wine with greek

[adso13]

Okay, I'm really new at this whole wine thing, and I'm making a greek dish with beef and pasta. It's got garlic and onions, and a custard topping. What kind of wine would go best with this? I enjoy merlots and cabernet sauvingons, would either of those be good with this type of dish? Is there any particular type of wine that tends to go best with greek cooking? Thanks in advance for the help.

[Innkeeper]

Hi Adso, and welcome to the Wine Board. I like to match ethnic food with ethnic wine. A widely distributed Greek wine that will go nicely is Boutari Naoussa. The next best match would be an Italian wine. Look for a Montepulciano D'Abruzzo.

[hortega]

hi, im a beginner and don't know much about wines, so i'd like to know if there is a "general" rule about food and wine that accompanies it, such as strong-flavored food goes with light wine or similar. thanks

[Innkeeper]

Hi Hortega, and welcome to the Wine Board. The rule you mention is as close to an ironclad one that there is. Don't know of a single rule that can't be broken for one reason or another. There are guidelines though that will help you enrich your food and wine experiences. Anddrea Immer's "Great Taste Made Simple" (available both used and in paper back) is a great collection of guidelines.

[wineguruchgo]

Hi Hortega,

Welcome to the wineboard! As a general rule, which has been mentioned can be broken, you want the food to be the predominate flavor in your mouth. Wine should always take a secondary role and enhance the food.

Think of what you are eating. Let's use a light, white flaky fish for example. Would you put a big, rich, beef stock on it? Probably not. Because you wouldn't taste the fish. You would probably put something mild like butter or lemon. It's the same with wine.

There are a lot of websites out there that can also help you if you don't want to peruse through a book, including this one. We have a section called Wine/Food Affinites that you can search through to help you.