Accidental Wine Pairing Successes?

Tonight after a dinner of pan roasted Tripletail fish with a glass of Louis Jadot Chablis, I decided to finish the last glass in a leftover bottle of Nierpoort Redoma Branco. Given the wine was tartly citrus and stony/minerally, I thought that I would cut off a small piece of goat cheese to go with it. When I opened the fridge to get the chevre, I saw a baggy with small leftover pieces of Brie and Cambozola (a blue infused triple creme) and decided to take care of that leftover instead. Wow! The Cambozola was an unexpected delightful match for the wine. One of those pairings that the food and the wine are BOTH taken to a different level. I wouldn’t have picked that as a pairing ever.
Sometimes you try for a successful wine pairing with food, sometimes it just happens when you don’t expect it and aren’t even trying. Putting aside the temptation to go on a philosophical tangent, I’ll just ask what accidental wine pairing successes have you had?
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Pre-covid we couldn’t decide on pizza or sushi one night. We placed our order and a favorite pairing of mine is Oregon Pinot Noir with pizza. However, I ran out of Champagne before I ate all my sushi & one lonely piece was left…

so one of my favorite accidental wine pairing was Pinot Noir & saltwater eel sushi. What an awesome pairing…

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we had leftover smoked pork butt. Vacuum sealed since 2/7/21- 2 nights ago with a Fontsainte Corbieres Gris de Gris Rose which was a super match

fruit sorbet and Sauternes.

Not sure if it was “accidental” at first, but customers of ours in Singapore swore that our Petite Sirah and fresh uni was an insane pairing. I thought it sounded horrible and didn’t try it for years. When I finally did, it blew my mind.

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I made some blueberry peach pancakes, with some vanilla extract, with no intention of having wine. Then I realized I had some leftover young Mosel Spätlese and thought “hey, it’s the weekend!”. The pairing was just terrific. I figured it would work, but I was blown away by how well.

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A leftover Selvapiana Chianti was surprisingly good with a baked Salmon that had a sweetish soy marinade.

Sorry, edited to remove duplicate post. Not sure how that happened.

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Huet Le Mont Demisec and Bison Ribeye / Beef NY Strip

I was eating the bison and my kids the beef. The bison match was so good that I tried it with the beef, and it was a great match with that too.

Like flavor explosion in the mouth.

Sweet wines go well with steak. Sounds odd, but it works quite well, doesn’t it!

Chateau de Chasselas with a nice cigar. Then again, when I say cigar I mean a wad of rotten vegetation wrapped in an old, used piece of mimeograph paper. Still, a cigar to me.

Years ago in Houston dragging a bag all day my rep runs into his chef friend coming back from a catering gig with extra osetra. The Deux Vert vineyard Melon de Bourgogne and those fish eggs were pure heaven.

This thread warms my heart after reading all the “you can’t drink wine with that” scolds on the board.

It obvious to me now but wasn’t many years ago when discovered. It was late and I didn’t feel like cooking or have time really so as I threw together a quick queso, asked the wife to go grab a wine from the cellar. She arrives with a vintage champagne and when I gave her a look, she shot back this is what I want. Since I always tell her to not worry about matching and drink what you want, I was immediately shut down from any further objections. As I understand now, the salt and fat play great with the bubbles and really just works, even with the spice of the queso. But we have agreed to keep NV around for this now. We have tried cava and domestic sparkling and those are ok but we prefer the champagne.

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Châteauneuf du Pape and sushi.

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Champagne with a bit of dosage actually works well too now that I think back. Another surprising match.

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Rose Champagne with beef. Moscato di Asti with salad.

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COS Cerasuolo di Vittoria with baked Argentinian beef empanadas, I think that a tiny amount of green olives in the empanadas made the trick.

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Rosé champagne with bbq, particularly smoked St. Louis ribs and pulled pork.

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2007 en magnum??!!

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