PAIRING WINE & FISH
In the world of wine and food, nothing’s fishier than the hackneyed advice, “White wine with fish.”
“Just any old white wine” isn’t proper for just any old fish. Each sort of seafood or fish has its proper sort of wine—and some of it is red. (And not necessarily gefilte fish and Manischewitz.)
The same guidelines apply to the best pairings of wine and fish that also apply to matching wine and all those foods that don’t have fins and gills. That is, what matters are certain elements or components in the wine and in the food, things such as salt, sweetness, acidity and fat. Alcohol level sometimes matters, as does the slight bitterness that may accompany oak aging.
For example, a plain slab of halibut, grilled with a pinch of salt, calls for one type of wine—a Mâcon Blanc, for example—while the same fish, grilled and topped with a mango-cilantro salsa, won’t be as delicious with the same wine (the sweetness of the salsa may make the Mâcon taste bitter or metallic). Instead, an off-dry Riesling from Germany would be perfect—because sweetness in food requires the same level of sweetness in wine.
Seafood
One of the most defining characteristics of seafood—as distinct from freshwater fish—is its saltiness. Seafood grows up, after all, breathing salt water its entire life. Foods high in salt require either a high acid wine or a wine with marked sweetness. That’s why oysters and Chablis (or Muscadet) work well together. Likewise, one of the best matches for salty seafood is crisp Champagne. This salt-bubbly duo is behind one of the great food matches of all time: chips and beer.
Here are some specific recommendations for various sorts of seafood and the wines they love best:
Oysters
Try wines as high in acidity as you can tolerate, especially for the brinier bivalves (for instance, Cape Cod Chathams or Chilmarks, New Zealand Coromandels, French Belons). Go for Muscadet, Chablis 1er Cru, Sancerre, dry Vouvray—or the driest, most highly acidic of white wines, trocken German Riesling. Less salty, creamy oysters (Washington Olympias, Japanese Kumamotos, B.C. Fanny Bays) go well with wines of tamer acidity, such as Alsatian Pinot Blanc or Austrian Grüner Veltliner.
Crab
The preparation will matter with this quintessentially sweet-salty shellfish. Plain steamed crab, with no butter dip, will taste delicious with softer versions of Sauvignon Blanc (from California, by and large, or South America) or high-acid wines with a bit of sweetness (such as German spätlese), while richer preparations—butter dip, crab cakes, chowder—need wines high in acidity, such as those listed above for briny oysters.
Lobster
Treat lobster like crab, though lobster flesh has less sweetness than crab flesh and, so, won’t require exactly similar wines. A fine match for plain, steamed lobster, even with butter, is Mâcon-Villages from a good vintage (nearly any vintage currently available back to 2000). Monkfish also fits in this category, as does shrimp. Again, the preparation matters a great deal. If fatty, go for high acidity. If sweet or slightly sweet, be sure there is some sweetness in the wine. If acidic (tomatoes, for example, or vinegars), the wine must have acidity, too.
Oily-fleshed seafood
This sort of seafood (sardines, some tuna, salmon, herring, some swordfish, pink or coho trout) may be the healthiest of all fish because of its high concentration of Omega-3 fatty acids. It’s also one of the hardest to match with wine. That’s because the same fatty oils can make many a dry wine taste metallic. If it’s possible to prepare these fish with tomatoes, olives and herbs—as Veracruz, for example, or Provençal—a light red such as Beaujolais or Oregon Pinot Noir might be the ticket. Otherwise, go for high acid, fresh whites such as young white Bordeaux or good quality Italian Pinot Grigio.
Firm-fleshed seafood
Swordfish, shark, tuna, mahi-mahi and some sea bass are really cows that swim. They’re meat—chewy, textured, best served seared on the outside and rare within. Even in the simplest preparations, seafood such as this can handle red wine. But the red needs to be high in acidity and moderate in both tannin and alcohol, such as Côte de Beaune Rouge, Oregon Pinot Noir or lighter Chianti Classico or Valpolicella. If you wish to serve a white wine here, go for those with some oomph—Alsatian Pinot Gris or Gewürztraminer, Puligny-Montrachet or Australian Riesling.
Flaky-fleshed seafood
Halibut, sole, cod and roughy are perhaps the most modest of seafood fishes. They are often served in the simplest of manners—à la meunière, for example, or simply broiled—with the briefest of cooking. They require wines with equal modesty. An enormous California Chardonnay, for example, would be plainly boorish alongside any of them. Quiet, demur wines such as Vinho Verde, Greek Moschofilero, much Spanish Albariño or Italian Pinot Grigio are the ticket.
Freshwater Fish
Many of the same principles that apply to the matches of wine and seafood apply to those of wine with freshwater fish, although the emphasis on saltiness is of course diminished.
Oily-fleshed freshwater fish
Salmon raised on freshwater farms and most trout are some of the oiliest fish available. As such, wines that are high in acidity make good pairings at the table. Salmon often can tolerate a light red wine, especially if the salmon is prepared with additional elements and flavors such as tomatoes, lemon peel or olives. Light Pinot Noir works, as does Dolcetto or some Barberas from Italy. Trout, more delicate, is simply interested in white wines with crisp acidity and low alcohol, a Pouilly-Fumé, for example, or a good South African Steen (Chenin Blanc)
Other freshwater fish
Bass, perch, pike and catfish are much like flaky-fleshed seafood, though again with lower salt content. In some cases, with plainer preparations, this is the place for larger wines. The lower salt content of these fish can tolerate the lower acidity of, say, most California or Australian Chardonnays. Just make sure that the alcohol level isn’t off the charts (keep it to below 13%, if possible). High alcohol overwhelms delicate foods and these fish, if anything, are just that.