Top pairings | Which wines and beers pair best with mushrooms?

Pairings | Mushrooms on toast

Which wines and beers pair best with mushrooms?

If you think of the ingredients that show off a great wine mushrooms would have to be near the top of the list.

Possessed of the sexy ingredient umami - the intensely savoury taste identified by the Japanese, they flatter and act as the perfect foil for wines as disparate as vintage Champagne, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Beers too can work well, particularly dark lagers and brown ales, less fashionable styles but ones which have a real affinity with earthy mushroom flavours.

Like any other ingredient it depends how you prepare and cook mushrooms, of course and what other ingredients there are in the dish. Delicate wild mushrooms in a creamy sauce are a different proposition from big flat Portabello mushrooms baked with garlic and parsley.

Here are some suggestions:

  • Mushrooms in a creamy sauce - possibly the ultimate preparation so far as wine is concerned whether it’s the base of a tart, a pasta sauce or simply on toast. You can mirror the creamy texture with a like-meets-like pairing of a fine white burgundy or other oak-aged Chardonnay, lift the dish while echoing its umami flavours with vintage Champagne or pick up on the mushrooms’ earthiness with a red burgundy or other Pinot Noir. For a not-so-special occasion a simple unoaked Chardonnay will do the trick.

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Comments: 5 (Add)

Martha Hubbard on November 1 2016 at 14:41

I like to spread the inside of a boned out leg of lamb with a thick duxelle before rolling up and roasting so your suggestion of Pinot Noir would seem to work all around.

paul carle on October 3 2013 at 14:50

*creamy not seamy !!

paul carlie on October 3 2013 at 14:49

We have a desert of Swiss Brown mushrooms, thinly sliced and dehydrated, swiss brown mushroom dust, swiss brown mushroom ice cream ( almost a gelato style rather than seamy ) freeze dried blueberries and fresh blueberries. What wine/ beer would you match with that ? Anyone ?

Rangler on November 25 2012 at 00:21

Holy shziint, this is so cool thank you.

Roderick on November 24 2012 at 12:15

The only one I'd weigh in on looking into freuhtr is the spiky coral-looking white one. I don't really see anything else that looks familiar certainly looks like you live somewhere wetter than here!

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