Buffalo Wings and our friend at Butta Cakes

Sunday is the Superbowl of course and we were asked about what wine to serve with  Buffalo Wings.  Our friend Mark, the proprietor of Butta Cakes on Main Street is cooking up huge batches of wings with various "coatings" and we have to tell you that they are both fabulous and at a very good price..... not to mention that he does the cooking and not us!

We asked Mark what wine he likes with his Wings and he of course replied his preference for the traditional beer. Well obviously there is a micro-brewery in our town so in fairness, that is probably his prime choice and if you have had their brew, the difference between that fresh taste and something from the convenience store shelf is, well, considerable.  But many of us are not beer drinkers so we think about wine (after all we are Greenport Wine and Spirits!)

We turned to our friends in California wine country for a hint and here is what they wrote:

Ira Brill, public relations guru with Foster Farms, has his own suggestions for wine pairing.
“We always say chicken wings are product have fun with so I advise people to keep it uncomplicated,” he said.  “A chardonnay would be over doing it so I would suggest a sauvignon blanc with a nice herbal quality. A merlot would work well too.”

Roden, winemaker at FishEye Winery, has some definite ideas about pairing wings and wine.  “The big thing really with wings is what type of sauce or marinade they have been cooked in.” he said. “From what I have seen and eaten, most are in the hot and extremely hot and spicy range.  This is always a challenge for matching wine.”  For wings at the ‘cooler’ end of the range, Roden said a dry Riesling is usually a good match – even better is a dry Gewürztraminer. These wines can have both the spicy, floral characteristics and the clean, acid finish that blend and match really well with spicy, foods. “As the heat level of the wings goes up, most of the white wine options start to fade and will be simply over powered by the food,” he said. “So, I also like to try and match spicy type wines with spicy type foods such as a spicy zinfandel or a syrah/shiraz based wines. These are rich varietals that can better handle the heat and spice. These selections display spicy fruit and oak characters (pepper, ginger) that lend themselves to these foods.”

We also suppose that a Tequila Sunrise might do the trick .... come in and tell us, share your vision, chat us up and tell Mark that we sent you.