What’s the best wine to choose for your BBQ? Welcome to the last part of our blog dedicated to finding the perfect wine pairings with classic BBQ food. This time we are focusing on grilled vegetables…

Grilled cheese

Halloumi (or any other cheese with a high melting point) is a must for a vegetarian barbecue and this semi-hard and salty cheese needs to be kept in mind when choosing your wines. A rosé such as Montauto Staccione Rosato is a safe match, with its intense nose of red berry fruits. You can even go for a light red like Mount Brown Pinot Noir, which has a bit of weight that the halloumi can easily handle.

Medium-bodied whites like Sauvignon Blanc also match halloumi really well. Try our Sancerre Millet Roger. Its grassy and gooseberry flavours go perfectly with the texture of halloumi. You can also play with the saltiness by pairing it with an off-dry white like Mount Brown Pinot Gris from New Zealand.

Grilled vegetables

There is no ultimate wine choice for vegetable dishes. General advice would be to avoid tannic, heavy reds – they would most certainly overpower the more delicate taste of veggies.

Vegetable colour and texture can actually give you a pretty good direction for the wine pairing. With grilled corn and its creamy buttery structure, try an oaked Chardonnay such as Sidewood Chardonnay from Australia or Pouilly Fuissé Terroir from Burgundy, France. Artichokes and asparagus are usually not easily matched with wine because of their very specific ‘umami’ flavours, but a pungent Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand such as Mount Brown Sauvignon or an aromatic bubbly like Prosecco Toffoli will work pretty well. Those will also go nicely with grilled peppers.

For the grilled eggplant, rosé would be a fair bet, for example a delicate Côte de Provence like St Sidoine. With large ‘meaty’ grilled tomatoes, go for a light Italian red, like Valpolicella Corte Cavedini or the more concentrated Armigero Sangiovese. Grilled mushrooms can go particularly well with more earthy and savoury wines like Nebbiolo, which would still have quite large tannins – but mushrooms won’t be silenced by them! Why not try Nebbiolo d’Alba Sot from award winning winery, Pelassa. And last but not least….If you just want to have light, summer salads with your BBQ, go for a light citrusy refreshing white like Portuguese Somontes Colheita Branco or Zapallares Pinot Grigio from Chile – or simply a glass of bubbly.

Still need help choosing your barbecue wine selection? Try our hand-picked BBQ Mixed Case for great wines to enjoy with all classic barbecue food.