Wine Pairing Help - Chilean Sea Bass

I’m cooking Linda’s favorite fish tonight, Chilean sea bass. I’m likely going to cook it with a light picata sauce. I’m thinking a Rivers Marie Chard – something with a bit of heft in the mouth – but I’m open to other suggestions.

Thank you

I like Meursault with sea bass, but R-M sounds good too.

Medium-bodied chards are great. White Rioja like R. Lopez de Heredia also works great (had some Mero Sea Bass which is somewhat similar texture and flavor-wise last night with an '05 Tondonia Blanco, it was awesome!).

Rhone whites?

Can’t go wrong with RM, on the big side but with sone salinity and minerality. I’ve found crisp and minerally whites have gone well with Patagonian Toothfish (aka Chilean sea bass) or scallops, cut through the buttery flavors. A couple of my favorites have been Goodfellow Richard’s or Durant Chards and Seavey Chardonnay, which is a really wonderful wine with those two. A super crisp, mineral and saline Burg would do the trick too.

Have fun and let us know how it goes!

Cheers.

Interesting. A fairly mild richer flavoured fish, but with lemons and capers. So the wine doesn’t have to do all the heavy lifting to cut through the buttery flavours
Some other ideas:
Top Muscadet such as Ch Thebaud
Coquille Blanc Carol Shelton Paso Robles (Grenache, Rousanne, Viognier)
Pinot Grigio from ALto Adige (eg Punggl from Nals Margreid)
Mature 1er Cru Chablis

Thanks for the suggestions. It sounds like the RM is a decent choice and with the paucity of whites I have to choose from at home, it’s probably the safest bet.

Sorry that I saw this too late to help, but my wife and I had Chilean sea bass at Blue Point Grill in Princeton last night for our Valentine’s Day celebration. It’s BYOB and the only wine I had with me was a 2012 Billaud-Simon Montee de Tonnerre Chablis. Great match with the sea bass! The fish is quite oily (and lovely), and the highish acid plus fairly intense flavor of the Chablis went wonderully with it.

Really like Blue Point Grill. The Chablis went even better with the oysters from Wellfleet and Nova Scotia that we saw shucked in front of us.

I made Chilean sea bass tonight and Pierre gimonnet special club millesime 2008 was a nice match.

We ended up with the RM Chard and it worked reasonably well. I made the sauce on the lighter side, so that we could taste the naturally sweet flesh of the fish. I found the wine (15 SC) a bit oaky for my tastes, but Linda enjoyed. I think next time we will try Champagne.

I got a new enameled cast iron brassiere pan on Amazon Prime Day so decided to break it in by making broiled Chilean Sea Bass over tarragon potatoes. The fish is added at the end and butter is shaved over it, and the broiler fired up. It’s straight forward to make, and sea bass is popular even with people who are not normally seafood consumers. Just cut the fish steaks so that they will cook through even if heated only on one side. It won’t cooperate with flipping, and one will lose all the browned butter as well.
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To go with it I opened a bottle of the 13 Ramey ‘Hyde’ Chardonnay [Carneros] to decide if I wanted to get more. There’s an electric tension to this, and its not as plump nor rounded as I thought it would be. I was assuming it would be like a huge fat Chard (Aubert, Beringer PR etc.) and that would help with a leaner fish. The Hyde has a long finish, lemon quince notes, and even a touch of spiciness. I don’t pick up any oak notes, and honestly would not even have thought it was Napa-esque chard if I wasn’t looking at the bottle. Good quality but I’m leaning against buying more. B+ in my ledger. The cork is kind of weird, btw.
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My least favorite fish, it only tastes of the sauce to my palate. And I eat a lot of fish, only feel this way about the Patagonian toothfish.

Base the pairing on the sauce.

A friend served a 2002 Leroy Mersault with roast sea bass last week. I’m not sure the fish could have had a more ideal match! [cheers.gif]

Necro thread, but since it’s back: Chilean “sea bass” isn’t bass at all, it’s a marketing term for the Patagonian toothfish, an oily, inferior (IMO) white fleshed fish that bears no resemblance to real sea bass. I avoid it at all costs.

+1 on this.

With piccata sauce, I’d do a richer Albarino, or a Chablis Vaillons. Vaillons often has a lemony streak that would go nicely with the fish.

Great restaurant and the byo is a big plus!

Yes.

I do wonder if the marketers had come up with an honest name if we’d give it more of a chance. I realise Toothfish is problematic. I wonder what its Spanish name is?

The really weird thing is it’s nothing like sea bass at all. Halibut or black cod (Sablefish) might be closer. Needs a suitable sauce as the OP realises.

Ramey Hyde is a go to with Halibut for me and one of the few domestic Chardonnays that I absolutely love.

Often my choice. I’m looking forward to trying a pairing with one of the Tercero whites.
I usually avoid Chardonnay- the oak clashes. I’d make an exception for Leroy, if anyone wants to serve it to me.

Whites from Campania, and richer Albarinos are a fine pairing. I agree with matching the preparation, not the fish itself.