What do wine and barbecue have in common?  After all, beer is the barbecue beverage, right?  Most would agree that beer goes well with a lot of barbecue, and I completely agree, but ignoring wines that go great with barbecue leaves out a great combination!

There are some obvious wines for
barbecue: Zinfindel is from California, born and bred, and is a great
barbecue wine, especially with spicy chicken and brisket.  Grenache is
also a great wine to have, along with Beaujolais wines… these are red
wines served chilled, which is great when you’re barbecuing in hotter
weather.  These go well with just about any barbecue, from fleshier
fish to chicken, pork, beef and lamb.  In fact, I think wine goes
better with some barbecue than beer does.

One really great way
to pair wine with barbecue is go make sangria.  You can do this with
white or red wine, but I like red the best.  I start with a dry Spanish
red (a good Rioja is a great base).  I use equal amounts of wine and
sparkling water.  We have a sort of tradition where we like a lot of
fruit in the sangria, and we call it fruit cocktail.  The typical
recipe is kind of:

750 ml bottle of Rioja
750 ml bottle of sparkling water
1 lime
1 lemon
1 orange
1/4 cup brandy
2 Tbsp sugar

Mix
the wine and sugar until the sugar is dissolved.  Add in the fruit, all
sliced thin, and the brandy.  Just before serving, add the sparking
water.

I add the following when I make it, though
1 Tbsp cinnamon
Any kind of fruit that sounds good (this includes black cherries, strawberries, star fruit, pears, apples, etc)

We serve in individual sangria pitchers, and just load them up with fruit.

Wine and BBQ… let me know if you’ve tried it and what you think.