Sips: More on the Super Bowl food and wine showdown

At least one of my NBC colleagues shook his head when I told him I was preparing a story on wines that would work well at a Super Bowl party with all its varied food possibilities. Like many, he's a beer man when it comes to the big game. But for those of you wondering about wines to serve with a Super Bowl spread, I have some suggestions, plus those of some of my wine friends, in my latest Weekend Wines post on the Bites blog of MSNBC.com. Beyond that, Karen Page and Andrew Dorenburg, authors of the new "Food Lover's Guide to Wine" and other books, offered me some of their suggestions.

They write: "For Super Bowl parties, we're all about the flexibility of bubbles for their food-pairing prowess, and all about whites so you don't have to worry if your friends spill on your couch (or you spill on theirs!) during a dramatic moment in the game -- so a good Prosecco would probably be our first choice (even though we also love good cava, we just got back from Italy!)."

Their choice for a red? "In honor of Andrew's hometown team (the 49ers, which was one good kick away from this year's Super Bowl), he'd pour a lighter-bodied, fruity California Zinfandel with the vegetarian chili he's hoping to get around to making."

And their recommendations for some of the most popular Super Bowl fare:

"Chicken wings: sparkling wine; or riesling, syrah/shiraz or zinfandel.

Chili: Beaujolais, Cotes du Rhone, syrah/shiraz or zinfandel.

Guacamole: Champagne, unoaked chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, torrontes.

Nachos: sparkling wine, torrontes (with white meat), zinfandel (with red meat).

Pizza (pepperoni or sausage): barbera, Chianti, lighter-bodied zinfandel.

Popcorn: Champagne or other sparkling wine.

Fudge brownies and chocolate chip cookies: Banyuls, port or Pedro Ximenez sherry."

Thank you, Karen and Andrew.

The Daily Sip: for Thanksgiving pies, a superb dessert wine from Washington’s Pacific Rim

One of the best sweet dessert wine values out there has to be Pacific Rim’s 2007 Vin de Glaciere Riesling from Washington state, which showed beautifully at the end of a dinner with good friends the other night and is a shoe-in for pairing with  Thanksgiving pies. Actually, this is a tale of two dessert wines – Pacific Rim’s, with a suggested price of $14  for a half-bottle, and a well-known California wine, also in half-bottle, that sells for $80 or more (yes, you heard right). After a crowd-pleasing main course of beef Burgundy, one of my wife’s signature dishes, served with plenty of red wine, it was time for her apple tart, made from apples grown down the road at a local farm.

The Pacific Rim wine, from the Selenium Vineyard in Washington’s Yakima Valley, was a superb accompaniment, providing a refreshing lift that counterbalanced the sweetness. Orange is the dominant note, joined by orange peel, honey and lime with a high level of underlying acidity that made it effortless to drink and a perfect companion to the apple pie. Alcohol is a modest 10.5 percent. With demand among our friends now high for more dessert wine, I opened a second bottle, the aforementioned California wine. Though perhaps more complex, it was also more syrupy than the Pacific Rim and lacked the riesling’s refreshing zip. It was also considerably higher in alcohol and would have been better with fois gras or other rich foods. Pacific Rim’s Web site has some interesting notes on how the wine is made. The winery, by the way, makes a range of rieslings from dry to sweet and has developed a useful “riesling scale” that makes it easier to classify ripeness level in the wines. Received as a press sample.

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