Tag Archives: Gewürztraminer

Is a blend better than a straight varietal?

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Yes, in general and in my opinion!  Let’s find out why I believe that.

I dislike the idea of fusion concepts, especially when it comes to food.  Call me a traditionalist, but I find food that has stood the test of centuries, yet alone millenniums, to be among the very best food one can eat.  I love Italian food and I love Indian food, but I do not favor blending the two into a single meal.  Curry pastas just don’t work for me.  I love Japanese and I love Tex-Mex, but I could not bring myself to even try this fusion concept in one of the hotel restaurants in Sacramento, CA when visiting a while back.  The raw tuna quesadillas just did not work for me.  Globalization has done a lot to change the world, but when it comes to fusion food, it has only made it worse!

wine blend

But when it comes to wine blends, I am really starting to favor blends over 100% varietals.  Don’t get me wrong – I LOVE my 100% varietals when it comes to my favorite grapes such as Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, or Riesling.  But year-in, year-out, it is impossible to get consistent sugar and alcohol levels,  with each vintage being affected by that year’s heat index and rainfall causing some vintages to be different in taste than others vintages.  That is when a good winemaker can use some of the characteristics of other grapes to provide a better overall taste, by adding a touch of sweetness, or subduing too much sweetness by adding a grape with more acidity or sourness.  Good winemakers know how to blend a little bit of another grape or several grapes together to make good to great wines.  Even Penfolds Grange over the years has had various amounts of Cabernet Sauvignon blended in to achieve its maximum potential for a particular vintage.  Based on what country the wine is from and the local laws, you may still label a bottle of wine by its main varietal as long as the amount of the other grape added is still small, usually less than 15%.

But other wines, especially old world wines have been crafted to be great wines by using various blending combinations.  Wines from Châteauneuf-du-Pape are predominantly Grenache, but also are allowed to blend in wine from twelve other varietals.  Bordeaux blends are primarily Cabernet Sauvignon, but contain a variety of other grapes such as Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and possibly small amounts of Petit Verdot or Malbec.  A classic high-quality Bordeaux blend is 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, and 15% Cabernet Franc.  Australia is well-known and respected for its Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon blends such as you would find in a Penfolds Bin 389 or a Lindemans Limestone Ridge.  And more and more, I am loving a wine blend called GSM of Grenache, Shiraz, Mourvedre.  And for white wine, I find the blend of Gewürztraminer and Riesling to be a very nice drink.

More and more, I am enjoying my blends and the craftmanship of the winemaker to get the blends to get the most of of the grapes.  The nuances that can develop and the integration of various characteristics provide for a most enjoyable drinking experience.  Maybe I am just become more old-world myself, but I find blends age better, are more complex and more balanced, and generally are a bit softer with a smoother mouth feel.

If you have not tried many blends, then I think it is about time you do!  And I would appreciate your views and feedback on if you are a single-grape purist or prefer the multidimensional characteristics of a blend.

 

Steve Shipley, author Wine Sense, out early 2014. Published by InkIT Publishing
© 2013.  Steve Shipley
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What a weekend hoot discussing party wines on Food in Focus

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We have had so much going on the last few weeks, both work-wise and personally, it seemed we did not get an evening together at home for several weeks.  This meant I was tired going into my 60th birthday party weekend.  Fortunately, surrounded by great friends, great food and great wine, I was able to pick myself up to make it through the weekend.  And even more fortunately, I had some leftover 2006 Penfolds Yatarnna and some 2005 Chateau Haut Bergeron which I am drinking now while blogging!

With friends from the US and Melbourne in town, we had five of us for a fabulous meal at Fish on the Rocks with great matching wines Friday evening. And then the bigger affair with 11 of us on Saturday evening with an outstanding wine and food line-up cooked by Jay Huxley, Masterchef finalist and his crew.  But first I want to discuss the fun I had participating in Food in Focus radio show Saturday afternoon.  This is a regular Saturday feature at 4 pm which Natascha Moy has been hosting for four and a half years now on FM 89.7 radio.

We had great fun.  Natascha always has three guests from various aspects of the food and wine industry.  I was privileged to be on the show with Lisa Margan, owner and proprietor of Margan Estates in Broke in the Hunter Valley, and with Nick Wills, owner and Brad Sloane, the chef of The Riverview Hotel at 29 Birchgrove Road in Balmain, NSW.

