Pairing Wine and Pizza

We drink a lot of wine with pizza. Maybe most people crack open a beer, or down some soda, but for us on a Friday night, there is nothing like a hot slice with a nice glass of red wine. It's the perfect way to end a long week.

Picking the right wine for pizza is fairly straight forward. Just so long as you aren't dealing with a "White" pizza, the tomato sauce is going to be a defining flavor. You need a red wine, with some sweetness to complement the sweet acidity of the tomato. Then you need to pick the perfect red wine based on your other toppings. Most pizzas come with cured meats: sausage, pepperoni, or other most exotic options. This means saltiness, earthiness and maybe a hint of spice to the meat, which gives you some options with similar flavors in the wine.

• Chianti will have that hint of spice and dark fruit suited for some of the spicier cured meats.
• Zinfandel can offer some spice and red fruit for meatier options like sausage.
• Pinot Noir can offer some sweet red fruit and earthiness to complement lighter cured meats.

If you are looking at veggies on your pizza though, it gets a lot harder. You might want to play around with white wine. Stick to Italy: a Pinot Grigio might be your best bet.