Superbowl Pairings

Superbowl Pairings

The Superbowl is one of my favorite events of the year.  This year's event pairs Seattle and New England. It's a real interesting matchup for our family, as my Dad's a long time fan of the Patriots organization. We both love football though and have lived in the Northwest for many years and therfore follow the Seahawks as well. This year the Patriots bested the Hawks, which I'm sure was bittersweet for my Dad. Finding the right pairings in wine as well as anywhere in life can be difficult, but pairing Superbowl foods is something I'll tackle in this blog post.

I've been using a new social media program lately called Cyberdust. Developed by Mark Cuban, Cyberdust has a great community of people on it that I asked a simple question to this morning: "What are you eating on this Superbowl Sunday?". Wine's not always the best pairing with food. Yes, that's coming from a winemaker. Keeping that in mind I've paired some of your classic Superbowl dishes with beer and wine. My handle on Cyberdust is +oregonwineguy btw. We'll start with my food:

+oregonwineguy

Food: Twice Baked Potato

Our potatos included bacon (of course), bacon fat, onions, mushrooms, bell peppers, garlic, cheddar cheese, and green onions topped with salsa and cilantro.

Beverage: With the salt and fat in this dish I'd pair these with a standard stout such as the Pelican Tsunami Stout or a Porter like Deschutes Black Butte Porter. Wine pairings would be earthy reds with a fair amount of tannic strucutre for a complementary pairing like a French Burgundy. A good contrasting pairing on the other hand might be a fruity, acidic medium bodied red like our LaVelle Northwest Duet.

+3zerodressing

Food: Eggplant Parmessan

An Italian standard, this dish should pair nicely with a big Italian barolo or even a medium bodied Chianti. Our LaVelle Trilogy would also be a good pairing. The acid in a rich tomato sauce is where you'd start to dial in a nice wine pairing for this classic Italian dish.

+daniel_42

Food: Chips and Guac

I actually had this at my house too. Guacamole can be prepared with an emphasis on the individual ingredients, but to me the garlic and lime are what would sway my beverage pairings. If you like your guac with a lot of garlic and lime, I would go to a medium weight IPA like Hop Valley's Citrus Mistress. If you use less of these ingredients in your guac I'd turn to a nice, acidic white wine from Oregon like Pinot Gris or Riesling for a little more punch.

+kicksattire

Food: Fresh Tomato slice and Spinach with Sunnyside Egg on top

This one is a little off the beaten path of Superbowl Sunday, but it sounds fantastic! A couple of ingredients found in a Caprese Salad and then BOOM, we get hit with a sunnyside up egg! Now, the egg is a classic, big rich flavor that on it's own would pair well with a big, buttery Chardonnay. Add the acid of the tomato and the vegetal nuance of the spinach and you create more of a rich gooey salad in a bite. I would pair that with the LaVelle White Pinot Noir.

+johsco

Food: Nachos and meaty sauce

Nachos to me, especially in a meaty sauce screams savory. Extreme savory is a tough pairing with Oregon wines. I would go to your latino beers on this one. Pacifico, Corona, and even dare I say Coors Light? Pairings with wine would be limited to Riesling. If you have a ton of cilantro going on here you can go Pinot Gris in this case as well.

Ok, so the moral of the story is that there's always next year, there are some wines that pair well with Superbowl food, and overall what a fantastic game to end a great football season!