Impossible food-wine pairings: peanut brittle?!
We just finished up another session of my wine class at NYU this week. As part of an assignment, one student decided to present an “impossible” food to pair with wine to a wine shop. She made some homemade peanut brittle, went to Chambers Street Wines, presented the challenge to the staff there who–lo and behold–had never been hit with this precise challenge before. But they rose to it! A few ideas came up but the student had budgetary and practical considerations (had to be cold right then and there if it needed to be). So the suggestion was…a Felsina Vin Santo with 14 years of age on it! Although it wouldn’t occur to me to even pair peanut brittle with wine, the nuttiness of the mature wine and it’s richness worked well. And the brittle was darned good.
So, if some peanut brittle is in your near future, how would you pair it with wine if you had to? Or is it…impossible??
On November 22nd, 2013 at 2:04 pm ,Blake Gray wrote:
Nothing’s impossible. It’s just stupid.
This is a parlor game. Who actually needs to drink wine with peanut brittle?
On November 22nd, 2013 at 9:13 pm ,john wrote:
why so angry, wine critic? it’s all just fun
On November 23rd, 2013 at 2:35 pm ,RobinC wrote:
Some comestibles don’t need a wine pairing, like yoghurt or pickles or onion rings. They’re best on their own. For peanut brittle I might try a hot blackberry tea.
On November 23rd, 2013 at 11:10 pm ,frank wrote:
Madiera.
On November 24th, 2013 at 2:44 pm ,jerry greenfield wrote:
Seems like any white sweet wine would work with peanut brittle…Sauternes, late harvest Semillon, Dolce, etc. Wouldn’t try it with Port or Amarone, or Ripasso.
On November 26th, 2013 at 8:29 pm ,gabe wrote:
i love any excuse to drink tokaji, and i bet it would pair with peanut brittle. the real question is: what wine would you pair with blake gray’s sour grapes?
On December 18th, 2013 at 4:17 pm ,john bojanowski wrote:
Hi, Peanut Brittle is almost as hard as Twinkies…but we got notice a couple months ago saying that our sweet Muscat de St Jean de Minervois was the SECOND best match in a wine and Twinkie pairing by the Indianapolis Star. We are proud !
http://www.indystar.com/article/20130725/LIFE1001/307250010/Wine-Dude-Twinkies-their-clones-pair-sweet-wines
On January 21st, 2014 at 1:45 pm ,Jerry Greenfield wrote:
I’d go with Sauternes, myself. Or a late harvest Semillon. Sweet with sweet, I think.
Jerry Greenfield
Author of “Secrets of the Wine Whisperer”