Cervezas or Margaritas.
Why try to force a square peg into a round hole?
Now, that being said, I have tried to mate that round hole with a square peg and have ordered red wine at Gabbi’s in Orange, but I’m not really sure that was better.
As has been said, there is mexican food and there is mexican food. There are a couple of mexican restaurants around here that prepare tapas style dishes with top quality beef or pork, for example, and why wouldn’t they go with wine, just as, say, in Spain?
Not all Mexican food is super spicy or greasy, not that there is anything wrong with that. And then I’d order horchata or jamaica or beer.
I love Mexican food, of any quality. Hard to imagine drinking wine with Mexican food (at least “typical” Mexican we’re all used to here). Frankly, just too much spice to be compatible with wine.
We all grow up some time. I wouldn’t call what they serve in the Northeast “Mexican”.
I spent 10 years searching for decent Mexican food in the Northeast and finally came to this same conclusion. Good Mexican food, whether you are looking for California style Mex, Tex Mex, or true authentic Mex, just does not exist in New England. Some of the best meals I’ve ever had have been in Mexico. Not the touristy crap but in small coastal towns, colonial mountain cities and deserts. We were driving through the high desert somewhere (I think Jalisco) many years ago desperately needing food. We stopped and asked a woman where we could eat. She graciously invited us to her home where we sat and enjoyed an amazing home cooked meal with her and her family.
Jose Andres makes some fantastic Mexican food here.
http://www.oyamel.com/images/uploads/Menu_Late_Night_10.30.14.pdf
One of our favorite restaurants. We bring wine sometimes, but often go with Margaritas and/or beer
I’ve had mixed results with Rose, Torrontes and Albarino. But as a self respecting mexican guy I’m rolling with Negro Modelo or Tecate depending on the dish.
This…and apply the same approach to spicy Asian/Thai food.
With the Mex food we get in WA State, Riesling is normally a nice pairing if the food is adequately spicy. I’ll have to try Champy, good recommendation from above.
Thanks for all of the thoughts.
The food was edible, our friends who know and love Mexican food say it’s really really good.
For those who said I can’t possibly get good Mexican in New England, well over half of my previous efforts with Mexican food were in Texas and Southern California, each time I was lovingly led to a ‘great, truly authentic’ place by a deeply concerned, very knowledgeable friend. This place is probably as good as most if not all of those. For anybody interested, the website is:
FYI, the decor is not as lacking in color as the website.
It’s Mexican food, not Tex-Mex, not Cali-Mex. A lot of the dishes are more specific, from memory there were dishes in the styles of Michoacan, Veracruz,maybe another state.
Almost if not all of the dishes had some heat. I like light to moderate, not intense heat. My choice with a little chipotle worked fine for me. With habanero, scotch bonnet type food, I’d simply rather go hungry. In Asian restaurants, I’ve learned to fight fire with rice, pick my fights and then dilute them.
I still do not like the food, but I really like the place. They are a customer, they are fanatical about quality, the decor is blindingly fine, the ambience is wonderful, dedicated people, I have a lot of friends who love Mexican, I will not frequent the place, but I will be back.
Tequila: To paraphrase Jack Benny, if you put a glass of tequila in my hand and gun to my head and said “drink or I’ll shoot”, I’d say “wait a minute, I have to think about this”.
Beer: Love the stuff, but it’s a weather thing with me. I drink 90+% of my beer in the summer and even Indian Summer is over in Maine. That night it was probably 30, with wind chill keeping it from feeling that warm.
Sweet, high-acid white: I am ashamed to say I did not think to look. They probably have one. My problem would have been that for wine with the cider chipotle pork belly (with black beans and rice), red made a lot more sense. With other things on the menu, off-dry, high-acid white would have been right. I started with a glass of the wine they bought from me, a completely dry, definitely high acid Chardonnay. I could have stuck with it, but red felt better.
I don’t think they have a bubbly on the list! If they did, it’s probably Cava or Prosecco. Maine is not culturally very attuned to sparkling wines, but a good Champagne (or Cremant de Bourgogne, or Loire, or high quality California bubbly) would have probably been a good choice. Nothing with too much age or yeast, but a young Brut Nature would have made a lot of sense, especially playing with the cider in my dish.
Again, thanks to all.
Dan Kravitz
I thought I’d BUMP this thread.
Tomorrow is my Mom’s birthday and we’re having a late lunch for her up at my sister’s house in the mountains.
My sister called me early this morning. Mom requested Mexican food for lunch (which struck me as odd, but OK) and my sister asked me to bring Joel’s patented Roasted Tomatillo Salsa, Guac and my Pico.
No problem, these are all things I make regularly and I’m damn good at it.
Then she said, “Oh… since you’re the person in the family with the huge wine collection, can you bring a couple of bottles?” Usually, I would say “Sure!”… but then I thought of this thread. Damn it… Beer and margaritas is for Mexican Food. not wine. I have no clue what I should bring. White people problems… I guess.
