There are a great number of different wines available – many more than you may have even imagined. If you’d like to find out more about how to match up different wines with your food, then a good place to start is with some of the more popular wine varieties before you start to explore more esoteric grapes.
Oh, and before we get started, if you love to try new wines, then you can’t go wrong with a wine of the month club, they’re fun and you’re always expanding your wine palate.
Let’s take a look at some of the more popular wine varieties:
Cabernet Sauvignon
Often abbreviated to the less-than-lovely name ‘cab-sav’, the flavorful cabernet sauvignon is a classic French wine that is one of the most widely recognized red wine varieties.
This full-bodied red wine blend can be the ideal accompaniment to a fine steak, a roast lamb or on its own as a drinking red wine.
Merlot
This soft, full bodied red has significantly less tannins than do most other red wines. Merlot is bottled on its own as well as being a part of many red wine blends. Merlot is an excellent wine to pair with chicken and other poultry.
Shiraz
Also known as Syrah, Shiraz is a deep red colored, medium bodied wine whose flavor includes hints of black pepper and berries. This is one of the best wines to go with barbecue as well as many other meat dishes. Shiraz can be aged for a long time and improves well with age.
Native to Iran (it is named after the Iranian city of Siraz), this grape is produced extensively in Australia, which makes some of the best Shiraz in the world as well as in France.
Shiraz holds up to strongly flavored sauces, making it a good choice for barbecued meats and spicy dishes.
Grenache
Grenache is a very soft, subtle red wine that is often blended with other types of wine to produce distinct flavors and blends. A glass of chilled Grenache goes beautifully with most spicy foods.
Pinot Noir
A light to medium bodies red, Pinot Noir has flavors of cherry and plum, along with violet-like flavors which become more prominent when this wine is properly aged.
Chardonnay
Chardonnay is one of the most popular white wines, being made into a wine in its own right and being a major component of most white blends. These wines tend to have notes of melon and lemon and are generally aged in oak for anywhere up to 3 years. Chardonnay goes well with flavorful fish such as salmon and tuna. Chardonnay is easily one of the most popular white wines anywhere. Traditionally these wonderfully melon flavored wines are allowed to mature in oak barrels for up to 3 years. Chardonnay is ideal served along with salmon.
Sauvignon Blanc
Sauvignon blanc is a very ripe tasting white wine that can have a quite aggressive aroma as compared to other white wines. Sauvignon Blanc is a lovely white wine that is excellent with seafood and a great accompaniment to Japanese sushi, but is even better on its own as a drinking white wine.
Semillon
This classic full-bodied dry French white wine is often misunderstood by people living outside of France or Australia. Often criticized for lacking in intensity, Semillon has a distinctly fruity flavor that is more subtle than some of the ‘heavier’ white wines and so it’s often blended with a Sauvignon Blanc to create a wonderful light drinking wine.
Riesling
This is a German wine which has found favor worldwide and is now grown in many different countries. This is a white wine with a pleasing green apple and lemon flavor which may be either dry or sweet. The dry varieties of Riesling are excellent paired with spicy foods.
Now get out there, start trying new wines (join a wine club if there are no vineyards nearby), and enjoy.