Fireside Chat with Vindulge: BBQ & Wine Pairing Mastery
As a food and wine enthusiast, attending July's Pacific Northwest Eggfest was an unbeatable experience. Hosted in the Willamette Valley at Stoller Family Estate with The Big Green Egg and sponsored by the BBQ experts behind Vindulge, Sean Martin and Mary Cressler, the event brought together top chefs from around the country to showcase their grilling talents, each dish thoughtfully paired with Stoller wines.
After meeting Mary and Sean at Eggfest, I was inspired to learn more about their unique approach to BBQ and wine.
In a recent virtual chat, Sean shared the story of how Vindulge began in 2009 as a wine blog inspired by Mary’s sommelier journey and evolved into a vibrant platform celebrating the flavors of the Pacific Northwest through smoking and grilling.
Sean delved into their philosophy of wine pairing, focusing on enhancing rather than overshadowing their dishes. He provided expert tips on balancing flavors and textures, along with their go-to wines for BBQ, such as sparkling wines, rosés, Pinot Noir, Carmenère, and Sauvignon Blanc.
He also reflected on the mentors and inspirations that have shaped their path—from local chefs in the Pacific Northwest to culinary icons like Alton Brown—and shared insights from their travels, including their upcoming trip to Portugal.
This was such an insightful and fun chat, so I invite you to sit back and tune in:
Catch the full interview here: https://youtu.be/oUz3bEHJuBw
If you're looking to elevate your tastebuds and backyard cooking, I encourage you to pick up a copy of their cookbook, Fire + Wine, available online and in local bookstores. You can even purchase a signed copy of Fire + Wine directly from the Vindulge website and snag their delicious 3-Pack of Red Wine Barbecue Sauce.
And launching in April 2025 is Mary and Sean’s new cookbook, Fire + Wine: Backyard Pizza, which will include 45 delicious and easy pizzas you can whip up on your backyard pizza oven or grill (with a glass of wine in hand, of course). I will share more details on this exciting cookbook as April approaches!
Finally, I encourage you to head over to Vindulge.com to explore over 450 recipes, 150 expert wine pairing articles, and to join Sean & Mary’s newsletter for weekly free recipes!
Read The Full Transcript
@5:49 - Meg
With you being a pitmaster and Mary being a certified Somm, was that aha moment when the two of you decided to combine your superpowers and go into business together to create your catering company in Vindulge?
@6:48 - Sean
Yeah, so great question. I would say that it was a slow, iterative process. So Mary started Vindulge in 2009 as a wine blog back when blogging was big.
At the same time, she was studying to be a sommelier through the Court of Master Sommeliers.
Over the years I developed a passion for outdoor cooking and she enjoyed a passion for helping with recipe creation and ideas with flavor profiles — and we started adding the recipes to the website and that's when the website's popularity grew (in 2013 and 2014) and from there the brand kind of evolved.
And the catering company Ember and Vine was created so that we could bring some of what we did to the community. Our friends at Phelps Creek Vineyard out in Hood River were the first people to hire us to do an event because we were in a national competition with Traeger for their meat madness competition (it was kind of this March Madness competition).
@8:00 - Meg
Oh, that would be so fun to attend.
@8:02 - Sean
It was fun. And we did brisket nachos. So we did like a chili using leftover brisket, and we smothered the nachos with all the toppings.
And that's what we won with for their competition.
And so Paul Street said, “Hey, we'll hire you to cater.” And we're like, “OK, let's start a catering company as an offshoot of Vindulge.”
And so that was the first foray to us working together formally. And then if you flash forward to 2020, I had an opportunity in early March to quit.
My day job was as an insurance guy. And so I did. And we went full-time together at that point.
We're still plugging away at all the things. And there's also the entrepreneur piece, which was new to me as a corporate guy.
The catering company no longer exists. That kind of went away during COVID. The Ember & Vine brand is more of my behind-the-scenes lurking Instagram account where I don't post anything, but I do share stories and I will be sharing more like what's the day in the life of Vindulge.
