What to pair with salads

Salad is often thought of as being tricky with wine. And yes, it’s true that adding a large, pungent helping of green salad with a vinegary dressing to your plate might disrupt (or even kill) a fragile, old Pomerol or a velvety Priorat. Vinegary dressings prefer to spar with young wines that have more tannic or acidic fight. So a better pick – if you want a red in your glass because you’re eating a well-dressed green salad with, say, rib of beef or roast duck – might be an edgy Chianti Classico, northern Rhône Syrah or youngish Médoc from a classical vintage.

But the real issue when it comes to any discussion of pairing wine with salad is the range and breadth of what is covered by the word ‘salad’, never mind what else might be with it on the plate. Where do you start? Where do you stop? I’ll begin with a classic that is often eaten as a meal in itself, especially in summer: salade niçoise. A classic pairing is rosé from Provence, which is partly a mood match: the two are so often eaten and drunk together on holiday in the south of France, with the smells of the maquis scrubland tickling your nostrils. Clément Cousin has a different idea. Cousin was a sommelier at Claridge’s Fera in its Simon Rogan days, and is now co-owner of Bavette, a neighbourhood bistro in Horsforth in Yorkshire, but he’s originally from the Loire and recommends trying Chenin Blanc from Anjou with a niçoise salad. ‘The acidity of the Chenin cuts through the richness of the tuna and eggs, and the minerality enhances the briny flavours of the olives and anchovies.’

Salade niçoise. Credit: Tatjana Baibakova / Shutterstock

Dominant flavours

In general, it pays to identify the key ingredient on your plate. Serving a big tomato salad alongside a bowl of spaghetti simply dressed with olive oil and fresh herbs or a roast chicken? Or perhaps a chopped Greek salad? Then you can take your cue from the tomatoes. Assyrtiko has a citrussy vigour that works well. So, too, does Sauvignon Blanc, which often has pyrazine notes that smell of grass, bell peppers and tomato leaves – this style will harmonise beautifully with the tomatoes on the plate.

Some foods have a habit of taking over a dish. Goat’s cheese (or curds) is one of these. For instance, a salad of bresaola and peppery dark leaves is very good with a perky Dolcetto red. Were you to add goat’s cheese to the plate, you’d be better with Sauvignon Blanc, ideally something lean and dry from the Loire or Bordeaux.

Sweet-bitter-fruit-herb

The sweet-sour-spice notes in Asian-style salads are good with aromatic wines that have fruitiness and purity. Think Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc (again), Riesling or Pinot Gris. With Vietnamese green papaya salad, my choice is always Riesling; founder of The Vietnamese Kitchen in London, Hieu Bui, suggests a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc as ‘its zesty citrus and herbaceous notes mirror the freshness of the green papaya’. If you are spice-sensitive, choose a wine with some residual sugar to calm the sting of the capsaicin in the chilli.

Vietnamese green papaya salad

Wines with a tinge of sweetness are also well matched to salads in which fruit, or a sweet dressing, plays a big part: imagine the luscious combination of a Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo rosé with the sweetness of watermelon and silky creaminess of burrata; or a German kabinett Riesling with peaches, lime and rocket. Of course, you might have many salads on the plate at once, and a kaleidoscope of notes of sweet and bitter and fruity and herbaceous, in which case, take a leaf out of the Ottolenghi restaurant book: its house white is an apricot-hued, skin-contact wine that rubs along with pretty much anything.

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