I have been to Margans several times and have some of their great 2003 White Label Shiraz and their 2006 Barbera in my cellar.  It is a beautiful setting for doing a tasting, having a meal, or even for getting married!  I have not been to the The Riverview Hotel, but will definitely try it now that I have sampled some of these guys food!  And if I remember correctly, they do a very nice pizza for $20 and on Tuesday, you can get two for $20!

I was the ‘wild card’ wine guy for the show.  I brought along three bottles of wines as representative party wines.  The wines I brought were the 2010 Vavasour Pinot Gris from New Zealand, the 2009 Tyrrell’s Verdelho, and the 2005 Kelman Shiraz, both from the Hunter Valley.  The winning wine among the guests was the first one we opened and tasted, which was the 2010 Vavasour Pinot Gris.  It had a very smooth texture, and mandarin and a bit of grapefruit flavorings.  And everyone really seemed to enjoy a New Zealand white wine which was not a Sauvignon Blanc!

So what did I have to say about party wine?  It can be summarized as follows:

  • You don’t need to spend more than $20 per bottle for party wines and you can still impress.  All three bottles I brought along were between $12 – $18.
  • Don’t bring Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc as everyone else is bringing those, so bring something else to provide some choice.
  • Parties can get warm if there are a lot of people or if outside, so if you are only bringing one bottle, make it a white wine.
  • Good white party wines can be Pinot Gris or Verdelho which are easy and enjoyable to drink on their own and go with canapes, dim sum, etc.  A Marsanne would not go as well or be appreciated by a wide variety of people.  A Semillon or Gewürztraminer would be ok, but not have the wide-spread appeal that a Pinot Gris or Verdelho would on its own.
  • If you are bringing a red wine, try a secondary grape to treat people to something different.  A Barbera, Tempranillo, or Sangiovese is different and easy to drink.
  • Or bring something unusual or a bit more personal.  That is the reason I brought along the Kelman Shiraz, as it can only be bought at the cellar door, and it is associated with the winery where I have a place to live.
  • Don’t bring a bottle of wine if you do not know how it will taste or are trying to recycle a bottle received from someone else!

I really enjoyed previously listening to Food in Focus and now have really enjoyed being part of the show.  Each week has different topics and guests and is a continual learning experience for anyone interested in food or wine!  Check it out

Apologies in advance to Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc fans

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I enjoy drinking wine and drink it regularly.  I try a variety of different grapes and styles from different regions around the world.  I love my wine and am willing to try a lot of different wines.  However, I also value knowing I will be drinking a good to great bottle almost every time I open one.  Therefore, over the years, I have settled on a number of different grapes (or blends) in different styles and from different regions.

Upon moving to Australia almost 15 years ago, I became fixated on the Australian wines.  There are a number of different wine regions, each well suited to various grapes and each region known for producing several great wines.  To get an overview of the different regions, review my 4-series post on the Australian wine regions.  Australia makes a lot of magnificent wines and at great price points.  It is only recently that I have been experimenting and coming to enjoy a broader range of wines globally.

There are four primary red wine grapes and four primary white wine grapes:

Red wine grapes:

  • Merlot
  • Cabernet Sauvignon
  • Shiraz
  • Pinot Noir

White wine grapes:

  • Sauvignon Blanc
  • Chardonnay
  • Riesling
  • Semillon

A majority of the world’s wines are made with these grapes and that is why they are known as the ‘primary’ grapes.  In the ‘secondary’ grape category, among the reds, we have Zinfandel, Grenache, Sangiovese, Tempranillo, etc. and among the whites, Marsanne, Verdelho, Gewürztraminer, and so on.  Some of the world’s best wines are blends of several grapes to provide some unique characteristics and tastes.

Great wine always starts with great grapes, but the effects and magic of the wine maker can also make a large difference in the finished product, starting with the wine maker determining the best time to pick the grape to get the right characteristics (often sweetness or alcoholic content) from the grape.  Then there are many other techniques the wine maker uses to craft the best wine he/she can make from the grapes.

Probably 60% – 65% of what I drink comes from the the primary red and white grape families – excluding Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc.  The remaining third comes from secondary grapes.  I drink very little Merlot or Sauvignon Blanc and simply do not enjoy the grapes or what the wine maker can possibly do with them as much as most of the other grapes.  Occasionally, I may have a wine with some Sauvignon Blanc blended with Semillion, or some small percentage of Merlot in a red blend.  A Merlot can be used to soften a red wine blend, for example.

