The Perfect Match: Wines for red meat
New Zealanders eat a lot of red meat and this week I'd like to show you how I match wine to some of our more traditional species and cuts.
With beef, sometimes the different cuts play an important part in the selection of the matched wines - for example, finer cuts of beef require softer styles of wine.
Let's take a look at steak for starters. Fillet steak has no fat and is therefore considered a 'fine' cut of beef. I would match this with softer varietals such as merlot.
Scotch fillet, which has a nice marble of fat in the middle, is still considered a fine cut of beef but that bit of fat carries a little more flavour. You could again look to merlot, or stretch to a cabernet merlot blend - Corbans Homestead Cabernet Merlot (RRP $17.99) is a great, full-bodied option.
Cuts like sirloin/porterhouse, T-bone and rump do a little more work when they are attached to the animal and therefore have a lot more flavour. All of these cuts also have a healthy fat content which again, carries more flavour. For these cuts, we start to look to the big reds - shiraz (also known as syrah) and cabernet sauvignon - the 'king' of the red grapes. These higher tannic wines work better with the flavour of the meat while their alcohol content tackles the fat.
Try an Angus the Bull Cabernet Sauvignon (RRP $22.99) with the most underrated of all steaks, the T-bone, for a match made on a grill plate.
- By Josh Forward, stuff.co.nz
