3 Barbecue And Wine Pairings You Need To Know About
If you're like most adults, you probably associate a good plate of barbecue with a nice cold glass of beer, which is great as long as beer is your overall beverage of choice. But if you've never quite developed a taste for it or simply prefer wine, you may be struggling with finding the right beverage to pair with barbecue. Most meat and wine pairings are fairly straightforward — you really can't go wrong with sticking to the traditional wisdom about pairing red meat with red wine and white meat with white wine. But things get a bit trickier when barbecue is on the menu due to the various rubs and sauces typically used in its creation. Following are just three of the many excellent barbecue and wine pairings you need to know about.
Hot Honey Wings and Pinot Gris
Pinot gris is an excellent choice for pairing with any type of barbecue prepared with a honey-based sauce, but it's particularly good with honey hot wings because its cool flavor profile offsets the heat of the wings. This varietal also tends to contain honey notes, which provides an ideal complement for the barbecue sauce.
Pulled Pork and Sweet Rosé
As a white meat, pork is normally paired with white wine, but because pulled pork is traditionally made by smoking it low and slow over wood chips and then tossing in sauce, its flavor profile calls out for something more robust than white wine. However, red wine is too overpowering for pulled pork. Sweet rosé provides a happy medium, especially since pulled pork is on the sweet side for meat. Because rosé can be either dry or sweet, make sure you do your homework before purchasing a bottle — wine labels typically don't specify whether it's sweet or dry. For a festive note, consider serving a sparkling rosé to make an average barbecue dinner into a special occasion.
Brisket and Cabernet
Brisket typically has a rich, full-bodied flavor profile, making it a natural pairing option for Cabernet's trademark smoky notes interspersed with the flavors of dark berries and wild plums. Although you can't go wrong with any kind of Cabernet when brisket is a part of the picture, keep in mind that food and wine evolved together. Since Texas-style brisket originated in chuckwagons used in cattle drives, consider serving it with a Cabernet produced in Texas.
For more information on successfully pairing your favorite barbecue dishes with wine, be sure to ask you server at a local barbecue restaurant like Grumpy's Bar B Que Roadhouse for recommendations.
