I just ran across an old Washington Post article on matching wine with fast food. The trouble with the article is it suggests very specific matches for particular fast food entrees, but what we really need are principles. Even a cellar as deep and broad as mine (not to brag or anything) rarely has all (or even any of) the specific wines recommended in articles like this one. But if you know the basic principles, even a simple cellar typically will have at least one wine that will work with most foods, even fast foods.
- Fast foods tend to be simple meats and carbs, which would go with lots of wines.
- Unless you've got Bill Gates money and a post-modernist sense of irony, there's no real point in pushing the boat out too far. Chateau Petrus might work okay with burgers, but I save first growths for simply sauced organic lamb.
- Fast food tends to be high in fat, which begins to limit our choices. KFC fried chicken may be the extreme, but even supposedly healthy options are often pretty unctuous. As a result, we're thinking high acid wines to cut through the fat.
- Fast food also often is served with intensely flavored condiments, often with a distinctly sweet component. Catsup on burgers or salsa on a Baja Fresh burrito spring to mind as examples. Tannic red wines or highly oaked whites will clash with these condiments ... and not in a good way. At the same time, these are strongly flavored foods that will wash out all but the strongest flavored wines.
When you put it all together, I think the principles are pretty obvious. If you like red wine, stick to those with high acid and intense forward fruit. Basic Chianti works well when tomatoes are the dominant condiment. Beaujolais or inexpensive Australian Shiraz will work with lots of beef-based fast foods too. Acidic whites like Italian pinot grigio or the new unoaked Australian and New Zealand chardonnays will work well with chicken and pork-based entrees.
Off-dry whites will work with a lot of mildly flavored fast food, especially if the condiments tend to be sweet and spicy. I like Alsatian and California Riesling or Gewurztraminer with Chicago-style hot dogs, for example. With grilled bratwurst dabbed with a good brown mustard, I like a good Halb-trocken German Riesling to honor the German pioneers that settled in Sheboygan, which besides being the single greatest city name in history is also the bratwurst capital of the US.
Now we come to my favorite fast food and the ideal match. I love NY- style pepperoni pizza with extra cheese. It's a tough match for wine. You've got the bread of the crust, the acidic and often rather sweet tomato sauce, the salty meat, the rich and unctuous cheese. You need an acidic wine to slice through the fats, big flavors to stand up to the salt and tomatoes, and something to scrub the palate. In my book, the ideal match is a good Australian sparkling shiraz. It has all the requisite attributes. Indeed, if you can literally feeling your arteries clogging as you eat a good pizza, you can also feel a good sparkling red wine cleaning them out. It's the roto-rooter of Wine matches.
What I want to know is why California can't do the same thing with zinfandel. Indeed, I sometimes think I should make it my life's work to persuade some top California zinfandel producer to make a methode champenoise sparkling red wine.