vino di piazza

Since Monday night is pizza night, and I've been trying to keep the food theme going through the month of July, I should share the ideal wine to go with homemade pizza. Paradisos Red from Paradisos Del Sol in Zillah, WA.

I visited the Paradisos winery yesterday during a wine tour and tried a bottle of their house red with homemade pizza. I've always been more of the type that pairs beer with pizza, but this red wine may compliment the pizza even better than beer does.

The winery were sticklers about what kind of food worked best with each of their wines, and had two separate dips to complement their red and white wines, an artichoke-crab dip for their whites and a bleu cheese dip for the reds. They also name each wine after its ideal food pairing: their Riesling is a "sushi wine", the Paradisos Red is a "pizza wine", the cabernet is "lamb chop wine", etc. It's exactly the sort of non-pretentiousness I like in a winery.

Now that I've found a wine that pairs with pizza, my next goal is to find a wine that pairs with Mexican food, which seems to be the final food hurdle for the modern wine connoisseur.