The best food pairings for dry (or off-dry) riesling

It’s sometimes hard to predict what type of food will pair well with riesling because they’re all so different - some being bone dry, some ultra sweet, some positively floral, others zingy and citrussy.

But let’s concentrate on dry and off-dry rieslings in this post - the sort you’d have with starters and main course dishes - and focus on the sort of dishes and ingredients that tend to go with them best.

The good news is that there are a lot of them!

Good pairings with dry rieslings

Raw, cured and smoked fish

Particularly salmon and trout though any selection of smoked and/or cured fish should work well as you’ll see from this pairing for cured salmon. Also sushi, particularly with the slight touch of sugar you get in sushi rice (riesling is rarely bone dry)

Fresh or lightly dressed shellfish

In fact riesling is the perfect match for a prawn or seafood cocktail - especially with a Washington State riesling like the Kung Fu Girl riesling or, back in the day, the Bonny Down Pacific Rim riesling. In fact prawns (or shrimp) generally, with their slight touch of sweetness, are a good pairing for riesling as is fresh crab, particularly the white meat.

More surprisingly oysters and riesling can work well too, particularly when accompanied by other riesling-loving ingredients such as apple and pork.

Creamy sauces

You might think of a smoother, creamier white like chardonnay which certainly works but riesling offers more of a contrast. It’s a pairing they’re fond of in Alsace where you’ll find coq au riesling or riesling served with fish dishes with a creamy sauce.

Pork

Particularly fatty cuts like pork belly, better still if accompanied by some kind of apple* purée or sauce. And I love a glass of riesling (Alsace, again) with choucroute.

*Speaking of apple this match with an apple and smoked haddock salad was spot on

Lightly pickled veg

Which are appearing on restaurant menus all over the place right now. A good accompaniment to a riesling aperitif.

Goats cheese

Young riesling with young goats cheese but an aged riesling with a mature goat cheese is possibly even better.

Good pairings with off-dry or medium dry rieslings

photo Huahom from Pixabay

Just. Think. Spice.

So many spicy dishes work with an off-dry riesling - Thai, Vietnamese, even Indian. The hotter the dish the sweeter the riesling, basically.

Personally I find Australian and New Zealand rieslings pair really well with Asian food but try rieslings from other countries too.

Asian-style salads with coriander and lime go really well with limey Clare and Eden Valley rieslings as do Thai fish cakes

You’ll see I’ve often flagged up a good riesling pairing in my Match of the Week slot, for instance with

Thai beef salad

Crisp duck salad

Fish sauce chicken wings

Spicy noodles

Prawn laksa as in this German riesling food pairing

When it comes to Indian food I think street snacks work better than curries but I’ve drunk off-dry riesling right through an Indian meal with great success. And with a multi-course Chinese new year feast.

Goose

You may instinctively want a red (in which case check out this post on what to drink with goose) but a grand cru or spätlese riesling is a really spectacular pairing especially, as with pork, with an apple sauce or stuffing.

See also

Top food pairings with Clare and Eden Valley riesling

Asian food isn’t the only way into German riesling

Top pairings for dry and off-dry Alsace whites

Top image ©New Africa at Adobe Stock.

Top food pairings with Clare Valley and Eden Valley riesling

One of the most distinctive styles of white wine, dry rieslings from the Clare and Eden Valley in south Australia have a distinctive limey twist that makes them a particularly good match for Asian and Asian-inspired food.

Spot ingredients such as ginger, kaffir lime, lemongrass, coriander and fresh chillies on a menu or in a recipe and Aussie riesling* is the obvious go to.

There are three main styles:

Inexpensive young rieslings

Here the flavour of lemon and apple is more obvious than the characteristic lime which makes them a great match for raw and lightly cooked shellfish like prawns, crab and seared squid or light noodle dishes with seafood

Also try: smoked salmon, fish and chips and light Mexican-style seafood dishes like tacos

More mature dry rieslings

These tend to develop a more intense lime and kerosene flavour (much nicer than it sounds). These can handle a fair bit of spice but are still relatively low in alcohol so won’t overwhelm delicate ingredients such as crab or crayfish. They’re especially good with Vietnamese food

Also try: milder Thai dishes such as Thai beef salad, raw Asian fish dishes such as sashimi and fish tartares and seared tuna with sesame

Some people go for creamy sauces with this style of riesling but I’m not convinced. Dairy seems too heavy with this style of wine

Medium-dry rieslings with a touch of sweetness

These can handle hotter food such as the fish-fragrant aubergines I cooked a while back for the Chinese new year or the Indonesian rijstaffel I had in Amsterdam.

Also try: hotter Thai dishes, pork belly with Asian spicing

* Other dry rieslings will work with this type of dish too but south Australian riesling has a particularly vigorous zesty character that makes it work particularly well.

Do you have other favourite pairings for Clare and Eden Valley rieslings?

Image © weerastudio at shutterstock.com

The best food pairings for dry Furmint

All countries like to boast that their signature grape variety goes with practically everything but in the case of Hungary’s furmint it’s true.

