Food and Wine » Wine and Pairings » Best wines for Italian food This lightened makeover of a heavier classic subs turkey sausage subs for fattier pork, puréed cottage cheese for béchamel, and a splash of olive oil for nearly half a cup of butter. Recipe: Lasagna with Sausage Ragù ReduxLively acidicy in this wine makes for bright, crisp cherry fruit, which plays off the tomatoes in the lasagna (acidic tomatoes can kill a low-acid wine). A hit of pepper in the Carignane echoes the spice in the Italian sausage. Recommended bottle: Poets Row 2010 Carignane (Alexander Valley).From Cabernet Sauvignon to Chianti, here are some of the wines that will work best with your favorite Italian dishes. With this list, whether it’s pizza or risotto, red sauce or white, you’ll never be at a loss when it comes to serving the perfect complimentary bottle of vino!Cabernet Sauvignon is the name of both the grape and the wine it produces. The primary taste of this wine is black currant, but other overtones may include blackberry and mint.

Cabernets are hearty and rich and go best with tomato-based red sauces.Italian Chianti is a strong, bold red wine that is perfectly suited for flavorful, well-seasoned sauces. It pairs best with tomato-based red sauces, but also works with cream- or oil-based sauces.Merlot is not quite as harsh as other reds. This mellow wine with flavors of plums, black cherry, violets, and orange goes best paired with tomato-based red sauces.Pinot Noir is a light red wine with flavors that include earth, leather, vanilla (from the oak), and jam. This versatile wine goes well with tomato-based red sauces, but also works with cream- or oil-based sauces.Sangiovese is a hefty red wine that pairs lovely with spicy Italian dishes. Best with tomato-based red sauces, it also works with cream- or oil-based sauces.Zinfandel is a deep red wine. Spicy and peppery, with a hint of berries or dark cherries, this wine goes best with thick, tomato-based red sauces.Chardonnay can taste semi-sweet or sour, heady or light, depending on where it’s grown and how it’s processed.

Typical flavors are apple, tangerine, lemon, lime, melon, and oak. Like most white wines, it is best paired with cream- or oil-based sauces, but also can be served with a light, tomato-based red sauce.Pinot Grigio/Pinot Gris actually are the same white grape, with two different names: In Italy and California, this wine is known as Pinot Grigio; while in Oregon and France, it’s known as Pinot Gris. This wine is best paired with cream- or oil-based sauces, but can hold its own with tomato-based red sauces, as well.Riesling usually is made to be a sweet wine, although it also can create a dry wine. The taste of this wine is affected by where it is grown — Californian Rieslings tend to be dry and have a melon taste, while German Rieslings are more tart and boast a grapefruit flavor. Pair Riesling with cream- or oil-based sauces.Sauvignon Blanc/Fume Blanc typically is very light. This wine often tastes of grass and apple, and has a soft, smoky flavor. Sauvignon Blancs tend to be crisp and acidic, which make them a nice match for cream- or oil-based sauces.

I love beer, white wine, sparkling wine, and rosé with pizza. But the classics never go out of style. Here are two Italian red wines that are dynamite with pizza. Both were consumed at Bar Del Corso, one of my favorite restaurants in Seattle. Even if you don’t get pizza there (which you should),  you’ll still have a great meal. wine gift box doubleAll non-pizza options are creative, fresh, and expertly prepared. red wine drink benefits(Though can I put in a plug for bringing back the baby turnips?)buy wine farm First up was the 2011 Azienda Agricola COS Cerasuolo di Vittoria. best red wine of 2008Hard to tell from this picture, but it comes in a squat bottle. best wine store texas

So it’s already got your attention. This Sicilian red is a blend of Nero d’Avola, which brings some richness to the party, and Frappato, which is the lively, lampshade-on-the-head counterpart. Together, they work like Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell: Second is what I consider to be the finest wine for pizza and cured meats. order wine without labelsOr pizza with cured meats. The Cleto Chiarli Vecchia Modena Premium is a dry and fizzy delight. It’s very pale, almost a rosé. And dangerously easy to drink. You’ll note the wild closure around the cork that seems intimidating, but you just (carefully) pull one of the wings out where they attach to the top of the bottle. (I saw our server do this with no fuss. A quick internet search reveals that, for many, a screwdriver is the preferred tool of choice….) More Bar Del Corso, featuring a nettle pesto pizza with guanciale More Seattle pizza, with padron peppers and an Italian rosé

Even more Seattle pizza, in a conversation with Mike Easton from Pizzeria Gabbiano: Tags: , , , , , , ,Some people may find this hard to believe, but I began to buy wines that I did not like or understand based on the passion of three people who did not know each other but were really persuasive.It was the early 1970s, and after chatting with these people several times, it was pretty evident that I was missing an opportunity if I didn’t buy a bunch of this stuff, and simply put them away in my “cellar.”Since I had hollowed out a small cave under the house I bought in late 1973, and since I only had about three cases of wine at that point, I began buying young red Italian wines.And relatively expensive wines at that. Even though the best California cabernet sauvignons were $7 at the time, I was paying $9 and $10 for some of these wines. I honestly don’t know why I did this because I didn’t like or understand the wines. But the passion of the gentlemen I chatted with was such that I could see no real downside to this.

They were insistent that I would figure out what the game was all about.In a way, the pinnacle experience in this journey occurred last Thursday night when we went to an Italian café in Healdsburg and opened a bottle of 1986 Gaja Barbaresco, a monumentally great wine, which reminded me that our cellar still has a number of classic Italian wines from that era.What makes this story so mystical is that I had been assured I would understand what was going on, and I was waiting for a moment of revelation. It never occurred, as far as I know, but as time went by I began to understand the passion for great, old, perfectly matured wines from Italian grapes.In his book “Native Wine Grapes of Italy,” author Ian d’Agata doesn’t wax poetic about even the greatest of Italian wines, such as Barolo. He simply makes clear that he believes the greatest red wines in the world are made from them and that the pinnacle of wine greatness is in a perfectly stored bottle.As such, the book ignores pinot noir and cabernet sauvignon, two of the best-known grapes that make age-worthy reds.

This might surprise most wine lovers, but it is almost exactly what I had been told by the three gentlemen I knew in the 1970s, who I ultimately thanked for their perspicacity.(One of them said a mere thank you wasn’t enough, so I opened for us a great bottle of a 12-year-old barbera from Giacomo Bologna.)Many wine lovers know what the game is about: you buy some wine purely on faith, with no particular intention of opening it any time soon. Patience often is rewarded, and it’s usually unnecessary to wait 20 years to get to that point.Take, for instance, high-quality Chianti. This is a wine that will fade at some point in the bottle. We still have some from the great 1985 vintage, and most are tired. Chianti is usually best between 10 and 15 years of age. What you get with time in the cellar is so much more than young Chianti delivers.The richness of today’s cabernets with their higher alcohols and obvious oak, can be tasty as youngsters, but Chianti rarely is aged in new barrels, so it doesn’t have an additional flavor layer, and it’s alcohol typically is fairly low.