Happy Summer! (Let's Drink Wine with Barbecue)

Happy first day of summer! Though it's felt a lot like summer for a little while already, today officially marks the start of Katie's least favorite season. But since it's here, we're going to celebrate it.

Summertime makes us think of grilling and barbecues, and yes, wine is an excellent beverage to enjoy with your barbecue. So today, in honor of summer, we wanted to review some barbecue wines.

So what can you drink with barbecue? Happily, so many different wines! If you're having pork, then Oregon Pinot Noir, Barbera, and Riesling are often mentioned as great choices. With beef, common recommendations are Zinfandel, Sangiovese, Shiraz, and Tempranillo. Chicken will go great with a warm-climate Chardonnay, like those from California. If you're wanting to be very healthy and have veggie skewers, Chenin Blanc could be a good option.

As much as we love wine, we can't drink everything in one go. So we picked out three we thought sounded fun, got some pulled pork and beef brisket from Hog Wild Pit BBQ (mmmm, summertime), and got to work, all for the good of wine-drinkers everywhere in Wichita.

First up:

Ayres Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, 2022

What we love about Oregon Pinot is getting the best of both worlds between the earthiness of French Pinot and the fruitiness of California Pinot. Oregon is able to capture aspect of both to make magic. This one definitely has an earthiness to it, like rubbing dirt between your hands in the garden, but it also has the fruitiness of tart cherries, raspberries, and cranberries. This was a very nice Pinot.

But of course, how does it go with the barbecue? It turns out, beautifully. The barbecue actually mellows out the tartness of the Pinot, and the earthy fruitiness is left, to really compliment that delicious barbecue meat. This was great.

The Ayres Pinot sells for $22 at Plaza Wine and Spirits.

Next up:

Gemtree Dragon's Blood Shiraz, McLaren Vale, Australia, 2020

In case you were wondering, Shiraz is the same grape as Syrah--it's just called Syrah in France and Shiraz in Australia. Thanks to the warmth of Australia, though, Shiraz tends to be fruitier and riper in nature than its French counterpart. Syrah/Shiraz is a common pick for wine with barbecue because it actually has some meaty notes to it (I know that sounds really bizarre and possibly disgusting--but it's NOT).

There's much riper fruit in this wine, with very ripe to almost overripe dark plums and bing cherries. But also classic to Syrah/Shiraz, there's a definite note of black pepper there, and also that meatiness we mentioned above lingering in the background.

With the barbecue, this thing POPPED. Here's a great example of barbecue and Shiraz dancing a beautiful dance together and making each other look great. Just on its own, this Shiraz was almost a little too ripe fruity, but with the barbecue, it became so smooth and lovely. This is everything you want a barbecue pairing to be. Bart had to pour himself some more!

This wine sells for $10 at Jacob Liquor.

Last up:

Ridge Three Valleys Zinfandel Blend, Sonoma County, 2021

Zinfandel is a funny grape, as we've mentioned in the past, because it doesn't ripen evenly. At harvest, some grapes are still green and tart, and some are very dark purple and ripe, so you mix together some tartness with a lot of very ripe fruit for an interesting mix. Oftentimes, though, Zinfandel has so much fruitiness to it, that it almost tastes a little bit sweet. As a result, it can be a really great wine with barbecue.

This particular Zinfandel has a lot of ripe fruit in it as well, with blackberries and blueberries and some vanilla and even chocolate mixed in there as well. You know how much we love sticking our noses in wine, and this one smells REALLY good.

Out of our three wines here, we enjoyed this one as a stand-alone wine the most. It was delicious. However, it seemed to lose a little of that with the barbecue, and it was a little lost in the flavors of the barbecue.

This wine sells for $32 at Plaza Wine and Spirits.

Overall, if we had to pick a wine of these three to pair with the barbecue, we'd go with the Shiraz. That pairing was dynamite. The Pinot was our second favorite with the barbecue, and the Zin probably our least favorite pairing. However, if we were drinking the wine on its own without the food, then we'd say exactly the opposite: Zin wins, followed by the Pinot, and finally the Shiraz. It's amazing what food does to wine!

But again, we mostly think you should drink what you like. There really aren't wrong answers here. Pick your favorite wine, grab some barbecue, and go enjoy summer!!!