It is clearly and officially grilling season, where food is more commonly cooked on the grill than indoors and the most common sauce slathered on suddenly becomes BBQ sauce. The sweet tomato, vinegar and brown sugar sauce is delicious, but poses it’s own pairing issues for those that would like a glass of wine even with a simple BBQ chicken meal or the like. When picking a wine to pair with BBQ remember that while the sauce is a major flavor, the meat being grilled still needs to be taken into account when making decisions. To make even a simple grilled dinner special try putting the wine in crystal wine decanters.
The challenge of pairing wine with barbeque is hard because a drier wine is necessary. Sweet wine, or even just slightly too sweet, with the sugary BBQ sauce can take the savory tone away from the whole meal. Of course just like with all wine pairings the only solid rule is that there is no rules. Have fun and remember that if a favorite wine seems like it would work than try it out with the barbaque meal fresh off the grill. Most of the time any good wine can work with good fresh BBQ because good food is universally enjoyable.
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