal on its own. Although soups are a bit more difficult to pair with wine, mostly because it is a liquid paired with another liquid, this soup has enough texture and components to pair well with our 2019 Napa Valley Red Wine or 2021 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir.