Which wine to pair with BBQ / grill dishes
BBQ or grilling, as we Swiss like to say, is not just a thoroughly celebrated joie de vivre. A BBQ is also the epitome of summer, something that only the sound of the sea surf at a vacation resort can come close to. We don’t just associate BBQs with long, balmy summer evenings and happy, sociable and carefree moments with family or friends. It is certainly also the irresistible aroma of and the irrepressible anticipation of a roasted sausage or a hearty marinated steak, memories that have inevitably been etched deep into our brains since childhood. So deep that we can’t wait for the next barbecue season to start at the beginning of winter.
BBQ, that carefree feeling of being able to sit outside under the night sky and enjoy life to the full and free from worries, is only crowned (and thank God for that) by the enjoyment of the right wine (and, admittedly, beer for some). Which brings us to the topic of today’s blog post. The right wine for a BBQ. Summer is the classic season for rosé wine and sparkling wine, you might say. True, but not only. If you lift the curtain even very carefully, you will quickly realize that the three magical letters BBQ conceal an almost endless story of wines that go well with barbecue dishes.
And since we don’t want to write 800 pages here, we make no claim to completeness on this topic. Which would not exist anyway due to individual preferences. As we all know, taste is debatable. Or not. Rather, we want to provide you with a kind of framework and common thread on the subject of BBQ wine pairing that will help you get through your next BBQ season safely, enrichingly and enjoyably.
BBQ and wines – a quick overview
The quick overview makes it clear that, as with the topics of wine and beef or wine and lamb, the choice of ingredient (we are talking about ingredient because fish and vegetables should also be honored) as well as the type of preparation and the accompaniments in the form of marinades, sauces and dips play an extremely important role in the selection of the right wine for wine and BBQ.
Let’s start with the BBQ dishes with white meat. Here you can choose from all colors, i.e. light red wines, strong rosé wines but also full-bodied white wines are possible. With the classic barbecue sausage, a distinction must be made between light-flavored sausages, which go well with a light red wine, and sausages with a strong, intense taste, which clearly prefer the company of a strong red wine. With grilled red meat dishes, you should avoid white and rosé wines as much as possible and instead concentrate entirely on red wines. Here too, meat dishes and preparations with a subtle flavour harmonize better with a light red wine, whereas you should opt for correspondingly stronger red wines if the flavour is more intense. Fish dishes are best served with white or rosé wine, although you can also try a light red wine with heavily marinated or intensely spiced fish. Last but not least, there are the grilled vegetables. Here, too, you have the full range of choices. Depending on the type of vegetables and how they are prepared, you can choose from white, rosé or even red wines.
Which wine is more suitable in each case also has something to do with the strong flavors when grilling, which are created by the Maillard reaction but also by the marinades and seasoning with rubs & co. One or two light red wines, as long as they are not too tannic, can also be enjoyed slightly chilled. Just give it a try.
Now it’s all about the sausage – which wines to pair with grilled sausages?
But which wine from Valais really goes well with grilled sausages? Our favorite is clearly a light red wine that is dry with less alcohol and also has a low(er) proportion of tannins. Ideal candidates for light-flavored sausages are certainly red wines with a lower tannin content, such as a Dôle, a Pinot Noir or a Gamay. All three grape varieties can be found in the online store of Adrian & Diego Mathier Nouveau Salquenen AG, the three-time best Swiss winery of 2018, 2011 and 2007, including the Dôle de Salquenen Sang de l’Enfer AOC Valais, numerous Pinot Noirs such as the Pinot Noir Lucifer AOC Valais and the Gamay Mephisto AOC Valais. However, these wines would clearly knock out heavyweights in the first round because they are spicier and greasier, such as the popular Merguez sausages. In this case, you should therefore opt for stronger, full-bodied red wines with a good tannin structure (the tannins go perfectly with the higher fat content of these sausages), such as the Syrah wines from the successful Salgesch winegrower. Rich sausages also go very well with full-bodied, fruity white wines such as the aromatic Viognier Les Pyramides AOC Valais with its finely rounded acidity.
Which wines to pair with grilled white meat?
Grilled chicken and pork are generally good friends with both full-bodied white wines and light red wines. As with grilled sausage, these dishes harmonize perfectly with the Dôle de Salquenen Sang de l’Enfer AOC Valais or a light Pinot Noir such as the Pinot Noir Nouveau Salquenen AOC Valais. If you like, you can also try a rosé wine as a flavor enhancer. This should be stronger and have a certain structure on the palate, just like the Oeil-de-Perdrix La Matze AOC VS, a two-time world champion rosé from Mathier. Chicken and turkey also go very well with full-bodied, fruity and aromatic white wines such as the Petite Arvine Les Pyramides AOC Valais or the Heida Les Pyramides AOC Valais. As always, the marinade or the sauces and dips used are decisive here too.
If steaks and escalopes of white meat are on the shopping list, everything also depends on the marinades, sauces and dips. The heartier these are, the more expressive and broad-shouldered the red wine pairing should be. If a steak is accompanied by a lot of garlic, the appropriately spiced grilled food is best paired with red wines, which should not be too heavy if the temperatures reach summery levels. Wines from the Pinot Noir grape or a Merlot such as the Merlot Nadia Mathier AOC Valais are ideal accompaniments here. If you have a preference for spicy marinades or dips with steaks, a light white wine with some residual sweetness is particularly suitable. You should follow the rule of thumb that the spicier the accompaniment, the sweeter the wine should be. Because if you opt for a dry wine with a high alcohol content, you could experience one hell of a spicy inferno on the palate.
Anyone with a penchant for crispy grilled and hearty marinated spare ribs – whether veal or pork – should not miss out on this divine moment of pleasure with a Syrah. The extremely complex Syrah Diego Mathier AOC Valais, one of the three best Syrahs in the world, lends this dish an unexpected dimension of flavor that is simply perfect and will make you click your tongue, not least thanks to its spicy notes of violet and reseda, which turn into pepper and game aromas over time.
Which wines to pair with grilled red meat?
If you can’t go past steak when it comes to red meat, you can’t go past a Cabernet Sauvignon on the wine shelf. When drunk young and rich in tannins, the Cabernet Sauvignon Adrian Mathier AOC VS, a Merlot such as the Merlot Nadia Mathier AOC Valais or a Humagne Rouge such as the Humagne Rouge Les Pyramides AOC Valais go particularly well with the roasted flavors. And if you swear by a charcoal grill when barbecuing at home, you should always have a few bottles of barrique wines with their inimitable oak aroma ready in the wine cellar.
But not all steaks are the same. And this means that the red wines in question can, and indeed must, vary. This is mainly due to the different marbling and therefore the different fat content of the meat – see also our wine blog Which wine to pair with beef dishes. As we all know from the meat counter, a T-bone or porterhouse steak has a completely different, fine meat structure than a fillet of beef, which is comparatively tender in appearance. And fine and soft are also the words for your next mnemonic when it comes to choosing the right wine. The finer the meat, the “softer” the wine should be. In other words, with a fillet, you are welcome to choose a Pinot Noir such as L’Ambassadeur de Domain Diego Mathier red AOC Valais or other soft, elegant grape varieties. And if you are a fan of dry-aged beef, which is incomparably more flavorful, then you can safely entrust yourself to a Cabernet Sauvignon or a Syrah such as the Syrah Diego Mathier AOC Valais. We don’t want to completely ignore the game corner either: Mutton and lamb also belong to the more flavorful genus of red meat and require powerful and structured red wines such as a Cornalin Les Pyramides AOC Valais, a full-bodied Syrah, a complex Merlot or a strong Cabernet Sauvignon for the perfect harmony of enjoyment.
Which wines to pair with grilled fish?
If you are planning to prepare a whole fish or fish fillets covered/wrapped in foil, these fish will generally remain nice and juicy. Prepared with fresh herbs, which exquisitely enhance the flavor of the fish meat, the Johannisberg Weidmannstrunk AOC Valais with its Silvaner grape refines it to perfection. A delicate, light and refreshing Pinot Gris with floral notes can also prove to be an ideal companion here. And what works as a single grape is even better when combined in a glass. Blends such as the Cuvée Madame Rosmarie weiss AOC Valais, which is masterfully made from Silvaner, Pinot Gris, Petite Arvine and Pinot Blanc, are almost magical pleasure enhancers when it comes to grilled fish dishes. However, as soon as you reach into the Mediterranean corner of the herb box with the strong herbs, you should be careful again when choosing your wine. In this case, the last-mentioned cuvée is certainly still a very good choice, but other full-bodied white wines such as a Heida Les Pyramides AOC VS, stronger rosés or even light red wines are also welcome on the table and in the glass.
Which wines to pair with grilled seafood?
They look tender in the supermarket display, and this applies not only to the way they should be prepared, but also to the wine that should accompany grilled seafood dishes. To ensure that prawns & co. stay nice and juicy in their shells, they are always cooked with the shell on and, above all, please: not too hot. In addition to light, summery Pinot Blancs, a Chardonnay or a Muscat – again depending on the sauce or dip – can also enhance these already fine dishes even further. And of course, prawns and scallops also love to dance to and on the bubbles of a fine sparkling wine.
Which wines to pair with grilled vegetables?
From light and delicate to strong and even sweet flavors – this is the range of vegetables that are suitable for grilling. All vegetables that tend to have a light flavor of their own and/or that have only been seasoned/marinated with restraint are given roasted flavors through grilling and consequently become more intense in taste, but are nevertheless better paired with dry and fine white or rosé wines. A Silvaner such as the Johannisberg Weidmannstrunk AOC Valais is particularly recommended at this point, but a Pinot Gris or a Chardonnay also fulfill their mission as vegetable enhancers at least as well.
