Which wine should you drink during an appetizer party ?

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The appetizer party is synonymous with conviviality. However, the difficulty is to choose the wine that will best match the diversity of dishes. How to choose ?

The appetizer party is the ultimate convivial meal. We chat around a lot of food with a glass of wine. The small dishes are ready in advance and allow you to fully enjoy your evening and your friends. Yet, the difficulty is to choose a wine that goes with this diversity of dishes.

Raw vegetables and dips

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For those who would like to make an aperitif without excess fat or salt, vegetables with different sauces are ideal. Whether it's simple carrots, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes or more complex, these dishes take little time to prepare and bring a fresh side to your aperitif. The ideal is therefore a wine that recalls the freshness of these vegetables. A dry and floral white wine will do the trick :

Entre-Deux-Mers : Sauvignon Blanc is the most use grape of this AOC and is often associated with Sémillon or Muscadelle,
a Burgundy and its famous Chardonnay.

Ask your wine merchant for advice to avoid taking a white wine that is too mineral and will conflict with the taste of the food.

Cold meats and cheeses

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If you have an aperitif with vegetables only, your guests are at risk of hypolipemia — having a fat deficiency in the blood —.

Serve cheese with tannic red wine is a backlash and the same goes for cold meats :

Think about regional pairings : pairing a white wine from the region from the cold meat or cheese is very often perfect — Corsican cheese and cold meat = Corsican white wine —
You still want red wine ? Tannins don't mix well with fat. So you have to choose a wine that is not very tannic. You can choose a Beaujolais wine that is fruity, refreshing, even a Burgundy. Ban too powerful Southern wines whose tannins will harden and make the wine bad because of the fat.

Shrimps and other seafood

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It is rare to make an appetizer party without having a few slices of smoked salmon, shrimps or other seafood. For this kind of little pleasures, I recommend again a white wine.

A white wine with citrus aromas and mineral notes. A Pouilly-Fumé or a Chablis will go wonderfully with this type of dish. Choose a white wine that can be enjoyed in it youth without being too flattering or woody.

Tapas

We're starting to go down south and we can now choose warmer wines.

A powerful red wine from the South : choose a wine from Corsica, Languedoc or Provence who will stand up to tapas without erasing them,
A foreign red wine : we descend a little further in the South to our Spanish neighbors with a Tempranillo from the Rioja region.

What about sparkling wines ?

If you want to make a more festive appetizer party, you have the opportunity to choose champagnes or other sparkling wines. They bring freshness to your event and will excite your taste buds. If you absolutely want Champagne, go to a wine merchant for advice.

But there is an alternative to Champagne which can bring you real surprises and be more affordable :

Crémants: from Alsace, from Burgundy or other regions which may have citrus aromas, fruity, floral according to your desires and preferences, so have fun !
Clairette de Die : a more gourmet sparkling wine than Champagnes. It is characterized by its fruity flavours and floral aromas brought by muscat and a hint of Clairette.

Jean-Nicolas Mouretin