Mediterranean / N African Food

[paul]

My wife and I are going to a Mediterranean / North African Restaurant for our anniversary. It's a bring your own wine place. We like red wine. We'll probably order some type of seafood our chicken. I know that's pretty broad but it there any red wine you could recommend that would go with anything in this category? Thanks

[Thomas]

Look for Mediterranean red wines from, say, the Douro in Portugal or maybe a fine Salice Salentino from Italy or perhaps a Moroccan wine, if you can find one. Oh, yes, Southern French reds might work.

Ask your retailer for something in the above category.

[Innkeeper]

Foodie is right on. I would go for a Cotes du Rhone with your meal. Parallele "45" from Paul Jaboulet Aine is available almost everywhere, and is consistant year in year out.

[Scoop]

In fact, the 1998 Parallele 45 is already out, and it stands out compared with other recent, consistently solid releases of Jaboulet's "45".

But definitely Cote du Rhone (like Oratoire St. Martin) or Languedoc (Clavel is a good producer) syrah and grenache-based red wines would go very well.

Cheers,

Scoop

[Jerry D Mead]

Another user-friendly, value-priced Cote du Rhones is under the Caves du Papes brand imported by Cannon Wines of San Francisco.

[Randy Caparoso]

If you ask me -- of course, no one really does, so I just have to tell 'em -- I say bring a soft, smooth Spanish red. Such as a Rioja, a Tinto Pesquera, or a Carchelo Monastrell or Carchelo Syrah from South-East Spain. Why? Sometimes Northern African cooking can be immensely aromatic with multiple spices. So a softer tannin red, to me, is slightly safer than a red wine with heavier, slightly rougher tannins (like some of the Rhones and Italians mentioned). Soft, smooth textures are more likely to welcome strong food spices.

This, of course, is a conservative approach. You just might want to bring a Syrah based wine from France (I suggest a St. Joseph or the Domaine de Gautiere from Provence) along with something from Spain just to compare. Find out for yourself!

[Jason]

To steal a page from the play book of Henry Clay (The Great Compromiser), why not find a wine that deals with all the above?
Rhone with softer tannins (read Granache)- Gigondas. Guigal is a good producer.
Plus it has the added benefit of being one of the best regions to pronounce.