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

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?

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.

The sauce which contains garlic, anchovies, capers, chillies and olives is 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.

• 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

The best pairings for prawns or shrimp

A freezer staple in my house, prawns or shrimp are quick and easy to cook but what should you drink with them?

Like other ingredients it depends how you cook them. The simple plate or tankard of cooked prawns in the shell is a different customer from a spicy Thai prawn curry but in general prawns or shrimp have a delicate flavour that you want to respect. Your wine should act like a squeeze of lemon which generally points to a white or a crisp rosé.

Great wine pairings for prawns

Prawns or shrimp on the shell

A seasonal treat so the simpler the wine the better. I love those French seaside whites like Muscadet or Picpoul de Pinet with freshly cooked prawns. Italian whites like Pinot Grigio and Greco di Tufo also work well as do Vinho Verde, Albarino or a crisp Sancerre. Unoaked fresh whites in other words. Nothing wrong with a glass of prosecco though, obviously.

Prawn or shrimp salad

Similar wines to the above should also work unless the salad has a richer ingredient like mango or a spicy or zesty dressing in which case I’d be looking for a white with more personality like a sauvignon or semillon or a blend of the two.

Prawn or shrimp cocktail

Again it’s more about the sauce than the prawns, especially if it’s the classic marie-rose sauce. I haven’t found a better pairing than an off-dry riesling though a fruity rosé works well too (and has the virtue of being pink if you’re colour-theming your pairings ;-)

Garlicky prawns or shrimp

Garlic LOVES sauvignon blanc so that’s a good starting point. Other citrussy whites like Rueda, unoaked white Rioja, Godello, southern Italian whites like Fiano and Falanghina and English Bacchus will all work. Goodness, almost anything barring a big oaky chardonnay will do. Try manzanilla or fino sherry too.

Prawn or shrimp curry

How hot is the curry? If it’s a korma or dry tandoori try a fruity rosé, if it’s a Thai green curry, a pinot gris or a medium dry riesling may be the better pairing.

Spanish prawn or shrimp rice dishes like paella

Often contain chorizo, certainly seasonings like saffron, garlic and pimenton so they can be quite spicy. Dry Spanish rosados such as those from Rioja and Navarra work well but you could even try a young (joven) red Rioja.

Prawn or shrimp linguine - or other pasta

If your sauce is tomato-based like this one I’d lean towards a dry Italian white or light rosé like a Provence rosé or Bardolino. If it’s creamy like this tagliolini with prawns and treviso try a white with a litlle bit more weight and roundness like a Soave, Gavi, Chenin Blanc or Chablis

See also

Prawns and Greco di Tufo

Prawn raviole and white Bordeaux

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