Which wine pairs best with salad?

Asking which wine to pair with salad is a bit like asking about what wine to match with meat or fish. There's no single answer. It depends on the vegetables you use, what other ingredients it contains and what type of dressing you use.

That said, salad is normally a light dish so a full-bodied wine - white or red - is almost certainly going to overwhelm it. Unless you’re talking about steak and salad in which case it’s a question of matching the steak not the leaves. Or salads for a barbecue when the marinades used for the meat will probably have more of an impact than the dressings.

The problem ingredient in salads is vinegar which can throw wines off balance, accentuating the tannins in serious reds and making whites seem excessively sweet. You can get round this by including a bit of cream in the dressing or whisking in some meat juices, especially the juice from a roasted chicken. Rice and cider vinegar are also less harsh than wine vinegar

Other tricky ingredients are raw onion or garlic, best dealt with, I find, by pairing them with dry whites or rosés that have a high level of acidity.

Wines that have an overtly fruity character tend to match well with salad especially if it contains fruit such as peach or apricot (try a fruity Chardonnay, Colombard or Viognier) or cherries (good with a fruity red such as a Gamay or Pinot Noir)

If there’s more than one salad on the table good all-rounders are fruity whites such as Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc and fruity rosés

Wine pairings for 10 popular salads

Chicken caesar salad
Reasonably easy so long as it doesn’t have too much of an anchovy kick. A lightly oaked Chardonnay is a good match, a slightly fuller-bodied one if the chicken is chargrilled. Oaked Sauvignon Blanc and dry rosé also work well

Greek salad
Here the dominant ingredients are feta and olives which tend to work best with a citrussy white. Sauvignon Blanc - or Rueda - is fine but why not try a Greek Assyrtiko?

Salade Niçoise
The locals would drink dry Provençal rosé and I can’t think of a better match. Although Cotes du Rhône rosés are quite a bit cheaper.

Spinach and bacon salad with blue cheese dressing
Ah. Blue cheese dressing. Very tricky! I’d personally go for a soft red like a medium-bodied Merlot but you could equally well drink a white. What’s needed I think is a slight touch of sweetness - a German Kabinett Riesling should fit the bill. Or an off-dry one from New Zealand or Washington State

Goats cheese salad with asparagus or beetroot
Goats cheese overrides all other ingredients when it comes to salads, even powerfully flavoured ones like asparagus and beetroot. Sauvignon Blanc is the classic match and hard to better, I find.

Warm pigeon, duck or chicken liver salad
Once you introduce meat into a salad I reckon you’re better off to think in terms of reds than whites. Pinot Noir is the obvious pairing but Loire reds and other light-bodied reds from e.g. south-west France work well too.

Thai beef salad and other Asian salads
Great with Australian riesling as you can see from these matches of the week here and here. Gruner Veltliner is another good pairing

Seafood, prawn or shrimp salad, crab salad
Perhaps depend more than any other salad on the dressing. If the salad is built round some super-fresh shellfish like crab or prawns (shrimp) I’d go for a crisp minerally white like a Sancerre, Albarino, Picpoul de Pinet or Italian whites such as Pecorino and good quality Pinot Grigio. If you’re using a 1000 island dressing off-dry riesling should see you through. For tomato-based dressings see below.

Tomato-based salads
Raw tomatoes are supposed to pose problems for wine, tomato salad even more so though I’ve never found it much of a problem. Dry rosé, crisp whites and Sauvignon Blanc generally hit the spot though I generally go for an Italian white like a Verdicchio with a tomato, mozzarella and basil salad or pappa al pomodoro

Pasta salads
More often than not these are dressed with mayonnaise and are therefore quite mild in taste. I’d go for a smooth dry white like a Soave, Gavi, unoaked Chardonnay or Chenin Blanc

And here are five more:

Crisp duck salad with Fielding estate riesling

Layered tomato and egg salad with Verdejo

Pork, chilli, coconut and gapi salad with Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc

Rocket and parmesan salad with dry amontillado sherry

Smoked duck and blood orange salad with Chilean gewurztraminer

And don't forget, beer and cider pair well with salad too, sometimes better than wine!

The best food pairings for assyrtiko

There are few grapes that bring Greece to mind like Assyrtiko, the saline wonder of the Cyclades. But what do you pair with it? As often, the answer depends on the winemaking style and terroir, because there is not one Assyrtiko (I should know, I recently tried 80 of them.)

What to pair with Santorini and Santorini-like dry Assyrtiko

This is the canonical take on the variety, all salt and lemon and Aegean breeze, from producers like Hatzidakis, Tselepos, or Gaia in Santorini, and Volacus in Tinos. You’d struggle to find a white better suited to Greek cuisine.

Fiona has wisely recommended courgette fritters for this in the past, and she is spot on. Assyrtiko is a natural match for almost any take on fried vegetables, from tempura to pané. Its platonic match, however, is fried seafood. Greece has something like six varieties of small fish, deep fried and eaten whole, all of which seem to show up as "smelt" or "anchovy" in online dictionaries. Naturally, bigger types of fried fish also work (e.g. mackerel in the summer, red mullet in the winter). It is similarly great with other seafood, think shrimp, prawn, or squid. (This year I must have cooked this calamari recipe by Greek super-chef Akis Petretzikis around 10 times.) Fritto misto is also a natural, if not geographic, match.