Yeah. And yeah, so it's been great.
@9:26 - Meg
Do you ever look to build the catering business back up now that things are bouncing back post-COVID with in-person events and everything?
@9:36 - Sean
Yeah, that's a great question. So what we've learned especially in the last 18 months is we've had to have conversations around scalability and what we want to be doing with the 80-20 rule, because sometimes as entrepreneurs, we get caught up in the 80% of the tactics and not the creation and the ideation — and what are the revenue generators for the future.
So, for the foreseeable future, most of what we will do in catering will be around events that are either celebrity chef events (The Wynn Casino will do a couple of those a year. Brands will fly us out to be featured chefs), or winemaker dinners where we can promote our Fire + Wine cookbook.
So we’re more focused now — as opposed to being an open catering business.
And that's where we shine, versus someone asking us, “Hey, can you do this event?”
Both the costs to do those events — as well as our availability — are what's tough.
And if we were open for catering work, we'd be saying no a lot. So it just didn't seem fair to people to constantly say “no, no, no.”
@10:44 - Meg
It sounds like you're being very intentional about how you're with how you're approaching the catering side of the business and making sure it really ties in with the work that you're doing at Vindulge.
@10:59 - Sean
Exactly. Exactly. I can say we can foresee an opportunity where we might collaborate with a lot of chefs around the country doing events.
So, bringing chefs in from around the country, or going out to places, and bringing our style of food there. That might be in our future next year as we have another cookbook coming out. We're still in the process of trying to prioritize that.
@11:20 - Meg
Yeah, absolutely. Then my next question: What has been the most rewarding part of running Vindulge and building that business?
@11:38 - Sean
That's a great question. I would say the most rewarding part has been when we are at our most challenging times, looking back and remembering all the small milestones that get us to where we are now, versus living in the fear of what we could lose.
Sometimes it gets overwhelming. Google algorithms change and suddenly the traffic that we had coming before is just gone.
Social media algorithms change and suddenly no one sees our content anymore. Sometimes you can get caught up in that and feel like, “Oh what's next?” But then we look at those milestones — and this is all credit to Mary for the way she manages the businesses.
Looking back at our successes, we have some pretty cool stories. We've been able to feature our content in the Wall Street Journal, we've been at all these major culinary events, and we've got another cookbook coming out. So those are the big milestones that we're most proud of. I would also say that we grew organically. We never knew how big we were until after COVID and we started doing events where people were flying to see us at different places so that’s when you know it's a business.
We've tried a lot of things too. We tried doing an online wine club.
We thought it would be a great opportunity and then it just didn't work because the consumer base in our community was like, “Well, we'd like to see, touch, and feel the wine before we buy.”
So we've also learned a lot about taking risks: Some work, some don't. But yeah, we got lucky because our cookbook came out when outdoor cooking was big during COVID — and even though no retail shops were buying it at the time, we did have an opportunity to sell to a bunch of people who were sitting at home wondering, “What am I going to do with that travel budget? Buy a grill!”
@13:39 - Meg
Well, going along with the cookbook, my next question is a two-part question.
What are some of your fundamental principles when pairing wine with grilled and smoked dishes? And how do you adapt your wine pairing techniques with your different grilling techniques — like grilling and smoking?
@15:00 - Sean
When it comes to preparing wine, we also found that there's a certain finesse. There are the contrasting flavors and complementary flavors.
And so we try and take whatever the final dish might be and work backward so that the wine is showcased with the food.
So if a wine is delicate, for example, something that needs a little bit of acidity and not a lot of sweetness, then instead of assuming we're going to put a sauce on something, we might use pickled or umami elements to bring a flavor to complement the wine.
Being in Pinot Noir country, I like to credit Rollin Soles (ROCO Winery) for his take since he's from Texas, and that is, “I will take any of my Pinots and pair them with a tri-tip any day of the week. It's not just for salmon.” And I would agree with that.
That's what we try and bring to the to the pairing process, which is to start with, “What is our underlying cooking technique?”
