When pairing food and wine you are either looking for similar flavors to compliment one another or opposites, to attract. Tomatoes have always been difficult to pair wines with due to their high acidity.

Choosing a wine with too much acidity will only bring out more acidity from the tomato. This will take away from the unique flavor of the fruit, leaving everything tasting the same. With that same thought process any wine too rich on the palate will mask its taste and flavor profiles. So what do we do?

Choose a wine that is lower in acidity, not too rich-- a wine with a delicate side. I would recoommend a viognier. These uniquely floral wines have the ability to highlight tomatoes and not mask their flavor. Pinot Gris can also be a suitable pairing. Depending upon the producer some of these can be intensely focused but others are soft, rich and long lasting in flavor. So the wines from the Alsace producers Josmeyer, Domain Schlumeerger and Pierre Sparr would be terrific styles. When it comes to Viognier the leader to me has always been Alban Vineyards as well as Darioush and Tablas Creek, or the Condrieu producers Perret, Cuilleron and, of course, everybody's favorite - Guigal!

Cheers Steve Lande
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