Pairing Wine With Pasta

You should consider pasta simply as a canvas to deliver the accompanying ingredients, that's why the best tip on pairing wine with pasta is to ignore the pasta and pay attention to the sauce. 

Here are 4 popular pasta dishes with a selected wine style as well as several suggested Italian wines to get you started. These suggestions are not written in stones, but are just one way you could enjoy these wines or pastas. Many roads lead to Rome, as it were. And, hey, there’s only one way to find out. Start popping bottles! Happy drinking.


1. Tomato-Based Pasta

Tomato-based sauces have a high acidity and are often blended with rich, red meats. Because of it, a relatively tart red with middle-weight body is your best option. As much as this sounds limiting, there are a ton of different grape varieties (and blends) that will happily fill this role. As you add more richness (meat, cream) you can move up in body, but definitely keep the fresh acid! Few examples are Negroamaro, Nero d'AvolaPrimitivo, or Sangiovese (Chianti, Vino Nobile, Brunello, etc).


2. Cheese Pasta

It’s hard to find a wine that won’t pair fairly well with cheese. Instead, think of this pasta style as an opportunity to try some of the more texture-based, nuanced pairings. For example, an oak-aged (even better with MLF undergone) white wine is going to create a congruent pairing and highlight the creaminess in the cheese (think ricotta!). Also, lighter more floral red wines are another awesome pairing partner with tart, intense hard-cheese pasta, especially if there are mushrooms or root vegetables involved in the sauce. Here are a few options to try:

White: Ribolla Gialla, Friulano

Red:Langhe Nebbiolo, and Sangiovese


3. Seafood Pasta


Etna Bianco, and Arneis.


4. Pesto Pasta






Image credits: Mae Mu