Pairings | Roast

The best food pairings with white burgundy

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on January 16 2024 at 07:13

White burgundy includes a multitude of wines from generic bourgogne blanc to the grandeur of a Bâtard-Montrachet or Corton-Charlemagne. But it’s the affordable wines that I’m focussing on in this post. What type of food do they pair with best?

White burgundy - and that includes Chablis - is of course chardonnay but ranges from the lean minerality of Chablis (which I’ve dealt with in a separate post on food and Chablis) to the sumptuous richness of a Meursault.

The two things that will affect your food pairing is whether the wine is oaked and the age of the wine. Oh, and the price. It’s safe to assume, barring some Chablis, that most of the more expensive wines will have received some oak ageing. Oak-aged wines like Meursault can carry richer sauces or deeply savoury dishes like roast chicken - and even turkey. But to sum it up in one word you’re on safe ground with dairy, especially cream and butter.

Anything buttery

Fish cooked in butter (like sole meunière), a buttery roast chicken, buttery sauces like hollandaise or béarnaise, potted shrimps (a British delicacy - small brown shrimps preserved in spiced (generally mace and a touch of cayenne) butter). The richer the dish the fuller-bodied wine it can take.

Creamy and even slightly cheesy sauces

So dishes like chicken pot pie, chicken with a creamy mushroom sauce or fish pie - or a cauliflower cheese (see below). Random discovery - bacon with a parsley sauce is magnificent with Meursault!

Simply cooked fish

Most fish pairs well with white burgundy but salmon - cooked simply rather than, say, given the teriyaki treatment is particularly good. That includes salmon fishcakes

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