Best food pairings with sauvignon blanc

Sauvignon blanc is many people’s favourite wine but what type of food pairs with it best?

As with other grape varieties its style varies markedly from one part of the world to the other - from the crisp minerally whites of the Loire to the exuberant gooseberry and passionfruit flavours of sauvignons from New Zealand’s Marlborough region.

Although many are interchangeable so far as food pairings are concerned others suit specific types of dishes and ingredients

Sauvignon blanc food pairing guide

Minerally sauvignon blancs

For instance: Sancerre, Pouilly Fumé and sauvignon blanc from Tasmania

This is the style I’d pair with simple, barely seasoned ingredients such as raw and lightly cooked shellfish like oysters and shell-on prawns, fresh crab and simply grilled fish such as sea bass.

They also go well with dishes that contain raw or barely cooked tomato such as gazpacho, tomato consommé or tomato vinaigrettes and young goats’ cheeses - or salads that contain goats cheese and have an affinity with fresh herbs especially dill

And this style of sauvignon is a good wine match with Japanese dishes such as sushi and sashimi, seafood-based steamed and fried dim sum and smoked salmon, particularly if the smoke is delicate.

Citrussy sauvignon blancs

For instance: unoaked white Bordeaux, sauvignon blanc from the Adelaide Hills and Chilean sauvignon blanc.

I like this more citrussy style with grilled fish , especially oily fish such as sardines and mackerel, big garlicky prawns and chargrilled squid. They also pair well with fried fish like goujons, whitebait and fish and chips and with simply grilled chicken or lamb (without a powerful marinade)

In terms of ethnic cuisines they work well with Greek and Mexican food and other fresh-tasting dishes with avocados, tomatoes, green onions, olives and sharp cheeses like feta (though be careful not to neutralise their character with over-lemony dressings)

They also pair well with cheeses flavoured with garlic and herbs such as Le Roulé and Boursin. And this, in my view, is the best type of sauvignon blanc to drink with globe artichokes.

Aromatic/grassy/’herbaceous’ sauvignon blancs and sauvignon blends

For instance New Zealand sauvignon blanc and wines from cooler regions elsewhere such as South Africa’s Elgin region

I tend to reach for these with salads especially if they contain seafood and/or ‘grassy’ ingredients such as asparagus, pea-shoots, green peppers and herbs.

You can drink them with similar dishes to minerally sauvignon blancs but where the flavours are more pronounced e.g. seafood with south-east Asian flavours such as lime, chilli and coriander or Thai fish cakes. Try them with pea soups and dishes accompanied by pea purées too.

See also The best food matches with New Zealand sauvignon blanc

Oaked sauvignons and sauvignon/semillon blends

For instance: oaked white Bordeaux and fumé blanc styles

You can drink these where you might reach for a chardonnay or straight semillon - with white meats such as chicken or veal especially if accompanied by a creamy sauce or with spring vegetables such as asparagus and peas. Pasta dishes with spring vegetables and buttery or creamy sauces work well too.

They also suit simply grilled or pan-fried salmon, scallops and lightly smoked fish such as smoked eel and trout.

Top image © HLPhoto at fotolia.com

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 pairings for albarino (and alvarinho)

If I had to sum up the best food pairing for albarino in one word it would be seafood. Which makes sense considering where it comes from on the coast of Galicia in the Rias Baixas region of northern Spain.

It has that distinctive salty tang you get from another of the country’s iconic wines, manzanilla sherry which makes it a great match for all kinds of raw and lightly cooked shellfish but as I discovered from a recent tasting with Mar de Frades there are more complex oaked versions which can handle richer fuller flavours.

The same suggestions apply to its Portuguese counterpart alvarinho which is made just over the border in the Vinho Verde region

Best pairings for young fresh albarinos

Oysters

Fresh white crab

Fresh prawns or shrimp

Mixed shellfish platters

Steamed mussets or clams

Simply grilled fish such as seabass, squid or sardines

Light creamy cheeses like this dish of burrata and beetroot as well as goats cheese

Seafood pastas and risotti like this smoked haddock and leek risotto

Ceviche (marinated raw fish)

Sushi and sashimi

Best pairings for more mature complex albarinos

Caribenero prawns with garlic

Seafood stews

Seared scallops

Arroz negro (black rice with seafood)