This Is The Best Wine To Pair With Salmon
Salmon is the perfect, healthy dinner for any time of the year, but home cooks may be wondering what the best wine pairing is for the popular fish. The messaging that has been drilled into wine drinkers for years is that white wine pairs best with fish, and red wine pairs best with meats (via Huff Post).
However, this rule is best applied to light and delicate fish like tilapia. An oily, hearty fish like salmon can stand up a wine that has a bit of a fuller body than white wine. Of course, you don't want to overdo it either and pair the salmon with a wine that has too full a body — a ripe and jammy Cabernet Sauvignon, for example. So what's a happy medium? A Pinot Noir.
Pinot Noirs are light bodied for a red wine, and have a hint of acidity that can complement a piece of salmon well, the same way a lemon might (via Simply Recipes).
Sourcing your salmon and wine from the same region
Pairing a Pinot Noir with your salmon can provide an interesting geographical talking point — given the fact that, according to Wine Spectator, many of the country's best Pinot Noirs come from the Northwestern states like California, and Oregon (Washington, too), which is where much of the country's continental wild salmon hails from as well (via National Geographic). So, you can have both your center-of-the-plate protein, and wine hailing from the same region of the country; something of a rare occurrence.
Of course, all of this should be taken with a grain of salt because there is a degree of subjectivity when it comes to wine pairing. After all, everyone has a different palate. Wine that seems subtle to one person, can taste bold and overwhelming to someone else. The best rule when it comes to wine pairing is to throw "expert" advice out the window and drink what tastes good to you, no matter what you're serving up for dinner.