The best wines to pair with courgettes or zucchini

There’a a fair chance that if you grow courgettes - or zucchini - you’re eating more than your fair share of them at this time of year but what wine should you drink with them?

As you’ll be well aware they don’t have much flavour of their own so it’s more a question of thinking about the flavours you put with them when you're working out a wine pairing. Zucchini go particularly well with soft cheeses and yogurt, with herbs, especially dill and mint, with tomatoes, and with olive oil - if you fry them crisply this will bring out more of an intense flavour.

You can also turn them into a hot or cold soup but these again tend to be seasoned with the same herbs

For me this generally points to crisp unoaked white wines rather than red and even than rosé, though as they’re often served as part of a meal rather than the main event, a pale dry rosé could well hit the spot

Good wines to pair with zucchini

A citrussy sauvignon blanc

Rarely fails.

Crisp dry Italian whites

So many Italian whites are sympathetic to vegetable dishes - pinot grigio, pecorino, Falanghina, Greco di Tufo, verdicchio, vermentino .… I wouldn’t bother with the showier chardonnays though

Fresh Greek whites such as assyrtiko and moschofilero

Greeks have some of the best ways of cooking zucchini so why not try a Greek white with them?

Courgette and feta fritters with yoghurt

Dry riesling especially if there’s a touch of spice in the recipe as in this delicious savoury courgette seed and curry leaf cake

Stuffed courgette flowers are even more delicate and really need an accompanying white wine that won't overwhelm them. An Arneis from Piedmont, for instance or a sparkling wine such as Franciacorta.

Courgette and tomato gratin

If you bake courgettes with tomatoes and cheese you could drink a Beaujolais or a light Italian red such as a Valpolicella. (Or that rosé you've been dying to crack open ... )

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay

Wines to match different pasta sauces

What wine should you pair with your favourite pasta?

As you might guess it depends on the sauce rather than the pasta shape. From rich and meaty ragùs to zesty herby pesto, each sauce has its own unique character that suggests a different wine pairing. That said I like to pair Italian wine with pasta wherever possible as it suits it so well and isn’t too full-bodied or alcoholic.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through the best wine pairings for six popular styles of pasta sauce, from the classic tomato-based marinara to creamy Alfredo and beyond. Each sauce calls for a different approach: think crisp whites to cut through the richness of a carbonara, or a bold red to stand up to a hearty Bolognese. 

What Wine to Match with Different Pasta Sauces

Creamy pasta sauces

To offset creamy sauces (eg carbonara or fettucine alfredo) think Soave, Bianco di Custoza, Pinot Bianco, Sicilian whites and lighter Chardonnay or Chardonnay blends.

Spaghetti Carbonara. Image source: Engin Akyurt

See also six of the best wine matches for spaghetti carbonara

With baby vegetables (primavera) or herbs (verdura): try a crisper Italian whites such as Falanghina, Vermentino or Arneis. Or a Loire Sauvignon Blanc.

With mushroom pastas serve Soave, Bianco di Custoza, Lugana or Chardonnay, or a light Merlot or Pinot Noir.

Seafood pasta sauces

Seafood (spaghetti alle vongole, spaghetti with mussels, linguine with crab) need crisp dry whites such as Frascati, Verdicchio, Vernaccia di San Gimignano, Muscadet or Picpoul de Pinet. Crab or lobster sauces can take a fuller white such as a good quality Soave or Chardonnay.

The best wine pairings for spaghetti alle vongole

Photo by tofuprod licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Red or tomato-based pasta sauces

Tomato-based sauces include fresh tomato with basil: crisp dry whites such as Pinot Grigio or Verdicchio.

Cooked tomato sauces such as napoletana or marinara): Montepulciano d’Abruzzo or a light Sicilian red.

Meat-based sauces e.g. bolognese, spaghetti with meatballs, sausage-based sauces are a logical partner for Sicilian and Puglian reds (especially Primitivo), Sangiovese, Rosso di Montalcino and inexpensive Barberas. Zinfandel is good too.

Six of the best matches for spaghetti bolognese

Pesto and other cheese-based sauces

Dry whites such as Gavi, Soave or Verdicchio are best with green pesto - you could also try Sicilian whites and lighter Chardonnays).

With red pesto I’d go for a medium bodied red such as Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, Sangiovese or Merlot. It’s a colour thing as much as anything

With cheese-based sauces such as four cheese and Gorgonzola): try crisp dry whites such as Verdicchio, light Chardonnays or light reds such as Teroldego or Merlot.

Spicy pasta sauces

With hot spicy sauces such as arrabbiatta, aglio olio e peperoncino (garlic, oil and chilli) and puttanesca (anchovies, capers and olives) try either a sharply flavoured dry white wine or a rustic Italian red: a Primitivo or Sicilian red or a Zinfandel

The best wine pairings for spaghetti puttanesca

Photo by being0828 licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

With fashionable cacio e pepe (pecorino cheese and black pepper sauce) I prefer a light red like a frappato as you can see from one of my matches of the week.

Pasta sauces with pulses

Tuscan reds such as Chianti work well with pasta with beans or lentils (Pasta e Fagioli) or try an earthy, neutral white such as Orvieto or Vernaccia di San Gimignano)

Top image by Brent Hofacker at shutterstock.com

The best wine pairings for spaghetti puttanesca

Spaghetti puttanesca - or ‘whore’s spaghetti’ to translate it literally - is a full-flavoured pasta dish with strong, punchy flavours but which wine should you pair with it? As with other pasta dishes, it’s all about the sauce.

There are various theories about how the dish - a comparatively recent invention - got its name, the most plausible being that it was a simple storecupboard dish that could be slung together between clients’ visits. Etymology aside, the best wine pairings for pasta puttanesca should consider its core ingredients.

Puttanesca is heavy on garlic, anchovies, capers, chillies and olives - quite a lot for any wine to handle. My preference, given the base is cooked tomatoes, would be for a southern Italian red - even a basic carafe wine would do.

Here are some specific suggestions:

• Sicilian and southern Italian reds such as nero d’avola, negroamara and primitivo
• Inexpensive zinfandel (you don’t want one that’s too extracted or high in alcohol with this punchy pasta sauce)
• Barbera - from Northern Italy or elsewhere - always a good wine with a rustic dish
• Inexpensive Portuguese reds from the Alentejo - ripe and supple, they make a good stand-in for an Italian red
• and if you fancy a white try a crisp southern Italian white such as Falanghina or Greco

Needless to say if you’re making the dish with another type of pasta like penne the recommendations would be the same. You match the sauce not the pasta shape.

See also Wines to match different pasta sauces

Photo by being0828 is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0