Food and Wine Pairings: Best Meals to Pair With Your Sweet, Dry, or Fruity Wines

Undoubtedly, wine is one of the highlights during parties and special events. Hosts and hostesses are often confused with food and wine pairings to make their celebration as perfect as possible.

However, food and wine pairings during events shouldn’t be overstrict. You can even eat whatever you want with a glass of red, white, or sparkling wine. If you want to make your party more flavorful, take a cue from the list of some common wines below and know the best foods that can be paired well with them.

Sauvignon Blanc

Thanks to the winemakers from Bordeaux and Loire Valley in France, the Sauvignon Blanc became one of the most famous white wines since then and now. It tastes unique compared to other wines because of its fruity and herbaceous flavors.

The primary fruit flavors of Sauvignon Blanc are passion fruit, white peach, green apple, and lime. However, its taste will range from pungent lime to flowery peach depending on how ripe the green-skinned grapes are during the winemaking.

Moreover, this white wine is also known for its high acidity level, which makes it a magnificent pair to lighter recipes that are still packed full of flavors such as goat cheese appetizer. The dry and fruity taste of Sauvignon Blanc can also go exceptionally well with seafood such as fatty white fish, scallops, oysters, shrimp, lobsters, and sushi. You can also have key lime pie, sorbet, mango, and meringue as your dessert.

Riesling

If you prefer to have a dry, minimally sweet, and sparkling beverage for your dinner party, you can go for a Reisling wine. However, this type of wine grapes are flexible, which can be drafted into different wine tastes — from green to tropical fruit flavors, and dry to ultra-sweet taste. In fact, it produces some of the best sweet wines in the market.

Moreover, Riesling-produced white wine has a flowery aroma and is considered a food-friendly option because of its balance of sweetness and acidity. Since it balances spice very well, it makes an ideal partner to Thai cuisines and other spicy delicacies. Besides that, a bottle of Riesling wine is also a splendid accompaniment to apple pie, crumble, apple, and desserts with caramel sauce.

Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir is one of the oldest grape varieties around the world with fruity flavors, including raspberry, cherry, and cranberry. Besides that, it also has other flavors such as caramel, wet leaves, tobacco, vanilla, and licorice.

Moreover, this light-bodied red wine has a dry taste profile with medium to high acidity. With that, it can be a perfect pair to some meat dishes and savory mushroom recipes. As for your party’s desserts, you can have white chocolate or crème brûlée.

Syrah

Syrah or Shiraz is one of the famous, earthy reds, and peppery variety of wines around the world. It originated from the Rhone Valley Region in France and is famous for its blueberry, boysenberry, and blackberry flavors. Besides its fruity tastes, Syrah is also notable for its flavors and aroma of rosemary, allspice, mint, herbs, and smoke.

Wines made from this upper-class grape variety are often full-bodied and contain moderate to high levels of alcohol. With its high acidity, Syrah wine is best to pair with roasted or braised meats, spicy sausages, grilled beef, and plates of seafood. Black forest cake, coffee-based desserts, and rhubarb pie are the best choices of desserts to pair with this dry red wine.

Merlot

Merlot is one of the most well-known red wine grape varieties around the globe. It is comparable to a chameleon since it can adapt to various climates and can quickly ripen in a slightly warm or cold place.

This wide variety of red wine is a mix of pucker sensation and has a dry residual sweetness. Furthermore, Merlot has a fruity aroma revealing with tart red and black fruit notes. Merlot can also go exceptionally well with foods like grilled and light meats, cuts of beef, roast duck, and turkey.

Pinot Grigio

Pinot Grigio, or also known as Pinot Gris, is a sparkling white wine with a unique fruity essence. This zesty white wine grape variety can produce a wine with dry residual sweetness and punchy acidity.

Its primary fruit flavors are pear, lime, lemon, Meyer lemon, white nectarine, and green apple. Also, it has floral aromas like honeysuckle, almond, and saline. Furthermore, this tasty, accessible, and delightful fresh white wine can perfectly pair with several foods, including light dishes like seafood, meat recipes, fresh vegetables, grilled green-lipped mussels, and scallops.

Takeaway

Whether you’re planning to have a Friday night party or a family dinner gathering, adding a bottle of wine is a great way to make the banquet more exciting. Furthermore, the food and wine pairings above can make your event more flavorful and help you come up with the right menu or pick the right wine that can be perfect for your prepared dishes.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes