THINK BIG WHEN GRILLING MEAT
Higher-alcohol reds are the best wines to complement your barbecue feast
I get asked all the time about which wines to pair with meat on the grill. My answer always shocks those who know me well, since the wines I recommend are not the style I like to drink normally.
If you follow this column, you know that I drink more white than red — and when I do drink red, the wines tend to be light, high in acidity and low in alcohol and oak flavouring.
But I make an exception when I’m cooking meat on my grill. After years of testing different wine styles, the best matches with grilled meats have always been the bigger reds — wines with higher alcohol levels and, yes, even those that show a fair amount of oak.
When it comes to drinking wine alongside food, I am not loyal to a particular style. I drink the best wine for the job. So why big reds for grilled meats? Here’s some wine and food pairing logic.
The two most important things to consider when choosing a wine for the grill is the type of meat, and what you’re using as either a marinade or a spice.
The first thing to understand is how meat reacts when it is cooked on a barbecue. Grills should always be very hot, which caramelizes the surface. That helps lock in the juices, and the intensity of the heat also turns the proteins in the fat of the meat into complex sugars. While that doesn’t make the meat sweet, it gives an impression of sweetness.
The other important flavour grilling imparts — especially if you use charcoal rather than propane — is smoke. While I usually use propane, for dishes like ribs and chicken on the bone, I often slowly cook these meats for hours at a low temperature with smoke, and then finish them on a hot grill when I cover them with a basting sauce. I don’t have a smoker — I simply fill a metal box that has holes in the cover with whatever type of wood shavings I want, and put it directly on the burner.
You can find smoke notes in wine as well — those that have spent time in new oak barrels. In general, wines that can handle being aged in new oak barrels, which have been heavily “toasted,” are those that show lots of powerful fruit and have lots of tannin.
Barbecuing is all about flavour. And if the cooking method brings extra flavour, then what you use as marinades, basting sauces and spices adds even more.
Classic barbecue basting sauces are often ketchup or tomatobased. I held a ketchup tasting last summer, which showed that the best wines for any sauce made with ketchup were highalcohol reds. So relatively lean meats like chicken and pork, which normally would require a lighter red, immediately become more of a match for a much bigger red wine.
Soy- and tamari-based marinades work in a similar fashion, adding extra flavour to any meat. But these marinades and basting sauces often show stronger flavours like ginger, and bring lots of salt to the meat. And what pairs well with salt? Sweetness. Ripe, higher-alcohol reds often exhibit a certain sweetness, whether it’s from the alcohol, the new barrel or a bit more residual sugar left in the wine.
And for all you folks who like to keep things simple, and just add a little steak spice to your T-bone, I return to the grilling effect of adding sweetness to the meat. Higher-alcohol reds tend to bring a certain sweetness to the palate. So your match is there.
So bring on the zinfandels and cabernet sauvignons. Check out today’s suggestions for wines at various price levels that will make your barbecue season even tastier. But one last bit of advice: especially when you are eating and drinking outside in the summer, if your wine is above 18-20 C, the alcohol will start to dominate. So keep an ice bucket handy to keep your wines at around 18 C.