An excuse to experiment
I decided to visit the state liquor store in Nashua recently to check out the selection. I plan to stick with ones that are roughly $10 and under, and find the best-tasting ones in that price range. I’m not a wine connoisseur, so I’m starting from scratch in writing about taste and food pairings.
The Nashua store has a much wider wine selection than the Dover outlet, where I normally would shop. Rows and rows were filled with almost every region you could think of. It was great because it also had this section in back with clearance wines. I found a wine from South Africa there, called Lindemans South Africa Chardonnay vintage 2006. The bottle says it’s best served well-chilled and the wine style is “rich mellon, grapefruit and tropical aromas with a rounded finish.” I could definitely taste mellon; the grapefruit, not really. If I thought intently about it, maybe. It was a sweet wine, but not too sickly sweet and did have a “rounded finish”. The “tropical aroma”? I don’t know how to match that up with food. Pairings always sounds like a mystery; something only wine experts could figure out. Like you would have to take a sip, swish it around, spit it out, and wait to see what happens. I like to just eat and drink and go from there. This article talks about general rules of thumb when pairing wines with food. Check it out. After reading that, it sounds like I would match weight to weight and flavor to flavor. Red wine is mostly reserved for heavy stuff like steak. White wine is for fish or pasta. That’s an easy way to start. So what food would work with this South African chardonnay, with hints of melon and grapefruit? Possibly a fruity dinner? That obviously doesn’t make sense. But fruity flavors are usually considered light, so something like chicken or fish might work. The great thing about inexpensive wines is it gives you an excuse to try a lot of different ones from different regions. Experiment, because there’s so much out there to choose from!
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