More off-piste, many people have it with roast lamb and lemony potatoes, or even kleftiko. I am not the biggest fan (I'll always reach for a Xinomavro first for lamb), but it does work. I much prefer it with roast chicken with lemony potatoes, though the chicken must be really good – proper Assyrtiko doesn’t do bland. I also have it regularly with papoutsakia, a moussaka-like dish with fried aubergine stuffed with beef mincemeat and topped with mornay. It might sound counter-intuitive going for a white, but the mincemeat should be cooked with minimum tomato and the spices are more Middle Eastern (cinnamon, clove, maybe a hint of allspice) than Italian, while the mornay is made with sharp and salty cheese (usually kefalotyri, similar to pecorino, or the milder kefalograviera – its etymological parent gruyère makes a good alternative).

Speaking of moussaka, the more creative Greek chefs seem to have reinvented it in recent years to make it more like a ratatouille, topped with beef mincemeat and bechamel sauce – another excellent match. Stuffed peppers and tomatoes, a Greek classic, also work well, especially in their "gialantzi" (i.e. meat-free) version.

Greek salad, all acidity from the tomato, sharpness from the onion, saltiness from the olives, and tanginess from the feta, obviously goes without saying. Have some sourdough handy to mop up the olive oil and tomato juices.

Santorini Assyrtiko with some age and/or oak fermented

“Aged wine” tends to conjure images of dusty cellars and hyphenated surnames, but most Assyrtiko peaks at 5 to 7 years, so "some age" isn't as daunting here as elsewhere. When talking about top producers like Argyros, Karamolegos, Sigalas, or Vassaltis, you're looking at noble wine, which needs similarly noble food.

The first match Greeks would recommend is roast or BBQ-ed fish, anything from bigger wild sea bass & sea bream (above the 1kg mark) to the kings of the Aegean, white grouper and dentex. As the last two are rarely available in the UK, you can think of other rich white fish, such as halibut or turbot. Dover sole cooked meunière is as close as I would get to something fried.

Stuffed roast squid also works wonderfully well (I do a version with bulgur and herbs, maybe a bit of onion or bell pepper if the fancy strikes me), as does roast octopus (popular in Greece served with a yellow split pea mash). Seafood risottos (e.g. with cuttlefish ink paste, with prawns, with langoustines) are all excellent matches, as is black spaghetti with scallops, a particularly good combination if you plan an Italian-style dinner for two with primo and secondo.

Finally, a pro tip: fine Assyrtiko that has just started to go (i.e. past peak, but still alive) is a brilliant match for sushi, especially sashimi.

Nykteri

This is a Santorini specialty, a rich and concentrated take on Assyrtiko, with much less (or no) salinity, which, to my palate, is more off-dry than dry. Most producers make one, but Santo’s is better value for money than most.

This is the rare take on Assyrtiko that is not so much at home in Greek cuisine as further afield. The mix of sweetness and acidity makes it a great match for many Asian dishes - think of what you would serve with premium off-dry Riesling, but better.

Assyrtiko from the Greek mainland and other Islands

Assyrtiko plantings have exploded the past decade all over the country, so speaking of a “mainland” style is a bit tricky, covering so many terroirs and so many styles. You can find anything from sparkling Assyrtiko (not entirely unlike an English sparkling wine), to orange/natural/resinated Assyrtiko, to heavy, intentionally oxidised Assyrtiko.

In broad-brush terms, mainland Assyrtiko is more fruity and less acidic, less unique but (much) gentler on the wallet. Anything you would serve with a fruitier Albariño, you could serve with most of those. They are also excellent with some classic salads, such as Niçoise or Chicken Caesar.

Assyrtiko from islands outside the Cyclades, like Crete or Chios, seems to hover somewhere between the Santorini and mainland styles, so it’s a good alternative if you find Santorini too intense or too expensive.

Assyrtiko/Malagousia blends

Very popular in Greece, though under-the-radar abroad, this is a blend where Malagousia is meant to provide the sweetness, while Assyrtiko contributes intensity and structure. The result is offer sweet and sour, which I confess rarely works for me, but everyone else seems to like it. Gerovassiliou's Estate white is the originator of the blend, and still the leading example of the style.

To my mind, this style is an ideal aperitif, while I have also enjoyed it with some fruit with a bit of acidity (think under-ripe peaches or nectarines). People seem to be happy with it with watermelon and feta salads and I can see that working, but as I don't eat watermelon with feta, I’m unable to provide first-hand experience.

Interestingly, the most success I've had with this style foodwise, was a Japanese-inspired salmon-and-kale rice bowl, and I suspect anything down that direction would work too.

Vinsanto

Assyrtiko is responsible for one of the great sweet wines of the world, Vinsanto (not to be confused with Italy’s Vin Santo and Vino Santo). The best examples are a very serious affair (when I’m rich, I’ll organise a comparative tasting of Argyros 20yo Vinsanto against Chateau d’Yquem), so some walnuts or a small piece of high quality dark chocolate is more than enough. Young and simpler takes are a great match for caramel- or toffee-based desserts (sticky toffee pudding would be a treat), or some cakes (the Italian Torta della Nonna comes to mind). The mid-range (aged 6 to 8 years) is marvellous with the myriad baklava-style sweets, which I so adore, being sweet enough to match the syrup, but with an acidic kick that cleanses the palate – and into the next sweet I dive!

See also Peter's piece on Why Greek Wines go with more than just Greek Food

Assyrtiko and cold herb soup

Image credits:

Fried anchovies by Orlio at Shutterstock.com

View from Santorini by Santorines at shutterstock.com