The Auswine Forum

Hi I'm a beginner of wine lover, I don't don't what wine would go with wood fired pizza and pasta dishes, I like red but could be white if you recommended.
thank you

Hi There,

The traditional italian wine match for pizza is Sangiovese, and I've found it works well. I've also found many medium bodied reds work just as well though, as long as they arent too ripe and sweet - shiraz and sone pinot noir work. Tempranillo can also work, but there arent that many around yet.

I'd consider white depending on whats on the pizza, eg prawns.


Wines I've liked with quality pizza:

Tahbilk Sangiovese
Tahbilk Shiraz
Primo Estate Il Briccone (Shiraz Sangiovese blend)

Also I dont drink a lot of hunter valley shiraz but it could work well,

cheers

Andrew

I had some 2004 Pirramimma Shiraz (White Label) with pizza earlier in the week. Not a match made in heaven, but the pizza certainly tamed the astringency and turned Pirramimma into a much more approachable wine.

Mike

The Wizz is spot on in his reccommendation about avoiding ripe and sweet reds when looking for something to go with pizza. Most Australian reds fit this category. Italian style reds are better.

The variety is one clue in finding a good pizza wine. Try sangiovese or barbera. But some aussie wines made from these varieties are really Australian style (Parkerised) reds.

The best clue is to look for wines (Australian or whatever) with lower alcohol, say around 12% rather than the 14-15% of many Aussie shirazes. These will be more likely to have savoury flavours of ripening fruit rather than the sweeter ripe fruit flavours.

Of course this is a generalisation but it can help when you are looking for a new wine match for tomato/herb based Italian style dishes.

Rousseau is excellent.
GW

Gary W wrote:Rousseau is excellent.
GW

Of course. it would be your house wine, yes?

Wizz wrote:

Gary W wrote:Rousseau is excellent.
GW

Of course. it would be your house wine, yes?

Wouldn't that be nice?
Can you imagine drinking Rousseau every night?

Lincoln wrote:

Wizz wrote:

Gary W wrote:Rousseau is excellent.
GW

Of course. it would be your house wine, yes?

Wouldn't that be nice?
Can you imagine drinking Rousseau every night?

You mean you dont?

I dont know if its a good match or not, but I recently had a "Battle of Bosworth" 2006 Rose with wood-fired Pizza's.
The pizza joint was Russel Jeavons place at Willunga South Aust.

A decent Barbera matches the acidity of the tomato sauce well IMHO
Prunotto's is available in Oz.

Grenache blends are good with pizza and pasta as the Grenache softens the other varieties so that the flavour isn't too overpowering or dry.

A really great Grenache Shiraz is the Coriole 'Lalla Rookh' Grenache Shiraz.

Or a GSM (Grenache Shiraz Mouvedre) which is a beatiful blend and a good crowd pleaser as it will suit a lot of different palates. The Hewitson 'Miss Harry' 2004 from the Barossa is delish.

I always reckon Grenache or GSM blends are the way to go with pizza and similar foods.

Try the 2005 Tim Smith GSM from the Barossa, it's a cracker of a wine.

I would like to try a 2005 Tempranillo from Samuel's Gorge, with my next pizza.

I was in Port Macquarie for a long weekend. One night I ordered delivered pizza and had Cassegrain Chambourcin, which went very well.

I think many of the non-traditional varietals are good with that sort of food. OK, make that RED varietals.

We do a lot of home made pizza and have plans to build a wood oven (if I can find the time). Good matches from the last couple of years have been:

Chrismont La Zona Marzemino 2002 - King Valley
di Lusso Barbera 2004 - Mudgee
Dal Zotto Sangiovese 2003 - King Valley
Kangarilla Road Zinfandel 2003 - Maclaren Vale
Mansfield Touriga 2005 - Mudgee
Mansfield Tinto Cao 2005 - Mudgee

The one problem I have with this "match a wine with wood fired pizza" topic is that wood fired pizzas come in significantly different styles.

I actually put myself through university by working as a pizza cook at a well renowned Melbourne gourmet pizza place.

The difference in mouth flavour between the two or three top selling pizzas was markedly different... we even used different sauce bases, not just napoli.

I would be happy with matching a variety of wines with pizzas, but only after working out what sort of Pizza.

A Sangiovese with a classic Napoli is fine, but I wouldn't be throwing it together with the pizza we made that had artichoke hearts, zucchini, green capsicum, olives and fetta. Something like that I'd be more inclined to try something like a Chenin Blanc or maybe a Rutherglen Durif.

I guess my point is that Pizza is a base, not a recipe. Matching the wine needs to take into account the ingredients, not just the name.