A better Spot for all your Food & Culinary Needs by Culinary Spot: : What Wine Should Be Served?

Matt,
To me the whole wine pairing thing has gotten a little out of hand. That being said I do not usually open up a bottle of Chardonnay to go with a big juicy steak on the grill. For a mellow white fish try a nice white like, Chardonnay, but you can go with a red for a more substantial fish like Salmon or Tuna. Try different wines with different foods and see what you like. Wine is like audio, what tastes good to you may not taste good to the person sitting next to you at the table. If you have a reputable, knowledgeable wine store in your area talk to the person behind the counter and get some suggestions and go from there. I will be preparing Lasagna for our Sunday dinner get together, we usually drink 2-3 bottles during Sunday dinner for the 6-8 adults who come over, I will chill an Oak aged white for those who do not want red and I will be corking a nice big, meaty Cab Sauvignon for the red drinkers. Remember this is supposed to be fun, you can break some rules once in awhile.

Pinot Noirs and red blends are pretty versatile as are Reislings and Pinot Gris for whites.

Start out by determining what you like in a wine, do you like dry or sweet? This is determined by the type of grape used and the amount of RS(Residual Sugar) in the wine, the higher the RS% the sweeter the wine will be. I tend to favor drier, lower sugar wines but my wife trends more toward the sweeter, higher RS wines. We compromise and both have found some great wines to enjoy together. Hope this helps you a little and do not be embarassed, we all have to start somewhere. Wine drinking is fun, I just got back from the Finger Lakes region of NY and came home with 6 cases of numerous varietals. When I started out drinking wine it was basically all Merlot, I rarely ever buy a Merlot anymore because there is so much out there to sample.

BTW, you will find some stinkers and some winners, try to remove the label of the wines you really like and keep them in a small book or add them to your PDA if you have one. This gives you a reference guide for the next time you are in the store and trying to remember the year(vintage) and type of wine(varietal) and which winery it came from. Whew, that should get you started, in case you can not tell I really like wine, but I am no expert.

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Wine and cooking is almost as much an obsession as HT for me!