Do you drink Gewurz, Muscat, etc as your dinner wine

I usually find a little of your type 1 wine goes a long way either with or without a meal. I can drink more Viognier without tiring than the Muscat types, either dry or sweet. For me the Muscat types work best in extremely sweet, late harvest wines that usually are not a good match for most of the meal. Those who like Sauternes with foie gras might or might not tolerate the subsatitution of a sweet Muscat of high quality. I don't like sweet wines with foie gras, especially before or at the start of the meal. Some German slightly sweet Gewurztraminers might work with some game bird dishes served with a sometimes fruity sauce with juniper berries, etc added.

Your type 2 is more interesting with meals for me. I think Sauvignon Blanc is at the best when blended with Semillon, as in a few top white Bordeauxs such as Laville Haut Brion or Haut Brion Blanc. These wines can develop well with age. Unfortunately such wines are scarce, and they are now quite expensive. Pure Sauvignon Blanc comes in so many styles that you usually can find one to match a food suitable for white wines. However I often can find another type of white wine that I find to be a better match. I have had too little Albarino to form much of an opinion about it.

We will usually grab a Viognier or a gewurtz when we have Chinese or Sushi out. The viognier blends we've been getting really go well with Sushi. No problem making it through the meal with it but we usually don't open more than one with dinner. I haven't reached the stage where I'm serving a different wine with each course.

We're having friends over for dinner tomorrow evening for beer-can chicken and orzo salad, and I've pulled out a Trimbach gewurtz to go with dinner and a Dr. Pauly Kabinet for after.

I've only drank Muscat as a standalone or a desert wine in the past. I really just don't know what foods are appropriate to serve it with or I might make it our dinner wine.

Jon

"DaleW" posed the question....

Perhaps it is because I am a peasant, but my answer is an unreserved "yes"!

Sauvignon Blanc and seafood (as Professor Lipton indicated, Marlborough SB with oysters): I love SB with prawn salad and find it perfect with all but the most delicate of fish.

I think that Viognier is an excellent choice with a meal where there are a lot of different components, flavours and ingredients.

Now, think Thanksgiving Dinner (although this is not celebrated in NZ - obviously) - this would be the sort of meal which Condrieu or Viognier would be most suitable - where one had turkey (yes, agreed, not assertive flavours in its own right) but, include cranberry sauce, stuffing, roasted vegetables (sweet potatoes) and a variety of other dishes.

With such a combination of sugars and acidity a wine of more delicate flavours would be totally overawed.

So, the choice would be a lighter red, or an aromatic white - to my mind Viognier or Gewurztraminer.

I love pan fried pork chops; done over a moderate heat to cook thoroughly, but not overdoing it - cranking up the heat for a minute or so at the finish to "madierise" the sugars.

Slap on a service of apple sauce (with just a hint of ginger for interest) and served with mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts.

And my wine of choice - always: Gewurztraminer.

Yes, big and bold aromatic whites are excellent food wines - but I guess it is just a matter of taste.

Since several people made similar points, I'll respond en masse:

I'm limiting my comments to dry and off-dry table wines, dessert wines are a whole 'nother thing. Certainly sweet Muscats have their place, and I tend to like Gewurz VTs.

As noted, I've no problem with Sauvignon Blanc or Albarino as a dinner wine. It's the musky/superaromatic wines like Gewurztraminer, Viognier, & Muscat that are not attractive past one glass for me in most circumstances. It occurs to me that the distinction I am making is also one of acidity- all of the wines I list as "non-dinner" wines tend towards the low-acid end, while the wines I find acceptable to go through a bottle (SB, Albarino, Riesling, Chenin.maybe Torrontes) are higher acid. So maybe I could have skipped this whole thread, I generally knew I like high acid wines. :)

If you've never tried a dry Muscat, you should. Heidi Shrock from Austria makes a good one, plus I think Emily at winemonger.com has one. My favorite ZHs have been the Goldert Muscats, which are dry to just a touch off-dry in most vintages. Brilliant matches in my mind with asparagus dishes (white asparagus, or a Ducasse recipe for "asparagus 3 ways" Betsy sometimes does in spring).

My point wasn't that I don't drink or serve these wines, but that I seldom choose to bring them out as the sole wine of the evening. I like and cellar a fair amount of Gewurz (Boxler, Burn, Trimbach SdR, and yes even the dread ZH) and certainly don't lack for opportunities for matches. But I'm always happier to open them with a first course, or maybe with a Munster after dinner, than to drink a bottle as the main (well, only) wine when its just the two of us. Even if I think Gewurz might be the best match with dinner, a little voice says "what about Chenin, what about Riesling, you know you've got a LOT of Gruner Veltliner down there" - because on some level I know after the one glass that actually goes down with dinner, I'm not going to be as happy with Gewurz solo as I would sipping a Riesling as I do the dishes. And my dirty little secret is I just don't care that much for Viognier. There, I've said it. Sue me :)

I'm sure that technically Riesling is an aromatic variety. Certainly it has a very aromatic nose, but in my instinctive (maybe not especially logical) categorization Riesling and Chenin Blanc are is so about terroir/transparency that I don't mentally classify it as "aromatic." When I sniff a Gewurz, the lychee notes tend to jump out, with Muscat the musky floral thing. One finds the grape aromas overpowering all else. With Riesling the nose varies dramatically according to terroir. So it doesn't mainly associate itself with primary fruit aromas, as the ones I think of as aromatic do (that includes my "category 2" ones like Sauvignon Blanc and Albarino). So I guess I'd have to add "category 3" aromatic whites. :)

Very interesting, thank you. Living where I am, well over 99% of all riesling I drink is Austrian, and the aromatic expression I most often associate with it is stone fruits ("drupes"? - says the dictionary): peach and abricot.

Incidentally, viognier als has a kind of peachy aromatic to me, too, but unlike riesling in a much softer way.

M.