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My 5 Top Wine And Steak Pairing Tips

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Top pairings | The best wine pairing for steak

Steak is the ideal foil for a good red but is there a perfect match? You could simply say the one you most enjoy but it also depends on the cut and the way you cook it.

  • The rarer a steak is the more it will lessen the sensation of tannin in any accompanying wine. So if you have a young or comparatively young cabernet sauvignon or malbec, for instance, a rare steak will make it taste more mellow
  • The fattier a steak is the more robust a wine it needs. Rhône reds or other syrah or GSM (grenache/syrah/mourvèdre) blends are perfectly suited to ribeye steaks while a leaner fillet steak pairs better with a pinot noir.
  • The more charred (and therefore bitter) a steak is the more ripeness/sweetness you want in your wine. A Coonawarra or Napa Valley cabernet for example or a Stellenbosch cabernet sauvignon.

Grilled ribeye steak with red wine

  • Sauces make a difference. A rich red wine sauce like my Essential Steak Sauce will need a wine that can stand up to it like a malbec or a good quality red Bordeaux. (If you’re making the sauce yourself drink a wine of slightly better quality than you used to make the sauce) With a peppercorn sauce you don’t want a wine that’s too oaky and/or high in alcohol or it may make each mouthful too spicy. A ripe Rhône or Languedoc red such as a Minervois should work well.. With a béarnaise sauce a pinot again is a good match or you could even drink a rich white like a Meursault or other full-bodied chardonnay. With an Argentine chimichurri sauce a malbec is the obvious go to.
  • If you’re serving an older red ease back on the saucing and serve the wine with its natural juices. If it’s a very old vintage you might even want to serve the steak medium-rare.

My top 5 wines for steak

Malbec (especially Argentinian malbec)

Cabernet sauvignon

Merlot

Shiraz/syrah and syrah blends e.g. with grenache and mourvèdre

‘Supertuscans’ and other modern Tuscan reds

 

By: Fiona Beckett

(Grabbed from: https://www.matchingfoodandwine.com/news/pairings/wine-and-steak-pairing-tips-5-things-you-need-to-know-about-matching-steak-with-wine/?tag=top)