pairings

Sautéed mushrooms and buttery Chardonnay:  Sautéing mushrooms--especially the flavory ones like shitake, maitake, creminis or portabellas—in butter or oil brings out the succulence of these fungi, and it matches up extremely well with barrel-fermented and oak-aged (but not over-oaked) Chardonnay. Wonderful over pasta, with shavings of parmesan, or chicken breast or fish such as halibut, chunks of grouper, as well as shrimp and sea scallops.  Your wine merchant can recommend nicely oaked Chardonnays. Rich Pinot Noirs from Russian River, and other cool coastal regions as well as red Burgundies also complement sauteed mushrooms, especially with meat dishes and gamebirds.   

Grilled sausages and juicy reds: Whole Foods’ selection of toothsome sausages are terrific grilled. I have them often over pasta or pilaf or with mustard potato salad. There's a nifty range to savor, such as lamb with feta or chicken and roast red pepper. With them I like juicy reds, the likes of Rioja crianzas or Jumilla, chilled Beaujolais-Villages, Dolcetto, or a good but not-too-heavy Shiraz. In warmer weather, I'll choose one of the fresh, young, tasty dry rosés that stream into the market for summer. Look for young pinks (a year or two old, max) from the south of France, the Rhône, Italy, Spain, California.

Cheese: Goat cheese-chèvres-works beautifully with many wines—reds, whites, dry pinks. But some wine/cheese matches are sublime: Sauternes with Roquefort, Stilton with Port, sweet Rieslings with creamy blues.

Wine Glasses: 

Not to be a snob about it—I often drink wine, reds mostly, in short tumblers, but thin glass rather than thick. Wine tastes better in a thin glass.  Glasses are important, however, especially for fine wine. 

The master glassmaker is Austria's Riedel, a centuries old firm that has perfected the correlation of glass shape to type of wine, and produced a stellar glass for each. Numerous taste tests have proven the difference a glass makes, many of which I have participated in. Riedel glasses are exquisite and expensive, definitely worth having if you can afford it. Stores and shops that sell glassware occasionally have comparison tastings, and offer specials from time to time. 

Other glassmakers have come up with some very good designs. Several major wine judgings have used Schott Zwiesel's Forte line. They are lead-free titanium, thin and elegant but definitely dishwasher-safe.