With “the aromatics of sauvignon blanc, the rich mouthfeel of chardonnay and the vibrant acidity of riesling” as my colleague Tim Atkin neatly puts it it really is a take-me-anywhere wine.

Hungary of course has a great gastronomic tradition of its own so you could obviously drink it with everything from foie gras which is hugely popular in the country to chicken paprikash.

But its rare combination of lushness and searing acidity makes it an incredibly good partner for the dishes that involve sweet and savoury elements that you often find in Asian cuisines and in Moroccan tagines. I reckon it would work with many Chinese, Korean, Burmese and Thai recipes that mingle hot, sour and sweet.

And at a recent online tasting, sommelier Isa Bal and Jonny Lake of Trivet played around with Japanese tastes and flavours using miso, sesame and kombu (seaweed) in their presentation.

I confess I’m still in the process of learning about this rather miraculous variety which you also find in Austria and Slovakia but some avenues you might want to explore are:

With fresh unoaked young furmints

Like other crisp white wines it would go with simply cooked fish and shellfish especially crab and prawns.

Smoked and cured fish like this beetroot cured salmon with horseradish I wrote about a while ago

Chicken with a creamy or herby sauce such as this Pot roast chicken with herby crème fraîche from Olia Hercules.

Sushi and tempura (Isa Bal suggested tempura of red mullet and sea vegetables (kombu) with a sweet and sour dip)

Salads and vegetable dishes that include citrus, especially orange

Lightly pickled vegetables

White asparagus

Goats’ or young sheep cheeses

You could also take a look at these pairings with Chablis which should work with lighter styles of furmint too.

With richer styles with oak or a few years maturity

Chicken or duck liver parfait (Ronan Sayburn and Marcus Verberne of 67 Pall Mall pair it with a chicken liver parfait with an orchard fruit compote of quince, pear, peach and apple in their book Wine and Food.

Seared scallops

Grilled or roast lobster

Roast goose

Duck à l’orange

Roast celeriac

Pork belly

Moroccan tagines

Aged Comté or Gruyère

Umami-rich Japanese or Japanese-influenced dishes (see above)

Off-dry styles which would still classify as dry rather than sweet should work with milder curries and, according to Hungarian wine expert Caroline Gilby, with chicken katsu! (In his book Tastebuds and Molecules Francois Chartier identifies a compound called sotolon which is present in curry powder and fenugreek and also in sweet wines such as Tokaji Aszú, Hungary’s famous sweet wine.

For more on late harvest furmints see The best food pairings for Tokai Aszu.

The wines shown above were provided as press samples by Wines of Hungary

The best food pairings for Grüner Veltliner

Winemakers like to tell you that their wines go with everything but in the case of Grüner Veltliner, Austria’s best known white wine, it’s true.

Short of Sunday roasts and large juicy steaks you can pair it with practically anything.

There are of course different styles but the one you’re most likely to come across is the crisp, fresh young style that typifies most inexpensive Grüners. What makes them distinctive is a herbal note and a distinctive white peppery twist.

In Austria they would be widely drunk with cold meats, salads, light vegetable dishes and fish - think the sort of dishes you would serve with a sauvignon blanc or a riesling. Further afield they’re a great choice in Asian or Asian-fusion restaurants especially with Thai and Vietnamese food

Asparagus

Austrians love asparagus - there are whole asparagus menus in the spring and early summer. It’s mainly white asparagus served either in a salad or warm with hollandaise but you can equally well drink it with the green variety. See also this match with asparagus soup.

Artichokes

Not many wines pair well with artichokes. Young fresh dry Grüner is one of them

Smoked ham, especially cut wafer thin as the Austrians do it

Smoked fish like smoked salmon or trout. Even smoked eel though I think riesling is better

Raw fish such as sushi, sashimi, carpaccio and tartares - especially with Asian seasoning like ginger or wasabi as you can see from this post.

Salads

Especially seafood salads with an Asian twist and salads with apple, kohlrabi or cucumber

Dishes with herbs

Grüner has a herbal edge itself and pairs beautifully with dishes that contain herbs especially dill, tarragon, mint and parsley. So salads as above, or chicken with a herb crust for example.

Light vegetable dishes such as braised fennel a courgette/zucchini gratin or a vegetable-based quiche. (Like an asparagus one, obviously)

Leafy greens especially cabbage, sprouts and kale. Think 'green wine, green vegetables'

Spicy but not over-hot south-east Asian dishes with ginger or galangal and lemongrass. Like dim sum, light stir-fries and mild Thai curries. Grüner is especially good with Vietnamese food particularly summer rolls and noodle salads.

Fried foods, schnitzel being the obvious example but you could happily drink Grüner with fish and chips or even fried chicken.

Fresh cheeses like goats cheese, young pecorino or mozzarella.

You can also pair Gruner Veltliner with many seafood and vegetable-based pasta dishes or risottos though for preference I'd go for an Italian white and I don’t think Grüner works with cooked tomato sauces.

Richer styles match well with roast pork or veal especially with a creamy sauce but not with an intense meaty ‘jus’.

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