The snooty side of food pairings preaches "No Wine with Salad." I fed on this falsehood for years, following the widely-held mantra like an evangelical wino. Then one day, a miraculous salad and vino combo made me rethink my reliance on traditional not-so-wisdom.
Not that I was always so cool and contrarian. Before my re-awakening, I lapped up all the drivel wine magazines and writers spit out. But, like a rebellious teenager, I slowly realized it wasn't adding up. Salads are simply another dish with sauce slathered on it. Match the sauce with the wine and you win. To give tradition some credit, back in the day salad dressings mostly contained robust vinegars like distilled white or cider that rendered wine lifeless and dull; it made sense to teach wine-with-salad avoidance. Times have changed, however. Now that less acidic rice or sweeter balsamic vinegars and lime and lemon use are common, wine and dressing can snuggle up and make sweet, tart love.
Since we're dealing with delicate, cold food, it makes sense to choose wines that fit a similar profile: whites and rosés. The ideal salad partner is sparkling wine or Champagne — their refreshing acidity equals the body of a salad, bringing new meaning to friends with benefits. But if bubbly is out of budget, here are other suggestions for salad and wine hookups. (See a list of budget sparklers)
This article appears in Jul 15-21, 2009.