Seaworthy Wines to Suit a Bouillabaisse

Finding the right wine to go with bouillabaisse is a challenge.

The same panoply of flavors--saffron, seafood and tomatoes--that make bouillabaisse intriguing also make the obvious wine choices seem all wrong. Chardonnay might go with shrimp, but not with the sauciness of bouillabaisse. Cabernet and Bordeaux are wrong as well--too strong and tannic.

What’s worse, the traditional wines that are supposed to be de rigueur for this dish are next to impossible to find. Those suggestions are bone dry white Rhones or lighter reds from the Cote de Provence, neither of which is a fixture at your local bouillabaissery. And if you found a white Rhone, it would probably be prohibitively expensive.

Another choice, in a perfect world, would be a dry Tavel Rose, of which so few good ones exist any more that the suggestion becomes a bit arcane.

Casting aside ideas that don’t make sense, there is a good range of choices that you should be able to find--and at fairly reasonable prices.

Of these, perhaps the best match would be a Beaujolais. France’s most frivolous wine, Beaujolais also is made in a richer, more serious mode, the so-called Cru designations, of which there are 10.

To do a Cru Beaujolais- bouillabaisse match right, I would stick with wines from the St. Amour, Chenas or Brouilly designations, which are lighter and more delicate than such areas as Fleurie or Moulin-A-Vent. Prices for a Cru-designated Beaujolais would run about $20 a bottle on most restaurant wine lists.

To bring together the flavors in a multifaceted bouillabaisse, you could also do a lot worse than a lighter-styled Chianti (not a riserva), which most restaurants carry for about $15. Still another good match would be a delicate California Zinfandel made more in the style of Beaujolais than port--a wine like Fetzer’s Lake County Zinfandel.

Darrell Corti of Corti Bros. in Sacramento, who likes trying to match such dishes with wine, suggests that any of California’s dry Vin Gris-type wines would be a great match.

These are wines made usually from the Pinot Noir grape, but fermented off the skins (so the wine is barely copper-colored) and then aged in oak barrels. Among the best of this type are those from La Crema and Sanford.

For a rare treat, Corti suggested, try the Bonny Doon Vin Gris de Cigare, made from the Mourvedre grape. (You’ll love the label: It’s pasted on the bottle with the letters facing in, so you have to peer through the wine to read the label.)

Other choices would be a dry French Colombard (Carmenet makes a delightful one that retails for only $6 a bottle).

Corti also feels some Tuscan whites, such as Galestro might work with a lighter bouillabaisse, as well as some of the younger red wines from Spain, with the designation Crianza (literally, nursery).