5 Gourmet Pizza & Wine Matchings

5 gourmet pizza & wine matchings you have to try

It’s the latest culinary trend in Italy and in top-class places around the world: treating pizza as a fully respectable dish and not as a poor, quick (sometimes even junk) food anymore.
Ingredients used to top pizza are getting more and more exquisite and they are chosen and matched with increasing care.
Therefore, Coca-Cola and Heineken aren’t the proper drink anymore, if they ever were.
Most refined pizzerias now suggest to accompany one’s gourmet pizza with special, often local, handcrafted beers or with quality wines.
Here are five matchings between gourmet pizzas and international wines you’ll love to try.

Pizza margherita with rosé from Provence

Let’s start with one of the simplest pizza recipes – margherita is topped with just tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, basil leaves and a dash of extra-virgin olive oil – and one of the most unexpectedly complex wine: rosé from AOC regions like Bandol or Palette in Provence, southern France.
Wines here are the result of assembling different grape varieties (mainly Mourvedre, Grenache and Cinsault), therefore they reveal a multifaceted character. Despite they are fresh and easy-to-drink, they are structured and persistent, so they can easily stand the simple but clear taste of a pizza margherita.
Just be sure to let tomato sauce cook with a dash of salt for some minutes before spreading it on your pizza, so that it lose its slight sourness, and to allow mozzarella completely melt, so that its milky taste reduces.

Pizza with peppers and scamorza with Chardonnay from California

Californian Chardonnay has a woody character with a clear note of vanilla, and it’s perfect with a pizza that is full-bodied as it is, yet sweet in its entirety.
Stew sliced red and yellow peppers in extra-virgin olive oil until they become soft, and season them with a hint of salt.
Top your pizza first with a mixture of chopped up smoked scamorza cheese and a spoonful or two of double cream, then with cooked peppers.

Pizza with asparagus and Sauvignon blanc from New Zealand

They say asparagus are hard to be matched with wine, and it’s true, unless you drink an aromatic and complex Sauvignon blanc like the ones produced in New Zealand.
First, steam cook asparagus (better if you find Italian white ones, which are more delicate, but green or purple asparagus can fit as well). Top your pizza with a white sauce enriched with mozzarella, and with steamed asparagus. Once it’s cooked, you can even dress it with the yolk of a hard-boiled egg passed through a mesh and just a dash of freshly ground white pepper (optional).

Pizza “piccante” with Gewürztraminer from Alsace

“Piccante” means “hot” and it is usually referred to any pizza topped with spicy ingredients, typically salami or sausages, and dressed with chili pepper-scented olive oil.
Cook your tomato sauce with a hint of salt and one or two chili peppers (it depends on your resistance), and top your pizza with it, scamorza cheese (smoked or not according to your taste), grilled green peppers and hot cured meats of your choice, such as Spanish sobrassada, Mexican chorizo, Italian ‘nduja or Hungarian Debrecener. You can even add a dash of chili pepper-scented olive oil, if you think you can stand it.
Gewürztraminer from Alsace will reveal all its aromas and, thanks to its intense scents of fruit and flowers, will give relief to your mouth and make you want more of that delicious improper weapon you baked.

Pizza “ai formaggi” with Brut Champagne

Four-cheeses pizza is a traditional in pizzerias all over the world, even if used cheeses aren’t always top quality ones.
This gourmet pizza topped with cheeses has a clear french accent that matches perfectly with Brut Champagne and its yeasty, bread-like aromas.
Top your pizza with a thin layer of lightly nutmeg scented béchamel and then with thin slices (or small pieces) of gruyére, camembert, comté and roquefort, or other cheeses of your choice, paying attention to picking them from different cathegories and to place them in distinct sections, so that you can try them one at a time and see which one you love more with Brut Champagne.