Food & Wine · Pairing
Riesling Food Pairing: From Thai Curry to the Cheese Plate
A single grape can take you from oysters to a hot green curry to the cheese board, as long as you open the right bottle for each. Riesling keeps high acidity in every style, and it comes in every level of sweetness, from dry to sweet. Matching that sweetness to the plate is most of the work.
Riesling is our signature grape above Keuka Lake, and the region's as well. We make it in several styles and pour them side by side at our seated pairings, so guests can feel how each one changes the food. Why the same grape ends up dry or sweet is covered in is Riesling sweet or dry. This page is about what to cook, and the broader rules are in our guide to food and wine pairing.
What food goes well with Riesling?
Riesling goes well with a wide range of food because of its high acidity. Dry Riesling suits oysters, white fish, roast chicken and pork. Semi-dry Riesling is the classic match for spicy Thai, Indian, Sichuan and Korean dishes. Sweet Riesling pairs with blue cheese, foie gras and fruit desserts. Match the sweetness to the plate.
Two parts of a Riesling do most of the work at the table. Acidity comes first, and every style has plenty of it. It makes your mouth water, which clears away fat and salt before the next bite. Then there is residual sugar, the grape sugar left in the wine after fermentation. It changes from bottle to bottle, and it decides which dish a given Riesling belongs with.
What do you eat with dry Riesling?
Dry Riesling pairs with oysters, clams, grilled or pan-fried white fish, trout, roast chicken, pork chops and schnitzel. With little sugar and high acidity, it cuts through fat, balances salt and keeps delicate food tasting clean. It also handles tangy dishes with vinegar or lemon in the dressing, which trip up many other wines.
Our Dry Riesling goes with the lightest food on the table: a dozen oysters, a trout from the pan with brown butter, a pork schnitzel with a wedge of lemon. Every one of those plates has fat or salt, and every one is delicate. The wine brings acidity without extra weight, so the food gets lifted rather than covered.
When a dish is acidic, the wine should be at least as acidic, or it will seem flat. Dry Riesling nearly always clears that bar, so the salads, pickles and vinaigrettes that tire out most wines are easy company for it.
What is the best wine with spicy food?
The best wine with spicy food has a little sweetness, high acidity and moderate alcohol, which describes semi-dry or off-dry Riesling. Sugar calms the burn of chili, acidity refreshes, and lower alcohol keeps the heat from building. High-alcohol, heavily tannic reds make chili heat feel stronger, so they are the hardest match for hot dishes.
Chili burn comes from capsaicin. Alcohol spreads it around and makes it feel hotter, while sugar soothes it, which is why so many hot cuisines put a little sugar in the dish itself. Wine Folly gives the same advice for spicy food: look for a wine with some sweetness and lower alcohol.
Semi-dry Riesling has both. When a winemaker stops fermentation early to leave some grape sugar in the wine, less of that sugar has become alcohol, so the wine carries a touch of sweetness and a lighter alcohol level at the same time. A hot dish asks for exactly that.
Which Riesling goes with Thai food?
Semi-dry Riesling is the best Riesling for Thai food. Its touch of sweetness cools chili heat, and its high acidity matches lime, tamarind and fish sauce. It works with green and red curries, pad thai, larb, papaya salad and drunken noodles. For milder dishes like pad see ew or massaman curry, a dry Riesling also works.
Thai cooking balances heat, sour, salt and sweet on one plate, which is a lot for any wine to face. Our Semi Dry Riesling has an answer for each. Its acidity keeps up with lime and tamarind, its sugar softens the heat and meets the palm sugar in the sauce, and its lighter alcohol keeps the chili in check. The same reasoning holds for Sichuan dishes, Korean fried chicken with gochujang, Indian vindaloo and Nashville hot chicken.
- Green or red Thai curry with chicken or shrimp
- Larb, the minced meat salad with lime and chili
- Papaya salad
- Mapo tofu or dan dan noodles
- Korean fried chicken with gochujang glaze
- Glazed ham, where the sugar in the glaze meets the sugar in the wine
What do you pair with sweet Riesling?
Sweet Riesling pairs with blue cheese, foie gras, pâté and fruit desserts like apple tart or peach cobbler. The rule is that the wine should be at least as sweet as the dessert, or it will seem thin. Its high acidity keeps the sweetness from feeling heavy, and it contrasts well with salty, rich food.
Our Riesling Sweet Reserve has the most residual sugar of the three, with the same Riesling acidity running through it. That is how sweet Riesling manages two very different jobs. With dessert, it matches sugar with sugar. With blue cheese it works by contrast, as the salt and fat of a Stilton or a Roquefort meet the sweetness of the wine, much as they do in salted caramel.
Matching the sugar to the plate
- Dry Riesling with oysters, trout, roast chicken and pork, where acidity cuts fat and salt.
- Semi Dry Riesling with Thai, Sichuan, Korean and other hot dishes, since sugar calms heat.
- Riesling Sweet Reserve with blue cheese, foie gras and fruit tarts, by contrast or by match.
- As a rule of thumb, the hotter the food, the sweeter the Riesling.
How do you set a Riesling dinner at home?
Open all three and pour them in order as the meal goes on, from dry to sweet. Start with oysters or a light fish and the dry, move to a curry or another dish with heat for the semi-dry, and finish on blue cheese or a fruit tart with the sweet. Over one evening, your guests taste the whole range of one grape and see why the style on the label matters.
All three are on our wines page. If you would like us to do the cooking, our Signature Wine & Food Pairing is a seated experience of about 75 minutes, built around the season. Wine Club members also taste with us at no charge, with up to three guests, and the details are on our Wine Club page.
Taste our Rieslings from dry to sweet, with food.
What else do people ask about Riesling at the table?
Does Riesling go with spicy food?
Yes. Semi-dry or off-dry Riesling is one of the best wines for spicy food. Its sugar calms chili heat, its acidity refreshes, and its lower alcohol keeps the burn from building. Dry Riesling works with milder spice.
What meat goes with Riesling?
Pork is the classic, from chops and schnitzel to roast pork and glazed ham. Chicken, turkey and duck also work well. Dry Riesling suits simple roasted meats, and semi-dry Riesling suits glazed or spiced ones.
Does Riesling go with cheese?
Yes. Dry Riesling suits fresh goat cheese and young Alpine cheeses like Gruyère. Sweet Riesling is a classic with blue cheese, where the sweetness of the wine contrasts with the salt of the cheese.
Written by
The Domaine LeSeurre Team
Céline & Sébastien LeSeurre and the team at Domaine LeSeurre — a family winery on Keuka Lake, in Hammondsport, New York. French roots, Finger Lakes soul.
