Food & Wine Pairing

Summer is here (or close enough anyway) and for many people, that means taking out the grill, inviting friends over and having a barbecue. For many of us wine lovers, choosing the right wine for a barbeque can become challenging. There are a lot of reasons for this. It’s usually hot or at least warm out and some wines just don’t work in the heat. Further, parties often involve groups of people and that means finding easily obtainable wines that don’t cost an arm and a leg to buy multiple bottles. Finally, the wine needs to match the food. Barbecue is big food with a lot of flavors. A wine needs to stand up to that otherwise why not just drink water. To start with, here is a break down on the types of wines to look for and then a few, but far from complete list of suggestions.

Let’s face it, Mom probably drinks because of you (I know mine does). So IntoWine.com wanted to celebrate Mom with a dozen rosés , wines that are similar yet wildly diverse. Provence is the undisputed birthplace of rosé and the ancient Greeks brought vines to southern France around 600 BC, something the Romans improved upon when they arrived in the area in 125 BC. So rosé has a long history but as these wines show, r osé is truly global.

For the 2015 Best of Sonoma Lists we surveyed hundreds of local vintners asking for their inside perspective of the best wines, tasting rooms, and restaurants in Sonoma. After surveying over 100 esteemed...

For the 2015 Best of Sonoma Lists we surveyed hundreds of local vintners asking for their inside perspective of the best wines, tasting rooms, and restaurants in Sonoma. No trip to Sonoma wine country is...

I’m usually a good speller, but was concerned when I saw a couple of my contributors recording a favorite comfort food as “lasagn a ”. I’ve been spelling the dish as “lasagn e ” for years. Then I was relieved to find that lasagn e indicates more than one piece of the pasta ribbon. I promise to get a life. However the dish is spelled, this beloved casserole really does hail from Italy, unlike some of the other so-called “foreign” favorites that have become completely Americanized. The early Italian version was typically layered with cheese, sauce and other ingredients. But the term originated in ancient Greece as “lasagnum”, referring to a dish or bowl. When eventually the region was acquired by the Romans, they used the same kind of dish, then developed the layered pasta meal to be baked and served in that dish. The early Italians ultimately changed the name of the container from “lasagnum” to “lasagna”, and later, the word began to represent the entrée baked in that dish.

With summer upon us, grilled steak has natural appeal, especially irresistible when its alluring aromas waft over the neighbor’s fence. No one was happier than I to receive an assignment to pair wine with New York steak, my favorite cut, for it’s substantial texture, juicy potential and powerful flavor. Although I wouldn’t kick a filet mignon to the curb, its character is more subtle than the New York’s. Found on the short loin of the cow, the New York cut actually comes from the same cut as the t-bone and porterhouse. Having fewer muscles than other parts of the animal, this section of the cow is therefore worked less and the meat is more tender.

The region of Burgundy—is there any other winegrowing area as complicated and difficult to understand? Besides the fact that the overwhelming majority of the white wine here is Chardonnay and the red is almost entirely Pinot Noir, trying to get a grasp on villages, producers and labels can be exasperating. At the same time, wine from Burgundy is some of the most pleasurable and rewarding wine out there. When I think of white Burgundy, two distinct styles come to mind: Chablis and Meursault. Although these wines are each made from Chardonnay, the neutral quality of the grape allows it to express terroir and the soil on which its vines were grown, unlike many other varietals.

Great Pinot Noir—the Holy Grail of winemakers from France to Australia and the US, and one of the most notoriously difficult grapes to grow. The thin-skinned varietal is susceptible to rot, viruses and diseases and needs a perfectly cool climate and exacting vineyard management to thrive. After the grapes are harvested the winemaker has plenty of decisions to make, including whether or not to fine and filter the wine, how much tannin the final product should have and choosing a precise regimen of oak aging, since Pinot’s delicate flavors can easily be masked by the flavors of wood. It’s easy to make a disappointing, thin-tasting wine from this grape, but really fine Pinot is the stuff of the gods and the combination of ripe fruit and spice flavors, low tannin and high acid make Pinot Noir one of the most food friendly wines in the world.

Zinfandel—the grape Americans call their own. The story of Zinfandel mirrors the multicultural heritage of our country and the struggle of immigrants to make it in a new land. From white to red and sweet to dry, this is a grape that has been reinvented to suit the changing tastes of wine consumers across the country. Originally from Croatia, the grape showed up in the US with Italian immigrants in the 1800s (who called it, as it is still known today in Italy, Primitivo). More than a century later it was nearly extinct with vines ripped up in favor of international varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay. But the huge popularity of white Zin in the 1980s and 1990s saved the grape from obscurity and nowadays the finest expression of Zinfandel comes not from Croatia or Italy but from California where it is produced as a dry red wine that can be light bodied and chockfull of ripe fruit or rich and inky with high alcohol and port-like characteristics.

Chardonnay—a chameleon of a grape. There are an especially large number of choices to be made in terms of winemaking when it comes to Chardonnay. It can be still or sparkling. It can be aged in oak or un-oaked, filtered or unfiltered, subject to malolactic fermentation or not. Even the type of oak used, or the decision to keep the wine in contact with dead yeast cells during the winemaking process affects the style of the final product. These factors (not to mention the concept of terroir) result in endless Chardonnay styles that can range from Burgundy’s crisp, austere, mineral-driven wines to Australia’s tropical fruit-packed, viscous style.