So, for example, if we're adding smoke, we have a smoky component to it where we want to make sure that we don't overpower a wine that doesn't do well with that type of flavor. That's an example. We also like contrasting flavors — so if we want to put a little heat, or a lot of umami flavors into something (especially when grilling), or we want to add a nice chimichurri with a nice acidic garlicky flavor, then we may use different pairing options on the wine side for that. And that's our our approach.
@17:00 - Meg
Everything that you just said made total sense, as far as how you approached your the dish at Eggfest. I remember at Eggfest, you had the cedar plank salmon that was hickory smoked and had a hickory rub on it. What was the preparation of that dish?
@17:04 - Sean
Yeah, so the funny story about that dish is that it is literally the dish that got us our cookbook deal.
So the photograph of our cedar plank salmon was on our book proposal, and it’s rubbed with a chipotle chili powder rub, and we cook it on cedar, and then we finish it with a very simple maple syrup glaze — just a light glaze of maple syrup — which then offsets the chipotle flavor.
And then you've got that rich buttery salmon flavor. And that was paired with Pinot Noir.
@17:43 - Meg
That was such a knockout pairing. And just as you were saying that, it brought me right back to Eggfest because I just remember that touch of sweetness with the maple syrup, and then the chipotle and the smokiness of that dish.
It paired beautifully with the Stoller Pinot Noir that was the 2016 — and they had a little bit of new oak in that wine.
I think it was like 30% new oak in the winemaking process. I just found that the subtle oak elements of the wine really complemented the salmon so well and they just were — to your point — elegant.
@18:27 - Sean
Thank you. Yeah, you know it can get nerve-racking whenever we're trying to put together food with wine, but the Stoller team took great care to take each of the chef’s courses and find great pairings.
What we tried to do at that event is get every chef to say, “What do you want to cook first?” And then Stoller's team came back and said “Here's what I think are the ideal matches for those items.”
I thought that they did a great job with all the different dishes.
@18:54 - Meg
Yeah, I left that event so happily full and I almost went back for seconds of the salmon.
It was so delicious. So again, it was a knockout. And then the next question I have is: My work for Barrel Dork is helping folks curate their home wine collection so that they always have the perfect bottles of wine on hand at home to open for any occasion (and for their unique lifestyle)... And so for folks who love to barbecue — especially during the summer months — what are some wines they should stock up on?
And what are some favorite wines with grilled or smoked dishes that are no-brainer pairings?
@19:41 - Sean
Yeah, well, that's a great question.
@19:44 - Meg
That's a big question. I know, sorry.
@19:47 - Sean
I would go with a Zinfandel from Lodi. Northern California Zinfandels tend to have a lot more age-worthy characteristics, and they can handle more variety of flavors.
A lot of times when we cook meat, we'll have different sauces on the side. I think for us, that presents better because then people can pick and choose what they want. And the Zinfandel tends to allow more options for different varieties of sauces.
If you have acidic sauces or sweet sauces, a Zinfandel can mix and match. It's like a chameleon of wine. So that's something we always have.
And Rosé, especially Rosé! The acidity levels, and the versatility of Rosé of all types, I think is something that we always have in the fridge because it's a great wine that'll match almost any dish.
Mary's a Champagne person — She loves Champagne.
@21:09 - Meg
A lot of people in the wine industry geek out on champagne and sparkling wines. Sparkling wine in general is probably the most versatile food wine, ever.
@21:24 - Sean
We went to a sparkling wine pairing dinner in New Orleans and they showcased all different styles of Champagne.
(And I would argue that the same would apply to sparkling wines from around the US and the world. They work with every single dish.)
There was not a dish from the opening course amuse-bouche all the way to dessert where they couldn't find a sparkling wine pairing option.
I don't think any other varietal or blend could provide that same level of versatility.
So there's always some sparkling wine in our fridge. There’s so many different price points too. I mean, we got Gruet from New Mexico — it’s a great value and has great acidity.
@22:07 - Meg
They have some great stuff.