The best Mexican food I have ever had was in a small hole-in-the-wall place in San Diego - cannot recall the name, but you could watch them making the tortillas from any table in the place. There was nothing left on my plate which had been filled with beef burrito, fresh flavored rice, and beans. The freshness of the tortillas and everything else including the salsa was incredible.
I am going to make some notes on the wines mentioned because I usually limit my drinks with Mexican food to fresh squeezed margaritas on the rocks with salt on the lip of the glass.
Nice thread.
Mexican cuisine is as diverse as any cuisine in the world. Regionally speaking I would put it up against Chinese, Italian, French, etc.
Any idea what the food is, or just “Mexican food?” Not to beat a dead horse, but that’s at least as broad a concept as “French food” or “Japanese food.”
Assuming you don’t know anything more, the easy choices are zinfandel and off-dry riesling or chenin. A low-tannin, ripe, new world Rhone wine works well too. The key with the reds is (a) you don’t want a wine with appreciable tannin, since hot sauce and hot peppers will amplify the tannin and make the wine taste bitter, (b) you want a wine with enough size and fruit not to get drowned out by the stronger flavors of the food, and, to a much smaller extent, (c) the spicy notes in zins and Rhones are a decent complement. And those are the kinds of reds that go over well with civilians as well, and they work alone, before and after dinner.
You’re not going to get some kind of “Sauternes and foie gras” pairing Nirvana, but a Carlisle, Turley or that kind of zin works quite well with most Mexican food, and your relatives are almost certain to enjoy them.
Now back to your regularly scheduled “just drink beer” robo-responses.
Good point Chris…
Carne Asada and Pollo tacos, btw.
Thanks for the feedback, good information and exactly what I was looking for.
Worst mexican food I ever had was in Lakenheath, England. In the sticks about and hour and a half northeast of London. The salsa looked and tasted like ketchup. Come to think of it, I think it WAS ketchup. No wine on the menu. Just warm beer.
Mexican cuisine is as regional as Italian. A recent dinner at Los Colibris here in Toronto (Tran and Grammer have have posted about dinners there also) showed a lot of flexibility in pairings with the food. The Chef is from Veracruz, so the food can be intense in flavour and use a lot of chiles and other spices, but isn’t necessarily overly “hot”. Sure, there’s some bite, but it’s not really any different than trying to pair something with puttanesca.
Anyway, here are the wines we had:
1995 Fleury Champagne Extra Brut
NV Pol Roger Champagne Brut Extra Cuvee de Reserve
2000 Fevre Chablis Grand Cru Bougros Cote de Bouguerots
2009 Michel Redde Pouilly-Fume Les Champs des Billons
1990 Domenico Clerico Barolo Ciabot Mentin Ginestra
1989 Produttori del Barbaresco Barbaresco Riserva Paje
2003 Jamet Cote-Rotie
1998 Delas Cote-Rotie La Landonne
1999 Paul Jaboulet-Aine Hermitage La Chapelle
The bubbly and whites with guacamole, various ceviche, and a delicious octopus with basil/jalepeno/cilatro oil and salsa verde.
The reds were served with the heavier dishes, such as braised lamb with ancho/chipotle sauce, steak, etc.
All the wines worked really well. I’ve brought Champagne and Nebbiolo to other meals there as well and always had it work quite well.
I think it all depends on how spicy it is, the other flavours of the dish, etc. Nothing wrong with bringing Barolo or Barbaresco with a bit of age to a meal like that! Hell, they do grow Nebbiolo in Baja, after all (obviously not the same quality as from the Langhe, but it’s not terrible).
Oyamel is very good. I went there one time with my wife and daughter after taking in the El Greco exhibit at the National Gallery. My daughter has a number of food allergies, and Oyamel has a food allergy menu that is extremely easy to understand. She had many great choices, and we all had a great meal. Can’t wait to go back again. The thought of ordering wine did not cross my mind, though. We had margaritas.
Those places are all over SD and I get my dinner from one or another at least once a week. Not to beat a dead horse, but as others have said, it’s no harder to pair wine w Mexican food than with a lot of European food. Grilled meat or chicken? No problem. Barbacoa, whether goat, pig, lamb, sheep, no problem. Tortillas, whether wheat or corn? No problem. Beans? No problem.
You don’t have to mix everything together any more than you have to mix your caesar salad with your boeuf bourguignon. So if you have some kind of salsa or pico, you can have it on the side. And lots of the stews and soups are very much like something you’d get in Spain or France.
Also, I’m not entirely sure that a lot of hot pepper is required. There are some spicy dishes, like mole poblano, that are spicy and that won’t really pair with wine IMO, but I think the idea of super-hot Mexican food is an American take on it. Jamaicans may like their food spicy, but I know very few Mexicans who feel that way.
Consequently, I pair it with any kind of Cab/Merlot, whether from CA or France or elsewhere, or with Syrah or with any decent and fairly big red.
So, how did the wines work out with your dinner and evening?