I love serving mixed Mediterranean food at dinner parties in the summer – mezze-style plates of food – but I never know what wine to serve with it. Help, please.
There are few things more inviting than a table groaning with plate after plate of spicy, herby Mediterranean food, especially if the weather is good. This includes a wide variety of dishes, usually plenty of salads, grilled meat, hot or cold fish, along with various spreads, dips and olives. This makes for a huge range of strong flavours that can seem challenging to match with wines.
Think first of the Mediterranean countries: Greece, Italy, the south of France, Spain and Lebanon all produce characterful wines that should do nicely. Sicily, for instance, makes very good inexpensive white and red wines. Greek wines are great but tend to be quite expensive.
Another possibility is rosé, which goes well with most dishes and can seem the perfect match if the sun is shining. Serve well chilled and go for a medium-bodied wine with some fruit – it will go very nicely with meat dishes as well as salads and fish.
Another more daring idea is orange wine. It seems to be having a moment this summer and can stand up to most powerful herby and spicy flavours. But then again it might depend on how adventurous your guests are.
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I would probably go for either an albariño from Rías Baixas in Spain or a verdicchio from Italy for a white wine. For a red a Beaujolais or Valpolicella could be good, but why not go for a lighter southern or Sicilian Italian red such as Rosso Conero, Montepulcino d’Abruzzo, Frappato or Perricone?
Alternatively, and to make life easy, for a Mediterranean lunch or dinner, you could serve just one wine, a rosé either from the Languedoc or somewhere in Italy. Cerasuolo from the Abruzzo is good if you can find it. Just make sure you serve it chilled, along with plenty of iced water and alcohol-free options.
