Super Bowl Wine Suggestions from Fred Tasker

Miami Herald wine columnist Fred Tasker suggests wine for Super Bowl!!!!!

Try serving wine at a tailgate party or while watching the big game on your 42-inch flat-screen

and your average football fan is likely to call you an effete snob. And then they’ll go back to guzzling their wan, tasteless light beer.

   How do you get around this? Serve manly, muscular wines.

   If you’re a Saints fan, you might be cooking spicy Cajun barbecue shrimp

laced with garlic and cayenne.

   As for Colts fans, I Googled “Indiana” and “tailgate food” and came up with “Wazzu Indiana Tailgate Chili” with habanero and jalapeno chiles, cayenne, black pepper and Tabasco sauce. Whoo!

 

   Here are a couple of wines that can stand up to a 400-pound lineman.  

 

ø‚2007 Mettler Family Vineyards “Epicenter” Lodi Old-Vine Zinfandel: A perfect match

for spicy food, this is huge, with 15.6 percent alcohol. It’s big and warm and rich, with black raspberry and

spicy black pepper flavors and big but ripe tannins.

$25.

 

   ø‚2007 Albarino Brandal by Adegas D’Altamira, Rias Baixas, Spain: Yes, a muscular white wine.

The Galicians of northwest Spain drink this with octopus, so it’ll certainly handle your little grilled shrimp. It’s crisp, has intense grapefruit flavors and a slightly bitter almond finish. $15.