Summertime is about many things: outdoor activities, music festivals, sports, holidays, celebrations, and gatherings. For foodies, summer signals the start of barbecue season. It’s nothing fancy, just friends and family gathering in the backyard or on the rooftop, sharing delicious food and memorable moments. Like any good gathering, a barbecue isn’t complete without the perfect drinks. While cold beer is a common choice, wine lovers may ask: what’s the best wine for a summer barbecue?

Below wine consultant Sylvia Ba, a vinicultural expert with the “VinoVoss” AI Sommelier wine search engine and recommendation system developed by BetterAI, gives guidance:

What Sommeliers Would Recommend

Whether you are hosting a barbecue party or attending one but wonder what wine to serve or bring, both traditional human sommeliers and innovative AI sommeliers like VinoVoss generally recommend bold reds for barbecue. Grenache, Syrah, and GSM (Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre blends) are at the top of the list for pairing with barbecue foods. The rich flavors of charred meat, combined with spices, harmonize beautifully with fruity, round red wines that have spicy, smoky, or oaky notes. Zinfandel and Primitivo pair wonderfully with caramelized foods, while other bold reds like Malbec, oaked Tempranillo, or a Bordeaux blend are also popular choices.

Summer Wine and Barbecue: An Unlikely Pair?

From a food and wine pairing perspective, bold reds are indeed suitable for barbecue. However, bold reds can taste heavy and often have high alcohol content, which might not be the best fit for hot summer days. This is why many people opt for cold beer instead. In summer, we crave refreshing white wines to cool us down, but does that mean summer wines and barbecue are incompatible? The answer is no. There are plenty of summer wines that pair perfectly with barbecue.

Pork-based barbecue favorites like sausages and short ribs, seasoned with flavorful spices, not only pair well with red wines like Grenache, Syrah, or Zinfandel but also shine with high-acidity white wines like Riesling and Grüner Veltliner. The acidity cuts through the grease and adds freshness. Riesling is known to complement savory sauces, while Grüner Veltliner, with its herbaceous, white pepper notes, is perfect for sausages. In their home countries, Riesling and Grüner Veltliner are preferred wines for pork-based German and Austrian cuisine. Additionally, these high-acidity white wines, by nature, pair well with vegetables.

All-Rounder Barbecue Wines

If you’re concerned about going to extremes between bold reds and refreshing whites, don’t worry. There are versatile barbecue wines for your summer gatherings. Barbecue covers a range of foods from vegetables to mushrooms, from fish to meat skewers, so it’s ideal to have a master solution.

Light-Bodied, Chillable Reds

If bold reds feel too heavy, light-bodied red wines are perfect summer reds. Wines like Gamay, certain Pinot Noirs, Loire Valley Cabernet Franc, Frappato, Schiava, and many carbonic or semi-carbonic maceration reds are excellent choices. They have enough body to pair with meat but the fruit-forward character makes them food-friendly, so they won’t overpower vegetables or grilled fish. Most importantly, they are best enjoyed slightly chilled, bringing freshness to a hot summer afternoon.

Orange Wine

Some say orange wine is a white wine that tastes like red. It combines the vibrant acidity and refreshing character of white wines with the depth and structure of red. Orange wine is an all-rounder for food pairing, matching perfectly with well-seasoned, spicy foods, grilled asparagus, or sausages.

Pet Nat

For some, bubbles and barbecue are the ultimate pairing. Champagne and other traditional method sparkling wines are good choices, but Pet Nat (pétillant naturel) is even better. Its refreshing acidity and bubbles enhance the summer vibe, and its yeasty flavors and slight residual sugar add body, making it suitable for a variety of foods and barbecue seasonings. Plus, Pet Nat is ideal for casual, fun moments with friends. It’s an approachable wine to enjoy without giving it too much thought.

Are you ready to spice up your summer barbecues with the perfect wines? Share good moments, delicious food, laughter, and exceptional wines with your loved ones! For the Silo, Merilee Kern.

Merilee Kern, MBA is an internationally-regarded brand strategist and analyst who reports on cultural shifts and trends as well as noteworthy industry change makers, movers, shakers and innovators across all categories, both B2C and B2B. This includes field experts and thought leaders, brands, products, services, destinations and events. As a prolific lifestyle, travel, dining and leisure industry voice of authority and tastemaker, Merilee keeps her finger on the pulse of the marketplace in search of new and innovative must-haves and exemplary experiences at all price points, from the affordable to the extreme. Her work reaches multi-millions worldwide via broadcast TV (her own shows and copious others on which she appears) as well as a myriad of print and online publications.

I’m a tomato snob. I can’t help it. I’ve had the best and will never go back.

The first summery taste of a home-grown tomato, fully matured on the vine and still warm from the sun is one of the great taste pleasures of summertime. You need to experience it to appreciate it.

The poor imported supermarket version of the tomato just doesn’t compare. And in reality, it can’t. The imports are picked when they just start to show some colour, before their texture and especially their flavors have had a chance to develop. Then they travel, sometimes halfway around the world.
Consequently on the store shelves we see these hard, bland-tasting, thick-skinned things that misrepresent what a tomato could be.

In fact, modern tomato varieties are developed specifically for this kind of handling, packaging and transport. Thick skins, uniformity of size and shape are all desirable attributes to producers. Unfortunately, flavor isn’t. But we want tomatoes, so we take what we can get. However, with a little effort, we can get better. Why not grow your own? It’s easy. And why not grow specifically old-fashioned varieties? They taste a million times better than the imports and you aren’t paying for the oil to get them here.

Why I’m hooked on heirloom tomatoes.

The variety of colours, shapes, sizes, and even flavours, is almost endless. And it is a lot like collecting antiques. In my own garden experience I’ve grown everything from the marble-sized ivory-coloured White Currant to the enormous red Sicilian Saucers. The fabulous tasting Black Krim (originating from the Isle of Krim in Russia) is my absolute favourite of all tomatoes, with it’s lovely burgundy skin and marbled magenta and green interior. The appearance, flavour and variety in the heirlooms simply cannot be approached by the mass-produced types.

Though tomatoes originate in ancient Mexico, the heirlooms in my own collection were developed, some as far back as centuries ago, in France, Italy, Germany, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, USA, Russia, and the list goes on. Some of their names are descriptive: Black Cherry, Green Grape, Big Rainbow, Indian Stripe, the absolutely beautiful Persimmon, and the absolutely weird Purple Calabash. And some of them bear the names of their sources: Andrew Rahart’s Jumbo Red, Aunt Gertie’s Gold, Marianna’s Peace, Martha Homestead, and my favourite named – Olga’s Round Yellow Chicken Tomato – all varieties discovered and saved by home gardeners, often passed down through families for generations, and shared with friends.

And so, through the efforts of seed-savers throughout the world, the tomatoes are spared extinction and continue to be enjoyed for their wonderful flavor, but not by the masses. Only by snobs like me. And maybe you.

For the Silo, Rick Posavad.

The Silo

Tag Archives: summertime

Wines Sommeliers Suggest For Backyard Summer Barbecues