There’s some truth to the idea that some foods are less amenable to wine than others. But we believe challenges are meant to be embraced; there is no such thing as a food that doesn’t go with a wine you love. Wine eventually washes the food out of your mouth anyway.
That being said, when you find the just-right flavor combination, it takes a meal to an entirely new level. So, while we all have taste preferences when it comes to food—and let’s not forget that wine is essentially food—we decided to look at some of the hardest ingredients to pair and find the wine styles (and specific bottles) that make them sing.
From artichokes and asparagus to chili pepper and, yes, chocolate (which is far harder to pair with wine than most think), we’ve solved the most “impossible” food and wine pairings known to gourmands.
The Best Wine for Artichokes: Grüner Veltliner
Artichokes contain a substance called cynarin, which manages to make wine taste alternately—and sometimes, bizarrely, simultaneously—sweet and metallic. A proposed solution is to give up on wine altogether, but what’s so bad about a little sweetness and a metal edge? Pick a wine that can swing with both, like Grüner Veltliner. It’s often made with a hint of residual sugar to round out its tart citrus and gooseberry notes, and its peppery and gravelly minerality don’t suffer from veering into overly metallic territory.
This Article was originally published on Wine Enthusiast
