08/29/05 Monday question - Pasta salad n wines

Welcome to Vine to Wine this is your host Linda Moran and today we are answering questions from the emails. A listener wrote that they love pasta salad in the summer and to ask what wine I would recommend with it. Pasta salad recipes seem to fall into one of three styles  the mayonnaise style, the Italian dressing style or the pesto pasta salad. The traditional mayonnaise style of pasta salad is rather limiting when it comes to pairing a wine with it. It pretty much has to be dry crisp white wine like Sauvignon Blanc, or Pinot Grigio. If the salad has too much mayo and not enough other flavors, then it is difficult to find a wine that is anything more than just an accompanying beverage. I once had a pasta salad with a chipolte mayonnaise as the dressing. It had chiplote smoked peppers in the mayo and it was spectacular! It went with several Spanish wines, Italian wines and Washington Merlot! So onto the Italian style dressing for your pasta salad. If it is richly seasoned with fresh garlic and chopped herbs it works with a greater variety of red and white wines. Include sundried tomatoes and you will be astounded at the numerous red wines that will compliment your salad. Which leads to the pesto pasta salad; I had one that the major flavors were pesto and sundried tomato, it went well with both red and white wines. A pasta salad with just pesto and black olives, no sundried tomatoes, seemed to have a better affinity for whites than reds. I highly recommend that you have a pasta salad picnic with about ten other people and find your favorite recipe and wine combination. And thanks for joining me on today's Vine to Wine.