@22:09 - Sean
Yeah, there are also some great wines out of the Willamette Valley like Six Peaks up at the top of Bald Peak Mountain, which makes an incredible sparkling wine in Oregon for under $50.
You have to try it because we think it's one of the best sparkling wines under $50 in the Northwest.
I think that as Oregon finds its way into the sparkling wine space, they're charging — for the most part — Champagne prices.
And so sometimes I push back to winemakers and owners saying, “I get it long term. You're looking for new club members, but there are some great buys out there, too.”
@23:00 - Meg
I also think sparkling wine and Champagne are so perfect with barbecuing and grilling, because a lot of times, you're doing it as part of a gathering, or a party, or a cookout with loved ones — and who doesn't love opening a bottle of bubbles and celebrating those moments?
so it's versatile from a social aspect, but also from a food pairing aspect.
@23:32 - Sean
Yeah, and I think you highlighted one of the joys that we like to bring.
So yes, we have recipes, there's a lot of blogs out there that have recipes online. What we're hoping to do for people is bring experiences, because when you're around the fire, when you're around the kitchen… there's a reason why parties usually begin and end around the kitchen or the grill.
And it's because we're all together, commuting around food. We've been doing it for hundreds of thousands of years as a species. And the Eggfest was an example of that at a bigger scale.
Another great varietal that doesn't get a lot of love is Carménère. We don't have a lot of it in Oregon, but our friends at Blizzard Wines are bringing some in and making it out of Southeast Washington.
And that's another great wine with some nice acidity. It's not overly tannic but it is age-worthy and good with barbecue.
Sauvignon Blanc is another fun one. Yeah. Especially out of California, the Sauvignon Blancs bring out a certain flavor profile that's fun to add to grilled dishes.
@24:33 - Meg
Okay great. And then kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum with this question: Are there any wines that you find to be challenging to pair with grilled or smoked dishes?
@24:48 - Sean
Yeah you know that's a great question too. I think some dessert wines can be difficult. Specifically Tawny Ports or Ice Wines. Those tend to be a little more difficult with our genre of food because they tend to get lost in some of the food that we make.
And more nuanced wines that come out of different parts of the world like Assyrtiko out of Santorini and some Mediterranean varietals are sometimes difficult because warmer climates tend to make wines that are less acidic forward.
@26:23 - Meg
I also encourage people to pair white wines with red meat sometimes. At Eggfest, I forget who was making it, but it was the Beef Steak Taco topped with the Grilled Avocado Crema — And they paired it with the Stoller Sauvignon Blanc. That was just a knockout pairing.
You can paint outside the lines when it comes to food and wine pairings. Get experimental — and look at the other components of the dish (such as the avocado crema), which was really good with a Sauvignon Blanc.
@27:11 - Sean
Yeah, that was Betty, Eddy, and Sara (Colorado BBQ). I think you bring up a great point up. We try and focus on the protein, but if you put a fun topping on that has a very pronounced flavor profile, that's probably what you want to match your wine to. So if you have onion and shallots in the crema component on a steak, traditionally you might default to a red wine, but with that finishing bite, white wine is probably a better option, which I think is a fun way to change around the narrative a little bit with your traditional food and wine pairing.
@27:44 - Meg
We talked about it a little bit earlier, but how has living in the Pacific Northwest influenced your cooking and wine-pairing philosophies?
@27:58 - Sean
Oh, great question. We try to present food that is from here.
It doesn't always mean that we're sourcing from the Pacific Northwest, but it means if we're traveling to an event in Atlanta, we're not trying to make Carolina barbecue. We’re not trying to make Texas barbecue. We're making food that is inspired by living in the Northwest.
Some would argue it's the birth of the farm-to-table movement, although there are a few parts of the country that would push back on that.
But we're not afraid to bring that farm-to-table experience to wherever we go. So we love cooking fish. We love cooking lamb. We love cooking pork. All very abundant things here in the Northwest. We love vegetables and bringing those things together.
