Is there any particular website that can give me thoughtful pairings to the widely varying regions & styles of Chinese food? I am sick of google coming up with 12 pages of American sites saying Riesling is always the answer.
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Generally speaking, wine is not indispensable but complementary to Chinese food because Chinese food is rich in seasoning and leaves no room for wine.
In Chinese fine restaurant, Sheng YongXing, they pair sea food with Burgundy white. For Beijing duck, a fresh fruity subtle sweet red wine is recommended such as Pinor Noir, Gamay, Grenach, Chinese Marcela or Pink Champagne. For Sea Cucumber, they recommend Pink Champagne, fruit-sweet Pinor Noir or Aged Bourgogne dry red. For Braised Abalone or Roast Venison Tendon, aged Bordeaux, Rioja or Chateauneuf du pape are well. The meaty crab and rich fatty roe pair well with Bordeaux blend, Syrah/Shiraz, Malbec. Rioja.
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This is a really important question, and thank you for raising the topic.
The big issue lies in the two-word phrase, ‘Chinese food’. No one who enjoys food-wine pairing would ever ask, ‘Which wine goes with Western food?’ Even ‘American’ or ‘European’ food. These categories of cuisine are way too broad.
Even ‘Italian food’ is too broad a category! Are we talking northern or southern? Butter or olive oil? Truffles or olives? Let’s move to the UK. Are we talking Cumberland sausages or Morecambe Bay oysters? Haggis from Scotland with whisky-steeped tatties and neeps, or samphire foraged from the salt marshes of Cornwall? In the US, one wouldn’t even ask which is the best wine to go with a barbecue, because it depends in which state the barbecue is taking place. It could be densely sweet and spicy or Mexican lime and fragrant.
China is a huge country, with immense contrasts, geographically and culturally, and these contrasts are reflected in the cuisine. Cooking styles and ingredients are markedly different in different regions of the country.
@sunh452, I hear your point, but wouldn’t necessarily agree. Middle Eastern food and North African cuisines are often rich in seasoning, but take to wine very comfortably.
When it comes to complex, intricate, powerfully flavoured/spiced dishes, and you need a quick please-all fix to work across a broad range of dishes, look for a wine that fits the tri-tick trick: 1) lots of pure bright fruitiness with or without a bit of sweetness; 2) good acidity, especially in the ripe tropical lime/yuzu spectrum (rather than the skinny vinegar spectrum); 3) electric/energetic texture, and by this I mean either the bubbles of a sparkling wine; the petillance of a young Riesling, Muscadet or Albarino; the tiny cashmere-and-sinew tannins of reds such as Bardolino; or the wet-terracotta feel of skin-contact and amphora/concrete-aged wines.
Personally (but of course, we’re all different) I would steer away from aged wines. I would also avoid bordeaux, burgundy above village level, any rioja other than Crianza level, CNP, and big alcoholic wines. These are for dishes with quieter, steadier, more introvert structure and flavour (yes, even CNP)/
Rosé can be brilliant for overt food flavours, but look for Navarra-style rosado or Chiaretto styles, rather than the blank-canvas of Provence-style pinks.
Again, in terms of a personal preference based on experience, sparkling wines are great if you have a number of different dishes to pair with, but I would stay away from zero dosage and anything too vegetal. A boldly fruity pink sparkling can be wonderful.
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I’d agree that this is an important point. From my (limited) experience, I’d suggest Cantonese cuisine is perhaps one of the more wine-friendly Chinese cuisines. In contrast, I’d expect a lot of dishes from Sichuan cuisine to be quite difficult to pair with wine.
I’ve often found young village level (or sometimes 1er cru level) Burgundies pair well with some Cantonese dishes. I like @tamlyn’s other suggestions too, of course – lots of food for thought there. Thanks!