The Best Types Of Wine To Pair With Creamy Pasta Dishes
Whether you're a total wine geek or you simply reach for the bottle with the prettiest label, it can be difficult to decide which type of wine will pair best with your dinner plans. A wine pairing can make or break your eating experience, depending on the flavors in your dish and the complex notes of each wine. It's widely understood that red wines are best with red meats, and you should always pair white wine with fish. But a meal is made of much more than its proteins. The experts at Wine Folly advise that when it comes to planning your food and wine pairs, "It is better to match the wine with the sauce than with the meat."
If you have a creamy pasta dish on the menu such as a carbonara or alfredo, it is typically best to reach for a white wine. However, there are many types of white wines to navigate, ranging from incredibly dry and acidic to sweet and sparkling. When deciding which wine will best enhance your creamy pasta, pay close attention to the acidity levels and how they match up to the richness of your pasta.
The notes in your wine can either compliment or clash with your meal
Acid levels are extremely important when it comes to wine pairings. Pasta with cream-based sauce does not contain much natural acidity and the flavors are rich, so the wine must have enough acid to cut through the heavy dish, lightening up the palate. It's also smart to reach for a wine that has similar flavor profiles to that of your dish. You can reach for high-acidity, buttery Chardonnay to pair with a butter-laden fettuccine alfredo, for example.
If you are craving a red wine pairing with your creamy pasta, reach for a bold Cabernet Sauvignon or a Merlot. While red wine typically pairs best with red pasta sauces, some enjoy the high tannin levels of red wine as a way of cutting through all the richness in a dish. On the whole, if you are entertaining a mixed-preference crowd or those who are not as experienced with wine, the aforementioned white wines are a great choice to pair with creamy sauces. Ultimately, there is no one perfect wine to pair with a creamy pasta dish, and the right choice will come down to preference.
Do you pair your wine-based sauce with the same wine?
Wine comes in handy for more than sipping, as many delicious pasta recipes call for a splash of wine to be simmered down as part of the sauce. A creamy white wine sauce is perfect for light proteins like chicken, seafood, and even mushrooms. Cooking wine into a pasta sauce provides a burst of acidity that allows the fuller flavors in your meal to shine through. When adding wine to a cream-based sauce, the same pairing rules apply, therefore cooking with white wine is best to complement the creamy richness in your pasta dish.
Another question is, do you use high-quality wine in your sauce, or would that be a waste? The answer is that you should never cook with a wine that you wouldn't drink. Quality matters here. As for pairing the wine with that same dish — you absolutely should drink the wine you used to make the sauce with the final meal, as they will complement each other perfectly.