What Are Your Favorite Wine Pairings with Chinese Food

An in-law is celebrating a birthday; her family is from Shanghai and she was wondering what wines pair well with “Chinese Food”. I don’t have any more details on the exact type of food they’ll be eating.

Sparkling/champagne is a given; what else would pair well?

Thanks in advance!

Brett

Asian cuisine is perfect for trying sweet and savory pairings with wines from Barsac and Sauternes. I’ve had a lot of success with dishes that have a fried food component and involve shellfish to play on texture (both as a compliment and a contrast to the wine).

Cheers,
Aline

In addition to Champagne I’ve had good luck with a Spatlese or Kabinett. We have a number of Chinese guests at our home and in my experience most Chinese nationals do not have a huge sweet tooth. Your guests may find a Sauterne or Barsac cloying. Spats & Kabs are usually well-liked.

If your guests are into wine, you may throw pairing to the wind and serve a Bordeaux red such as Duhart Milon or Carruades.

Rich

Navarro makes a dry Muscat Blanc that is fabulous with Chinese food. Alsace is another traditional pairing we go with quite a bit.

I’ve also had some sucess with gruner, gewurtz and moscato (all with some RS - we usually eat Szechaun)

Thanks all!

It depends what you are eating. Chinese food is very diverse.

I usually take one white and one red. In most Chinese dinners, you’ll have some seafood, some meat and some veggies. Your usual white wine suspects - Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris - work with most seafood, but you can get creative such as Sauternes or Gewurztraminer with salty foods.

For meats, Pinot Noir is perfect with duck, but goes well with chicken, pork and beef. I find Cabernets too heavy for the most part, and not really a match for all the grease, but in some instances they work. A food friendly red like Grenache works well too.

I’m generalizing, but the same matching principles you use for other types of food would apply to Chinese too. You have to know the ingredients and how it is prepared.

+1.

Traditional Cantonese restaurant food tends to be heavily seafood based, with lots of vegetable components. Lightly flavored (ideally) to show the freshness of ingredients. The white wines mentioned above like gewurz or rieslings and champagne will easily work.

Shanghainese is a little more heavily flavored than Cantonese, but the wines above would still work.

Heavier, earthier, or spicier regions like Sichuan, Hunan, or Northern food will not be well complemented by any wine IMHO.

Also, it doesn’t help to look at their restaurant name or signs that say “Hunan, Sichuan, Mandarin” food because most restaurants just put those there b/c patrons expect to see those things. The menu itself and waitstaff will betray what region(s) of China the restaurant specializes in.

Maybe ask for the restaurant name from the in-laws, and you can google/yelp the restaurant to see if you can find the menu. You can post links to the (Chinese) menu and we can help you out figuring what the restaurant is like.