Make No Mis-steak

Food Wine Pairing

May 1, 2022

Whenever “wine-pairing” is mentioned, everyone and their mother knows we should pair white wine with white meat, and red wine with red meat. While this is generally a useful rule of thumb, cutting the number of choices in half isn’t helping when 95% of the wines out there are either white or red.  In this blog post, let’s take a deep dive into the most popular dish to pair with wine: steak.

 

The cut matters

While there are thousands of breeds and cuts out there, I tend to simplify things when thinking from a wine-pairing perspective, by summarising steaks under 3 categories: “lean-tender”, “fatty-tender”, and “dry-aged”.

Lean-tender steaks are your tenderloins and bistecca alla fiorentinas. These steaks tend to have little to no marbling and lean toward a more refined and meatier flavour (snobs may call this “mineral forward”). An aged Bordeaux wine, with its elegantly balanced structure, will pair perfectly with the steak by accentuating the meatiness without overpowering the more delicate flavours of the steak. (Check out our collection of aged clarets in the Private Collection section)

Fatty-tender steaks are the favourite choice of many steakhouse patrons, which is not surprising given their sweeter and richer flavours which suit the modern palate. A marbled ribeye or Australian wagyu calls for an equally powerful red to be its match. We recommend a cabernet from Napa  which has the creaminess from its barrel ageing to stand up against the rich flavours of the steak and tannins to cut through the heaviness of the marbling. You may also opt for a Syrah from the Rhone Valley  or Shiraz from the Barossa Valley, both of which have peppery notes which are perfect for steaks.

Dry-aged steaks are wonderful as the aging process creates cheesy, nutty and truffley flavours, all of which pair well with wine. While the general rules of lean and fatty cuts still apply here, the more complex flavours of dry-aged steaks lend themselves to more experimental pairing choices. A particularly interesting choice may be to pair an aged white burgundy with grass-fed dry-aged steak. Before you accuse me of heresy, let me explain myself.  Nutty, mushroomy, mineral flavours, aren’t these all common between the steak and an aged white burgundy?  

 

Explore different pairing combinations and you may find yourself surprised by the unexpected. Or reach out to our experts to pick the perfect bottle for you. After all, the only mis-steak you can make is not drinking wine with your steak dinner.