I believe the main reason that I do not drink Merlot or Sauvignon Blanc is that there is little the wine maker can do with these grapes compared to most of the others.  The impact of terroir and the influence of the wine maker is less influential on the Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc grape varietals.  Pinot Noir, by comparison, is very highly influenced by the terroir and the wine maker’s craftsmanship, which is why the very best Pinot Noirs are very high in demand and almost hallowed.  It is tough to make a bad Merlot or Sauvignon Blanc, but it is even tougher to make a very good, yet alone great one.  (I know some of the very best French Sauvignon Blancs may be argued to be exceptions to this general rule.)

Sauvignon Blanc is often described as tasting like “stewed green tomatoes” or “cat’s pee!”  When you start with a grape described like that, I don’t expect the wine maker can do much with it!  Both Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot are safe grapes to grow (resistant to changes in conditions) and are often used as an insurance policy for any given vintage to make sure some wine is available in the region.  But by definition, this is the reason the grapes cannot be influenced or crafted into truly great wines.  These two grapes are very common and middle of the road in my mind.

So what do I do for food matching when it obviously calls for a Merlot or Sauvignon Blanc?  For Merlot, it is easy as there are so many different red wine grapes and styles to be able to pick a perfect match to any food, even when Merlot is not considered. 

And everyone knows that Sauvignon Blanc is a natural for fish and seafood, right?  Wrong!  If I am eating fish, and it is a gamier, thicker, or oilier fish, I will have a Pinot Noir, especially if it is served with a tomato sauce or topping.  And if it is a lighter, flakier white fish, then I will opt for a Sauvignon Blanc / Semillon blend.  The Semillon provides some structure and character to the Sauvignon Blanc and is a great match for this type of fish.

For crustaceans or lobster, I love a rich, aged Chardonnay, such as a Montrachet.  And Semillon goes really well with scallops, and a Riesling with crab or prawns.  Therefore, I feel I have it covered and do not need to ‘compromise’ by drinking a Sauvignon Blanc or Merlot.

This blog was inspired by a comment that Merlot would go really well with pizza, and it probably would, but given the choice, I am going to drink a Sangiovese or Cabernet Sauvignon (like the 1996 Lindemans St George I had with pizza the other night).  I just cannot fancy desiring a Merlot or Sauvignon Blanc when  I have so many other choices available.

If you are a regular Merlot or Sauvignon Blanc drinker, then I apologize if I have offended you, but I encourage you to try some other grapes instead.  We have a great friend with a very good palate and she started drinking Merlot for her first wines, but quickly grew out of that and to a broader and richer spectrum of good wines.

Therefore, if you think Merlot or Sauvignon Blanc are your main and easy choice for wine, then you should experiment a bit and I expect you will be happy with the results.

Masterchef, with master friends and wine!

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We had a great dinner party last evening.  As usual, the most important ingredient was great people full of life, fellowship and great conversation ranging from food to work, charity work, working out, finding a partner and much, much more.  But there were also some other great ingredients including having Masterchef and cook extraordinaire, Jay Huxley, cooking for us and some very nice wines to match.

But let’s start with the people.  We had all worked together before, doing amazing things together and with great respect for each other.  While we all had some overlap with each other, there were also a few new relationships formed last evening which is always nice to see.  I love being around really nice, fun and funny people who are all so charitable.  And while we told everyone not to bring anything, they brought magnificent chocolates, a bottle of Bollinger champagne, and ordered flowers (which I need to check with concierge on as we did not get any today).

Jay cooked up a magnificent meal, starting with a Alaskan king crab and prawn bisque which was to die for, followed by osso bucco for some of us and ‘fish and chips’ (Balina Mulloway with taro chips!) for others with caramelized pineapple with lychee sorbet for dessert.  Simply fantastic.

And why is Jay’s food so good?  Bisque from scratch, lychee sorbet from scratch, 15 kilogram Mulloway caught and cleaned by Jay himself – well, you get the point!  And he is an amazing chef who connects with his audience through his food and his personality.

And the wine line-up to match was something also.  We started with the 2006 Annie’s Hill Riesling upon arrival, followed by the 2008 Little’s Gewürztraminer to go with the bisque, the 2004 Thompson Estate (Margaret River) Cabernet Sauvignon and the 2005 Stags Leap (Napa Valley) Cabernet Sauvignon to go with the osso bucco, and then the 2007 De Iuliis Late Harvest Semillon to match off against dessert..