And I think that has been the biggest influence for us. As we travel around and spend time with chefs here, I think what the Northwest offers more than anything else is permission for fusion: To bring their point of view and their background into the food, and that's what showcases the story that they're trying to tell.
It was incredibly sad news with Naomi Pomeroy passing away over the weekend. She was a big inspiration for us. She literally started her business in her kitchen, created pop-ups, and brought all the flavors within a 50-mile radius to her dishes. We went to Beast and experienced some of her restaurant scenes (and others like her). Those were the things that got us really excited.
So, when we are presenting at different events, we try and bring that. We try and bring stories like this is one, or stories from a farmer in McMinnville, or when we're doing coastal salmon or Dungeness, or cattle from central Washington — and we're adding our little twist to it. That's what we try to do so that we stand out in a very crowded marketplace of barbecue people. But also because it's like what we like to eat.
@30:00 - Meg
It's also where you shine — and people can see that, rather than you trying to follow someone else's (or another region's) script. You're showcasing what you excel at and what is so unique about here in the Pacific Northwest.
@30:17 - Sean
Yeah, and I'm glad you experienced that at the Eggfest because at the Eggfest we wanted to deliberately find people from around the country who represented their authentic food. And there are great restaurants here: Matt's Barbecue does some great Texas-style barbecue. But there's something to be said about having someone from South Carolina who runs a South Carolina restaurant come in and present his food when he lives in the low country.
That to us is important, so there's an authenticity to the origination of that food. We are influenced by the Carolinas. But it’s ultimately our goal to introduce people to different flavors, from the people who are making it.
@31:07 - Meg
It also ties in with the whole travel piece. And literally, people don't have to leave. If they can't travel to the Pacific Northwest, if they're at an event of yours in Texas, they can still get a small slice of what it's like living here.
It's like a cuisine passport (for lack of a better term there), but I'm sure there's some punchy marketing in there!
So in talking about Naomi, this also brings up one of my next questions: Do you have any mentors or influential figures in the food and wine industry that have inspired your journey?
And I know it's probably a long list, but any key highlights?
@31:58 - Sean
Yeah, I mean... There's a couple that stand out.
So when we started our catering company, we worked with the executive chef at Vino Paradiso, a restaurant that no longer exists.
Chef Adam Ruplinger came from running restaurants in Minnesota and came out and worked there. We became friends and he worked with us on everything from menu creation, to scalability (just the ins and outs), because I don't have a culinary background or a trained background in the kitchen.
And there are different chefs that we have continued to follow, some have retired. I know Mary's aha moment was Chef Mavro in Hawaii, where she had his short ribs after being a vegetarian for 10 years, and those short ribs changed her life.
So I got to give a shout-out to Chef Mavro because then I'm like, “All right, I'll find short ribs tomorrow and start cooking them.”
And then locally and nationally, as we started to interact more with chefs from Andrew Zimmern to Robert Irvine to Alton Brown, the inspiration we're finding from those we connect with are those who are true to themselves and bring their point of view, regardless of the show-ability of it.
I think we're trying to emulate that so that it's not about whether we're on a Netflix show or TV, it's more about whether we're there to serve great food to people who may not have an opportunity to taste those types of foods regularly.
And I think Alton Brown is a great example. When you meet him in person, he is exactly what you see on Good Eats and his Instagram feed. He's so authentic, he's so curious.
And for us, we love that curiosity is a way for us to continue to reinvent ourselves every day. So those are just a few examples. I mean, locally, Gregory Gourdet, looking at his cuisine and how meaningful that is to him, his life, and his experience.
And sometimes it's food carts. We'll go to a food cart and we're like, “Where did you come from? This food is amazing.” It could be anywhere that we get the inspiration.
@34:22 - Meg
I have a rapid fire question. And this ties into your Fire + Wine cookbook. The scenario is: It's a beautiful summer night, and you have out-of-town friends who just happen to be passing through your neighborhood for the night. You decide to throw an impromptu backyard barbecue. What is the on-the-fly meal that you're whipping up for the occasion? And then, what wine are you pulling out of your wine fridge to accompany the meal?
