Fire Water: What to Drink With Barbecue

Once, a long time ago, there was a wine that went with barbecue. It was a joyous match, a combination of flavors that worked to add delight to ribs, beef and even ham. It was a wine that danced on the palate with the lightness of a ballerina, but offered enough flavor to hold up to the potent flavors of pepper, tomato sauce, brown sugar and vinegar.

It is a wine you may not be old enough to remember. It has been, for all intents and purposes, gone from the American dining scene for a long time, and we can only recall it with fondness as a dream of the past.

It was called rose. And for those unfamiliar with this wine, I will try to describe it.

It was pink. True pink, not some pale, washed out pale coral-copper-orangey color. It had the aroma of cherries and raspberries and tropical fruits. It was slightly sweet and it was light and delicate and still, it had the taste of the grape.

Sound interesting? It was. But today, rose is not considered good form. The snobs of the wine world have decreed that anything with the word rose in its title is to be scorned, fit only for unsophisticates.

Rose is out. But, strangely, its young, upstart brother, White Zinfandel, is in. And that is a shame, because White Zinfandel--almost all of the 8 million cases produced in California--is rather blah, uninteresting wine. It has the word “white” in its title, so wine makers feel compelled to make it pale in color and therefore it turns out pale in aroma and taste too.

The result is wimpy wine. It’s too dull and lifeless to sip by itself--sort of like watching slides of a trip to Iceland by someone you don’t know--yet is usually so flat and sweet that no food goes with it.

But good rose goes great with barbecue, and surprisingly, after trips to a number of wine shops, I found that some wineries are still making rose.

One thing to remember when buying rose: pay careful attention to the vintage date. Good rose will be bad rose if given too much time in the bottle. Freshness is the key, so drink the youngest you can find.

And the best wine of my recent tasting was 1987 Field Stone Rose of Petite Sirah ($6), a marvelously rich, sprightly wine with raspberries and cherries in the aroma, more of the same in the mouth, and enough residual sugar (1.7%) to offset the sugar in barbecue sauces.

Second in the event was 1987 Mondavi Gamay Rose ($4.60), a delightful resurrection of this old Mondavi favorite. The wine sparkles with raspberry aromas and is dry enough to go with more delicate barbecue dishes.

Right behind was 1986 Simi Rose of Cabernet ($6), which unfortunately isn’t as good as it was in the past when it was darker and packed with more cherry-like flavors. This version has an attractive apple and underripe pineapple aroma. It is drier than the Field Stone, however, so serve it with barbecue that is more hickory-scented and less sweet.

A surprise wine that finished fourth in my tasting of roses was non-vintage Gallo Vin Rose ($4 for 1.5 liters), a wine that has an intriguing gardenia-like scent. The wine is relatively dry (!), and matches well with sweeter barbecue. A slight chemical aroma intrudes if the wine is not well-chilled.

Unfortunately, my tasting of roses was limited by the availability of good ones in the market. Mostly, I found older vintages, meaning that most of the wines fared poorly. Among the wines tasted were 1986 Firestone Rose of Cabernet; Riunite Rosato; 1985 Bolla Rose; and even 1984 McDowell Valley Grenache, all of which were none the better for the extra time in bottle.

White Zinfandel is not all bad, of course, and the best of them would go well with barbecue, especially those that are made essentially like a rose. In that category fall the delightful Buehler, William Wheeler and De Loach White Zinfandels. And in the last few weeks I have been impressed by the following White Zinfandels, all from the 1987 vintage:

Sausal ($5), fresh off-dry, with good balance; Creston Manor ($6), relatively fresh with soft, slightly flat finish (serve well chilled); Story Vineyard ($4.40), very fruity and relatively sweet, but well made; Maurice Carrie ($5.50), raspberry-ish flavors, but very sweet, and Grand Cru ($5.50), sprightly fruit, very well balanced, off-dry.

Other wines that should go well with barbecue food include Bonny Doon’s attractive 1987 Grenache called Clos de Gilroy, 1987 Buena Vista Gamay Beaujolais, 1987 Charles Shaw Gamay and Martin Bros. 1986 Nebbiolo. Serve all slightly chilled.