Our best tips for eating thoughtfully and living joyfully, right to your inbox. Let's Keep in Touch! Get the recipes and features that have us talking, plus first dibs on events and limited-batch products. (Oh, and $10 off your order of $50 or more in the Food52 Shop, too.) Your Email AddressGet More Food52 Name your first collection or try one of these: Sorry, this item is currently out of stock. Expected back in stock . Notify me when it's back.We'll email you when it's available again. Thanks for signing up! Pick experts to follow for a better Food52.Never Miss a Delicious Recipe: We hope you enjoy your visit to our new site and, as always, our delicious recipes. Not yet signed up to our newsletter? Then sign up below and receive outstanding recipes right to your inbox: Send this to a friendYour emailRecipient email 7 Rules for Pairing Wine With Grilled FoodAbove: beef and pork ribs were superb at Roegels Barbecue Co., one in the new wave of independent bbq joints in Houston.

A few weeks ago, Houston Chronicle barbecue columnist J.C. Reid (a good friend of ours) published a story, “Barbecue and wine: The final frontier,” about a recent visit to Napa where he was pleasantly surprised to find a solid and intelligent barbecue restaurant with a 400+ lot wine list. The restaurant is called “Bounty Hunter Wine Bar & Smokin’ BBQ.” Almost sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? “The Bounty Hunter menu,” he wrote, “offers no less than five wine ‘flights’ or pairing combinations to go with the ‘Smokin’ BBQ Platter’ which features heaping portions of pulled pork, sliced brisket and pork ribs.” (You can read his complete review here. And he regularly posts subscription-free links to his column on his personal blog. For my money, Chris — as he is known to friends — is the leading bbq writer in the country today and he often travels beyond Houston and Texas for his column.) His story about Bounty Hunter, the growing interest in bbq across the U.S., and how it’s opened up a new dimension in wine pairing echoes something he wrote a few weeks earlier.

In “Have we reached peak barbecue?” he noted that “more than any other time in American history, barbecue — and specifically Texas barbecue — is truly a cultural phenomenon. And it’s not limited to the U.S. — as I’ve reported, Texas barbecue joints are opening in cities such as Paris, Berlin and Rome.” “I’ve come to call this cultural and media frenzy over smoked meat ‘peak barbecue.'” Over the last five years, I’m sure he would agree, Houston, a city previously not known for its bbq, has become one of the epicenters of the bbq renaissance. Today, smokers like Killen’s and Cork Screw in Houston regularly appear in “best bbq” listicles published throughout America. Above: the smoky, bacon fat character of the Syrah in this wine by Denner worked well with the Roegels spread. This cult Paso Robles wine had nice acidity and restrained, elegant wood. But at 15.6 percent alcohol (holy cow!), you couldn’t really call the wine balanced. On Saturday, he invited us to an informal wine tasting at Roegels in Houston, one of the city’s latest entries in the new wave of bbq here.

There were roughly 15 people in attendance and a handful (including me) brought wines to share. When I saw the bottles lined up, it struck me: aside from a bottle of Champagne (that worked brilliantly with the meal), I was the only person who brought wines other than red (I brought a southern France rosé made from Mourvèdre, a macerated white from Campania, and a Negroamaro).best wine store uk As Texas bbq culture continues to seep gush into gastronomic hegemony, it was only natural that wine-loving Americans would want to pair their favorite bottles with a new favorite cuisine.top restaurants in wine country ca And Americans still love big, bold red wine like the Denner, above.top 10 wine distribution companies

Above: reading the back label for the Denner, it’s clear that the people who make it put a lot heart into delivering an outstanding expression of Syrah. At roughly $50 a pop, it’s indicative — in my view — of where American wine tastes continue to focus.best place to buy wine in bulk For many people, big and bold is the only way to go with bbq, a cuisine based on intense aromas and flavors (my clothes and hair smelled so strongly of smoke after we visited Roegels that I took a shower after we came home from our meal; not unusual when you visit a genuine bbq joint like Roegels, which I enjoyed immensely).best red wine with spicy pasta I always prefer leaner, lower-alcohol, and higher-acidity wines with bbq. best red wine for birthday gift

I like the way they work as a counterpoint to the fattiness and heavy and often overwhelming flavor of the smoked meats. When I pair with bbq, I look for freshness and present but balanced fruit. Sparkling wine is ideal, I find, especially because of the generally judicious alcohol (the heavy saltiness of the Texas rub makes you thirsty and so you tend to drink more wine when eating bbq).buy quality wine online But as Saturday’s gathering reveled, my taste in this case falls outside today’s canon for pairing with Texas-style smoked meats.best red wine for book club The Bounty Hunter’s wine director likes to pair “Pinot” [Noir] from Napa and Zinfandel, wrote Chris in his review. city best wine londonWhen Tracie P and I packed up the kids on Saturday, there was still a half bottle left of the rosé I had brought.