No-Fault Wine Insurance

Drinking wine with your meals should add enjoyment, not stress, but it happens all too often. You briefly eye the wine list or scan the wine-shop shelf, thinking well, maybe...a beer. In the face of so many choices, you end up going with the familiar. But it can be easy to choose a wine to enjoy with your meal.

From endless experimentation at home and in the restaurant, I've come up with a list of "user-friendly" wines that will go nicely with virtually any dish. What these wines have in common is that they are light- to medium-bodied, and they have ample fruit and acidity. The idea here is that you will get a harmonious balance of flavors from both the wine and the food, with neither overwhelming the other.  Also, if you want the dish to play center stage, your best bets are wines from this list.

User-Friendly Wines

Rosé Wines

• Virtually any rosé or white zinfandel

White Wines

• Pinot Grigio
• Sauvignon Blanc / Fumé Blanc
• German Riesling, Kabinett, and Spätlese
• Pouilly-Fumé and Sancerre
• Mâcon-Villages
• Champagne and sparkling wines

Red Wines

• Chianti Classico
• Rioja Crianza
• Beaujolais-Villages
• Côtes du Rhône
• Pinot Noir
• Merlot

These wines work well for what I call "restaurant roulette" - where one diner orders fish, another orders meat, and so on. They can also match well with distinctively spiced ethnic foods that might otherwise clash with a full-flavored wine. And, of course, all these wines are enjoyable to drink on their own.

The above post appears in the 2009 edition of the Windows on the World Complete Wine Course by Kevin Zraly, available in bookstores now. Look for the 25th anniversary edition in Fall of 2009. The Windows on the World Complete Wine Course is the world's best-selling, most highly praised wine book.