And if that was not enough, we then cracked into some 1980 Lindeman Vintage Port and had great affogados using the Rutherglen Buller Tokay.  For the late stragglers who still had not had enough, we finished off the magnificent 2007 Maurice O’Shea Shiraz from the night before, and then opened yet another bottle, this time the 2006 Coldstream Hills Cabernet Savignon.

But the amazing thing is that I was so relaxed and comfortably just drinking and enjoying the fellowship, food and wine, that I really did not take the time to think about how the wine tasted in any particular detail.  It was all just really great!

I do remember the 2006 Stags Leap being more complex and like a traditional Bordeaux than the 2004 Thompson Estate, which was lighter, and both being very well balanced and with big fruits.  But that was from a tasting of both wines when I decanted them before the guests arrived.

Therefore, there is no detailed analysis of the wine in this post.  Just a remembrance that with the right people, right food and right wines, you too can have a perfect evening even if you cannot remember much of it!

What wine to match with Korean BBQ?

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What is Korean BBQ?  It is a meal where you select some meats to cook on an in-table BBQ until cooked.  Then you wrap the meats in a leaf of lettuce and add some chili sauce and roasted garlic slices to taste.  The meats can be a variety of pork, beef rib, beef brisket, or tenderloin.  You can also choose to cook some prawns or other types of seafood or vegetables such as mushrooms or eggplant.  Additionally, you are usually provided some sides of kimchi, garlic potatoes, pickles, and other Korean delicacies which you probably do not want to know what they are!

Given that assortment, you may wonder how it is possible to match any wine with Korean BBQ! 

I have tried a number of wines with Korean BBQ previously which were ok, but not a great match for the food.  I have tried a Gewürztraminer, Semillon, and some spicy Shiraz’.  But then I realized that the secret was not to match up the wine with the meat, but rather to match it to the chili and garlic flavors which my wife, my friends and I tend to enjoy in quantity.  Therefore, we had two quite different Rieslings and a Grenanche which were all perfectly matched to the food.

While I love an aged, kerosene type of Riesling, it would not be a good match for Korean BBQ.  Korean BBQ has powerful flavors coming from the chili and garlic, but is also delicate and cooling from the leaf of lettuce and other cold side vegetable dishes.  Therefore, a younger to medium aged, crisper Riesling is far better suited.  I had about a half bottle of the 2006 Annies Lane Clare Valley Riesling from the night before and knew it would do nicely.  This was an older, richer Riesling, perfectly balanced and a joy to drink on its own and with Korean BBQ.  It still had a crisp edge to it, but had developed some complex flavors and a beautiful texture on the tongue and cheeks.  The important thing was that there was no oily taste that I often love on a Riesling when drinking it with cheese, or with certain types of seafood.

That was followed by a much younger, lighter Watervale Riesling, the 2011 Mount Horrocks.  This was a highly recommended Riesling gifted to us a few nights previously as we selected some other white wines to drink that evening.  This wine certainly lived up to its reputation!  After attacking the food with the 2006 Annies Lane, we took a breather with the much lighter Watervale Riesling.  The 2011 Mount Horrocks had a citrus lemon-lime flavor and was sustaining and refreshing at the same time.  I usually try to go from lighter whites to heavier reds during the course of a meal, but tonight we started with the heavier Riesling (primarily because it was already opened) and then onto the lighter one.  This really worked well!  It was similar to the middle movement in a symphony where you are taking a bit of a breather (an adagio or andante) between the opening usually brisk declaration (allegro) and the final movement where everything comes together in a resounding climax.  The 2011 Mount Horrock Riesling was our ‘andante’ that evening!  (And you probably were thinking I was just a wino!)

I need to consider other meal plans where I mix it up a bit like this instead of building continuously to a wine climax.  This really allowed us to pace the meal and enjoy the time we had together without ‘rushing’ my wine drinking.  (I did not even realize that I might have been doing that!)

We then finished the evening with the 2006 Cirillo 1850 Grenache.  This grape is most often associated with the Châteauneuf-du-Pape region in France.  The Grenache grape has a smooth soft texture to it, yet still possesses good body.  To me, it combines the best elements of a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Shiraz.  I have had a number of different wines from Châteauneuf-du-Pape, but admittedly not some of the very best (as they can be very expensive!).  One very nice bottle I had recently was the 2006 Chateauneuf-Du-Pape Perrin & Fils Les Sinard with turkey, mash and gravy and it was exquisite!