@35:06 - Sean
This is funny, this literally just happened. For an appetizer, we're always going to go to our smoked bone marrow with a baguette because I love gluten.
It doesn't love me but I love it and it's perfect. We also jump to our smoked tomato gazpacho because it's easy to make (that's in the Fire + Wine cookbook) and pairs well with that nice Provence Rosé or sparkling opener (as does the bone marrow). The Stoller Rosé is also fantastic.
And then the other one that I love — I know Mary may have a different answer — but I love our New York Strip served with a savory duck fat granola.
However, if I went on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, it's going to be a smoked burger, pressed down, smash burger-style with some cheddar cheese. On the burger front, we're going to go to a Zinfindel.
With the more bougie dish (the Strip served with a savory duck fat granola), we're going to with something like a Merlot or a Carménère, as I mentioned. New York's have a nice marbling structure, so they can handle something more like those. If it's a hot summer night though, we'll do a Pinot Noir. We'll do a bigger Pinot. because it can handle it, and the duck fat softens everything. So yeah, we'd like to wow people because if there's anything we have a fair amount of, it's Pinot Noir.
If Mary were on this interview, she would have definitely chosen our Grilled Brie with Wine and Thyme for an appetizer, and a smoked and seared steak. We usually have a steak in the fridge all the time!
@37:10 - Meg
Well, I'll have to let you know next time I'm passing through the area!
@37:19 - Meg
I also know you and Mary love to travel. So what has been your favorite travel destination for food and wine enthusiasts?
And then what's a destination that's still on your bucket list to explore?
@37:37 - Sean
Well, we're going to Portugal, which has been on our list, in two weeks. We've heard nothing but amazing things and we're going to Porto to experience that.
My favorite experience was in Brazil. Brazil has an up-and-coming wine region, Rio Grande do Sul, that very few people know about because they haven't found a way to export it into the United States yet.
The ability to get down there is the expensive part, but once you're there, it's incredibly inexpensive and it's a beautiful wine region down in the south. I've been to Bento Gonçalves. We had an incredible array of sparkling wine. It's an Italian-influenced wine region. So when the Italians immigrated to southern Brazil, they brought their food and they brought their wine cuttings. And so a lot of the wines down there are in the Prosecco style and the pricing on them is incredible, like $18 to $25. They also have other varietals. But when you go there, it's like being in Hawaii. So you've got this tropical climate and a mountain desert shadow. It's a really cool place to go.
I know I won't speak for Mary, but I know that she loved Santorini and her whole Greek experience. And she loves Italy. Like every time she has a chance to go to Italy, not only does it inspire her with food pairings, but she comes back with some really fun wine stories.
@39:35 - Meg
It's hard not to love Italy. My husband and I just got back from a trip to Piedmont. And I'm like, “So we're going next summer, right? We're just going to make this an annual thing.”
And then my final question. I'm going to be sharing this interview with my Barrel Dork enthusiasts And I'm sure everyone will want to check out your Fire + Wine Cookbook. Where would you recommend they go to buy it?
@40:05 - Sean
Well, if you're local (Portland), we sell it at Powell's. So we're always a big fan of supporting local. You can also go to indiebound.org. It has all the local bookstores that sell different books around the country. It's available at Amazon too. And if you want a signed copy, you can grab one from our website.
It's also available locally at Zupan's. So you can go to any Zupan’s market where they sell our barbecue sauce and our cookbook. And if you ever come to an event of ours, we're happy to sign it!
@40:39 - Meg
Okay. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Sean. I know we want a bit over our time here, but everything we chatted about today has been so valuable. And enjoy your trip to Porto. You will love it. I went there in 2019 and it was so cool.
@41:19 - Sean
We've heard a lot of good things.
@41:20 - Meg
You'll have to bring back a bunch of Tawny Ports for your dessert courses.
@41:24 - Sean
You know, they may not be good to pair with grilling, but they're really good with dessert. We're definitely going to have to do some research!