Baltimore Magazine highlights spice‑wine cookbook

Cookbooks usually teach you one of two things — how to cook, or how to think about wine. This one is trying to do both at once. Baltimore Magazine just spotlighted *The Art of Spice & Wine Pairing*, a new self-published book from Harford County restaurateur Joe Lertch and food-and-wine collaborator Mark Robinson, and the real hook is simple: stop pairing wine to the protein first, and start with the seasoning. (baltimoremagazine.com) That sounds small, but it changes the whole decision tree. (baltimoremagazine.com) If you’ve ever stood in a wine shop thinking “chicken means white, steak means red,” this book is basically arguing that the spice rack matters more than the meat. ### Who are the people behind it? Joe Lertch owns The Vineyard Wine Bar in Havre de Grace, Maryland. Mark Robinson is a food-and-wine enthusiast based in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Baltimore Magazine says the two met when Robinson had dinner at Lertch’s restaurant, then started collaborating on the business website and later on their YouTube project, The Wine Matrix. ### What actually makes the book different? (baltimoremagazine.com) The core idea is that wine pairing should track spices, herbs, and cooking method — not just the broad category of meat or fish. That’s the line running through both the Baltimore Magazine feature and outside commentary on the book. In plain English, cayenne, chives, char, cream, and acid push a pairing in different directions, even when the base ingredient stays the same. ### Where did the idea come from? Turns out this started as a practical shop-floor problem. Lertch told Baltimore Magazine that customers would come into the wine bar asking for a bottle to go with dinner, and he’d ask what spices they were using and how they were preparing the dish. When he wasn’t around, staff needed a reference guide — but he couldn’t find a book focused on spice-and-wine pairing, so he started building one himself. (baltimoremagazine.com) ### What’s in the book? Baltimore Magazine highlights recipes like Chive-and-Herb Crusted Pork Tenderloin and Spicy Cayenne Shrimp Tacos. The book also includes chapters on wine grapes, including background on where certain grapes come from and even pronunciation help, which tells you the audience here is not just wine nerds. (baltimoremagazine.com) It’s aimed at regular people who want a usable framework. ### Why add the grape chapters? Because wine is intimidating for a lot of people. Lertch says that directly in the feature. So the book isn’t only trying to solve the pairing puzzle — it’s also trying to lower the barrier to entry. Basically, the authors want readers to know enough about grapes and styles that “pick a bottle for dinner” stops feeling like a test. (baltimoremagazine.com) ### Why is Baltimore Magazine’s feature a real signal? Local magazine coverage does two things here. First, it pushes the book beyond the restaurant’s existing customer base. Second, it frames the project as part of a broader regional food story — a Havre de Grace wine-bar owner turning years of service advice into a publishable system. The magazine also notes this was a five-year labor and that more books are already in the works, so this is landing as the start of a bigger publishing run, not a one-off vanity project. (baltimoremagazine.com) ### So what’s the takeaway for actual cooks? The useful part is the mental model. Pair the bottle with the loudest flavor on the plate, not the label you’ve memorized from an old rule. Think of the protein as the canvas and the seasoning as the paint — the wine has to match the finished picture, not the blank surface. (baltimoremagazine.com) That’s the whole bet of the book, and it’s why this feature stands out from a standard cookbook blurb. ### Bottom line? This is a local-food story, but it lands because the advice is broader than Baltimore. Lertch and Robinson are packaging a restaurant instinct into something home cooks can actually use — and Baltimore Magazine just gave that idea a much bigger stage. (baltimoremagazine.com)