In my work, I plan and conduct events that feature the pairing of food and wine. As my wine tasting experience has evolved over the years, I offer up these brazen thoughts.
Dry wines are not always the best choice for the foods we like to eat. Recently, I drank a blueberry wine from Florida with teriyaki chicken. Ugh, you might say, but I was pleasantly surprised. Teriyaki (soy, ginger and sugar dominate) is sweet. A dry wine would taste sour and bitter with it. The blueberry wine’s sweetness “connected” with the teriyaki and I enjoyed it. If you’ve ever been turned off by a dry wine with something you love eating, there are alternatives other than iced tea! For white wines, try a Beringer Chenin Blanc, a Columbia Crest Riesling from Washington State or one of my favorites, Sonoma County’s Alexander Valley Vineyards “New Gewurz.” These slightly sweet whites will stand up to fruity sauces, dressings and ingredients better than a chardonnay or any red wine. If you swear you just can’t drink slightly sweet wines (because you’ve unfortunately been brainwashed by wine writers who tell us that only dry wines are worth buying, talking, or writing about) try it just once. I think you’ll be surprised that’s it’s a pretty good match!
For reds, there’s not much out there that’s slightly sweet (which I think is a big mistake). If you’re a barbecue lover, you know that a sweet BBQ sauce kills a good dry red wine every time. Here, you’ll need a big, fruity zinfandel or syrah (names like Rosenblum Cellars, Preston and Ravenswood come to mind) to battle it out with the BBQ sauce. Or, if you dare to defy the wine snobs, Gallo’s new rendition of its timeless Hearty Burgundy makes a very delicious match.
If you generally buy cabernets and chardonnays for your dry wines, try gravitating towards sauvignon blancs and pinot noirs for a while. With food, these wines are an easier match because they are usually tangier and lighter than cab or chard. Sauvignon blanc is rarely oaky or buttery so it won’t overpower subtly flavored foods. It’s a great palate refresher. Look for sauvignon blancs from New Zealand, France’s Loire Valley (often called Sancerre) and from all over California (my favorites are Pepi, Benziger and Toasted Head.)
California pinot noir, a wine that used to be in short supply and expensive, has surged in popularity and so is more affordable now. It’s the best “starter red wine” and goes with so many everyday foods like bacon, mushrooms, beef and tomatoes. It rarely has heavy tannins and high alcohol like cabs can have. My personal favorites include the mid priced wines from Echelon and Camelot and the high priced delights from Iron Horse and Gary Farrell.
Keep lemons around to use as a condiment…for your wine. Much like salt and pepper, lemon enhances the flavor of both food and wine. Yes, wine, too. I’ve been known to squirt a couple of drops of lemon into a glass of chardonnay that’s too oaky for my taste or too “big” for what I’m eating. It’s similar to the way we squirt that lemon on a piece of fish. It perks it up. Try it, you’ll like it.
In the end, as simplistic as it sounds, it’s really all about your own personal taste, not somebody else’s. There are tried and true food and wine pairings that many people enjoy, but don’t limit your experience by not experimenting with the new.
Next time, I will lament the common practice in restaurants and wine tasting rooms of serving red wine too warm.