There is not a lot of Grenache grown in Australia and this is the first one I have had.  I was blown away!  So smooth and far better than the medium range Châteauneuf-du-Pape wines I have had (the 2006 Chateauneuf-Du-Pape Perrin & Fils Les Sinard being the exception!)  It had big, fresh fruit flavors of cherry and raspberry.  The 1850 on the bottle actually is the year the vines were planted.  These are some seriously mature and hearty vines!  I am looking forward to getting some more of this wine!

I asked previously, “What is Korean BBQ?”  It is really a cacophony of flavors going on in your mouth.  That is why I believe a Grenache or a Tempranillo goes better than a primary red grape such as a Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz with Korean BBQ.  We are more conditioned to knowing what a Cabernet Sauvignon or a Shiraz tastes like, whereas a Grenache or a Tempranillo is a discovery in new taste and therefore seems to match better with Korean BBQ.

Next time, I will try a Tempranillo unless I get my hands on more of the 2006 Cirillo 1850 Grenache – that wine would be tough to pass on with any meal!

A disappointment, but one moves on!

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Last night, my lovely bride and I drove to the Hunter Valley and arrived in time for dinner at the Blue Thai restaurant which we really enjoy.  The food is great and the crowd is certainly interesting and entertaining as the restaurant abuts a trailer and camping park.  It is a BYO restaurant, which is a concept I always like!  There were several cartons of box wine sitting on other tables (why come to the Hunter Valley and get box wine?!?!) and I expect there were not many other bottles over $10 in the restaurant that night.

Yet, Thai food has such tremendous flavors and deserves to be paired with good wine.  We usually bring a Gewurztraminer, Semillon or Riesling.  Tonight we brought along a bottle of the 1995 Penfolds Adelaide Hills Semillon Trial Bin.  I have four bottles of this, but had not had much interest in trying one as it was an inexpensive wine I purchased back in 1997 in Melbourne.  It had not been cared for well either in that it made a trip across the ocean to the US in 1998 when I moved back there, and then a trip back home in 2000 when I moved here permanently.  Fortunately, most of the wines that made the journey over and back did not suffer much (the better ones were stored in Styrofoam cases) , but some of the cheaper ones were affected.

Recently, I have come to realize that the 1995 Adelaide Hills Trial Bin was one of the wines that was an experiment as a possibility for Penfolds White Grange (according the the public, not Penfolds) which ultimately resulted in the Yatarnna Bin 144 Chardonnay.  Plus some of the wine auction houses I was talking with expressed interest in selling this wine at auction and that peaked my curiosity.  I decided it was worth trying a bottle to see if it was still good.  After all, it was selling for between $25 – $30 per bottle on the secondary market.

Crumbled cork

Halliday reviewed this wine a long time ago and said it was drinkable until about 2003 and here I am thinking about trying it almost a decade after that.  Yet, I have had many aged Semillons that have really stood the test of time.  However the bottle I opened last night, had not!  It was unfortunately corked.  I used the standard cork screw from the restaurant, but the cork just crumbled.  I then drove home to get my Ah So cork screw.  The Ah So cork screw is about the only way to get old cork out of an old bottle.  It is designed to be able to get old and soggy corks out of the bottle, and I may have had some luck had I started with this, but the cork was so soggy and cushy that I could not get a good grip on it.  It was the first time ever that I was not able to remove a cork with the Ah So, and had to push it into the bottle.

I was still hopeful because the wine had a beautiful golden color to it, and their was no obvious fault when visualizing the wine.  However, it had lost much of its flavor and had a metallic taste to it.  It tasted like someone had squeezed a melon onto a piece of sheet metal and licked it.  (I am imagining this is what it would have tasted like – I have not actually done this!)  You could tell this was a fine wine in its time, but had oxidized too much.  I still managed a few sips with dinner to try to figure out what it would have been like without the fault, but we left 2/3rds of the bottle and mostly had water with dinner.

I am hopeful that the remaining three bottles of this wine may have traveled better than this one did.  Cork variability can be quite large.  Recently about two weeks apart, I had two bottles of the 2003 Blueberry Hills Pinot Noir and the second one was significantly better than the first one (as described in post).  Since both Pinot Noirs had been stored properly and in exactly the same manner, the difference could only be attributable to the difference in cork structure.  Therefore, I will try each bottle of the 1995 Penfolds Adelaide hills Semillon Trial Bin and hopefully one or two of the remaining three bottles will be real gems!