As soon as the vegetables are more strongly flavored, it can also be a Pinot Blanc or an assemblage of Pinot Blanc and Chardonnay such as the Assemblage Hospices de Salquenen blanc AOC VS, where the grape triumvirate is perfectly complemented by the subtle Chasselas grape. A Petite Arvine such as the Petite Arvine Les Pyramides AOC Valais is certainly anything but out of place. And kitchen and grill masters who want to ensure that their grilled vegetables are spicy should preferably go for a Riesling with a hint of sweetness. But fruity, light red wines are also a good choice. Try grilled, sweet and strong peppers – a poem with a Salgesch Pinot Noir from Mathier!
Which wines to pair with strong sauces?
Because we have already talked a lot about the importance of sauces, marinades and dips, and because BBQ without these accompaniments would simply be unimaginable, we would like to at least briefly highlight this topic in the last section of this blog post. After all, the variety of sauces, marinades and dips is almost inexhaustible and, in combination with the different types of meat, fish and seafood, a conclusive discussion would go completely beyond the scope of this blog post. However, the immense importance of these accompaniments when choosing the right wine is demonstrated by the fact that one and the same sauce requires a completely different wine with light or dark meat.
If you also like sweet and spicy sauces à la Far East for your BBQ, you should definitely reach for a bottle of fruity wine with residual sweetness. Again, the spicier the sauce, the more imperative it is that the wine can and should be sweeter.
A great classic among sauces is and remains BBQ sauce. On its own, it is very flavorful and varies from subtly sweet and fruity to spicy. In any case, you need heavyweights of the red wine genre that can compete with this sauce. Grilled food marinated in a rather fruity-sweet version goes better with a Syrah such as the Syrah Diego Mathier AOC Valais. For spicier versions of this classic sauce, you should opt for a Cabernet Sauvignon such as the Cabernet Sauvignon Adrian Mathier AOC Valais instead. And if you want to make it even more delicate and perfectly balanced, you should consider the intensity of the added smoky aroma – also known as liquid smoke. A complex Merlot or full-bodied red wine cuvées such as the Folissimo AOC Valais easily parry these tomato-based flavor bomb mixtures with chilli, Worcestershire sauce and sugar.
FAQ:
Can I buy wines from Weingut Mathier that go well with barbecues?
The best Swiss winery of the decade offers the entire range of wines needed to enhance grilled dishes. The range includes everything from white wine to rosé and red wine to suit any grilled food. Whether the wine should be dry and light or stronger for the barbecue also depends on the food you want to prepare on the barbecue. Some grilled dishes go better with wines that have fruity aromas. Then there are strong dishes with meat, for which a white wine such as Riesling is not recommended. Full-bodied and tannin-rich red wines are perfect for such dishes.
Is it possible to buy wines from the Mathier winery that go well with barbecues online?
The wines from the Mathier winery, which go well with barbecues, can be bought online, for example. You can find these white wines, rosé wines and red wines in the store on the website of the Adrian & Diego Mathier Nouveau Salquenen winery, www.mathier.com. They can also be ordered online from the Ritschard Interlaken wine store at www.ritschard-weine.ch. And you can also buy these wines in the store of the Salgesch wine cellar Mathier & Bachmann, www.salgescher-weinkeller.ch. The prices of these white wines, rosé wines and red wines are shown in CHF in all three online stores. They are then shipped directly to your home by a special shipping service provider.
Does the price quoted in CHF in the online store include VAT and shipping?
The price for the entire range of wines in the Adrian & Diego Mathier Nouveau Salquenen AG online store is inclusive of VAT and in CHF. This means that the price for individual bottles, gift boxes and tasting packages is quoted in CHF on this page. The accessories and Valais specialties are also listed with the CHF price. Shipping is offered for orders of 12 units or more, unless otherwise specified as part of special offers. For deliveries of less than 12 units, a surcharge of CHF 10.00 will be charged for shipping.
What is the CHF price for shipping wine?
The CHF price for shipping ordered wines depends on the number of units ordered. The exact list and differentiation, which has an influence on the final CHF price for shipping, can be found here.
Is it difficult to find the right wine to go with a grilled dish?
Grilled dishes are just as easy to handle in terms of choosing a wine to go with the food as all other dishes that are not grilled. While meat dishes that are rather light in color can be paired with a white wine (white or white wine) such as a Riesling, which is dry, or a rosé with typical fruit, but also a light red wine, grilled dishes with strong roasted flavors go perfectly with a red wine. If you are grilling something spicy, the wine should have fruity aromas and a certain sweetness to balance it out. A Chardonnay with its mellowness and barrique notes can also be a perfect match here. If you have grilled something substantial, on the other hand, a strong wine with a good aromatic structure, more alcohol and good tannins is fine.
