Seafood and Wines??

[Larry Phelps]

Anyone know what wines go with Seafood, such as crab legs, lobster, schampi, and shrimp?
Any comments would be most appreciated...

[Innkeeper]

Reisling, preferably from the Northwest USA. They also make decent ones in New York State, but if we can't get them in Maine, don't think you can in Texas either.

[This message has been edited by Innkeeper (edited 02-15-2000).]

[hotwine]

For my bucks, a good Riesling for many types of seafood is Schmitt-Sohne Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, available at Sam's Wholesale Club as well as many liquor stores throughout Texas. Look for a blue bottle... but avoid Blue Nun and Liebfraumilch. Schmitt-Sohne is available in various grades/qualities, including Kabinett, Spatlese and Auslese. The Kabinett or Spatlese are good choices for shrimp or crab legs. Serve very well-chilled. The price at Sam's is about $7 for the Spatlese, and maybe $5 for the Kabinett. At those prices, it passes through my cellar pretty quickly.

[Innkeeper]

The sweeter wines would go fine with the scampi and other dishes of that complexity. For most shellfish in their altogether naturalness we recommend the dry, crisp, fruity Reislings that easiest found among the Northwest offerings. There are off drys from that region, and they are not recommended.

[Bucko]

Sancerre from Loire is hard to beat.

Bucko

[Scoop]

Hey Bucko, we've got this Loire thing going on lately. You can't beat a good Sancerre with the seafood dishes mentioned, and two other closely-related, sauvignon blanc-based appellations, Pouilly Fume (across the Loire River) and Menetou-Salon are also great seafood companions.

I'll have to review some tasting notes, but at last tasting of Loire whites in which I participated (last Spring), the above-mentioned wines showed extremely well. Good wine-making going on.

Cheers,

Scoop

[Bucko]

I am a Loire white wine fanatic. Great wines at great values. They work with a wide range of foods.

Bucko

[Thomas]

As good as Sancerre does with seafood (my favorite too) Quincey and Bordeaux Graves do fine also.

[Scoop]

Mais oui, Foodie. A Bordeaux Graves is a great seafood companion -- and it can be one of the finest whites in the world, period -- but the price for a good Graves is considerably higher in most cases than a high quality Sancerre or Menetou-Salon. Of course, no price parameters were given at the start of this string, so I guess the world is our oyster (Muscadet, anyone?) until a budget is indicated.

Cheers,

Scoop

[Thomas]

Uncooked and on the half-shell, I hope, and with just a squirt of lemon. Sure, Bucko, I flirt with liver disease, but what a courtship!

[Innkeeper]

Just so happens that last night we had a lobster dinner delivered from Legal Sea Foods that our stockbroker gave us for Christmas. We matched it up with Greenwood Ridge Vineyards, Mendocino Ridge, White Reisling, 1998; that we had received from our winebroker. Admittedly off dry at 1.8% residual sugar, it married wonderfully with the sweet meat of the lobster. We rest our case.

[tommy_d]

any sauvignon blanc (not from Cali)...loire, of course, and even better, from New Zealand! The citrus and aciditity play the same role as a squeeze from a lemon!!

cheers.

[mrdutton]

I happen to think that a good bottle of Pouilly-Fuisse also goes quite well with seafood.

[misterjive]

Viva Italia, gotta represent for my Italian homies! Vernaccia would be awesome with most all of these dishes, and I have always considered it one of the best seafood wines in the world. Trebbiano could also work wonders with clams and mussels and fish, and go to a Gavi if you have a dish that is prepared with lots of olive oil and lemon. Finally, sometimes I think I'm the only non-Italian in the world to appreciate a refreshing bottle of frizzante, which, despite usually being NV, is effervescent and unpretentious and dry enough to bite into even the most oily of monkfish. (And, since monkfish is sometimes called "poor man's lobster," let me just say that I'm still waiting for my stockbroker--Stuart, from the Ameritrade ads--to buy me a lobster dinner!!!)