Gewürztraminer with Thai Food

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Last night we had five people around for Thai food.  We do this every couple of weeks and it provides a good opportunity to try a number of different wines matched to the food.  Of course, what is Thai food?  For four to six people, we would have about eight different selections of food, including noodles, seafood, beef curry, chicken, pork along with springs rolls, rice, etc.  Therefore, the most important thing to remember is that if we have multiple dishes and types of food, we need either (1) multiple wines, or (2) a wine that will match easily with many different dishes.

In my second ever wine blog written on 29 March, 2012, I wrote about what wine to have with Thai food.  That evening we had a Riesling which matches up well because Riesling usually has a bit of sharp edge to it and works well for a white wine with ethnic food, especially Thai food in my opinion where I like a bit of sharpness to start with and then followed by a smoother Shiraz with some of the other dishes.

If we have a few people over though and a few dishes, then I would like to have maybe two whites and one red wine to go with Thai.  That way you can vary what you want to achieve with the whites and I usually would choose a Hunter Valley Shiraz, which is not too heavy (like the big Barossa Valley Shirazes) and contain more peppery or spiced flavorings for the red.

However, a few of us were still recovering from having been sick recently and one was not drinking, so we only opened one bottle of a white wine.  It was the 2008 Gewürztraminer from The Little Wine Company.  This is a spectacular wine and has aged beautifully in the several years since I bought it and a perfect match for Thai food, especially tonight as we had several seafood dishes on the menu.

I would describe this wine as off-dry or semi-dry, with a beautiful sharpness to it that goes really well with Thai food.  It should really be classified as a dry wine, but a bit of sweetness from the citrus flavors and almost candy-like drops or chews comes through to make it appear semi-dry.

One of our friends is having us over for Malaysian and Indian food in a couple of weeks and I have set aside another few bottles of this great wine to share with them.

The Gewürztraminer is a secondary white grape and there is not a lot of it to be found in Australia.  Most of the Gewürztraminer I drink comes from the Alsace region (like the Hugel Gewürztraminer).  I have had a few Gewürztraminer’s in Australia and the 2008 Gewürztraminer from The Little Wine Company really stands out!  This is a magnificent wine for the money.

As a side note, Suzanne and Ian Little are really nice people (as are most of the people in the wine industry in the Hunter Valley!), and I remember a most special night two years back where we had a 5-course degustation meal with matching wines at the Little Wine Company, with Suzanne and Ian Little, Andrew Thomas, Andrew Margan, and a few other great Hunter Valley wine makers where each wine maker rotated tables with each course.  The food, the wine, the company and the discussions that evening were special!

What wine with Pizza?

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This is always a tough question since there are so many different ingredients that can go into pizza.  We have gone from buying pizza to making our own, which is quite easy and allows us to create exactly the taste we want.  It also means we have a healthier pizza.  Some times we make the base and other times we buy it, but that choice has no effect on our choice of wine.

We alway use a tomato sauce / paste to cover the base, and almost always a spicier sausage such as pepperoni or the spicy home-made Italian sausage our great friend, Ric and his family make annually (so glad to have a private stash of that sausage – it is magnificent for a pizza topping!).  We also tend to put a lot of garlic and chili on our pizza.  Therefore, a Hunter Valley (spicy, pepper flavored) Shiraz is always a good choice.  However, something a little lighter such as a Cabernet Sauvignon or a Italian Chianti (made from the Sangiovese grape) is always a safe choice to bring out the flavors of the pizza.

Interestingly enough, some white wines will also go well with pizza, since a number of white wines match well with the various cheeses used.  And if you are using chicken, pineapple, or something similar for toppings, a white becomes even a better choice.  I would recommend a crisp (2 or 3 years in the bottle, before it smooths in taste and texture) Semillon to match up well with cheese, but overall believe a Gewürztraminer, or Riesling would be best.  If it is plainer tasting pizza, a Pinot Grigio would be good.  A Gewürztraminer works well with a lot of different spices such as with Indian food or Thai food, so it will work well with a well seasoned pizza also!

It is rare that I would recommend seven different types of grapes as being a good match for a food, but that says a lot about the diversity of pizza!  Then there is always Merlot, but I rarely drink Merlot if given almost any other choice.

And if this is all too difficult, then grab a beer or two!  But overall, it is usually a Shiraz or a Chianti for me.  The only question is – “which one”?

BTW, I am making the pizza tonight and Deanna, who writes the blog, DAZ in the Kitchen, will be creating a post soon with the pizza recipe we use.