The best wines to drink with a summer barbecue
Our expert shares his top 6 sizzling wines to enjoy with BBQ food, whatever your budget.
Our expert shares his top 6 sizzling wines to enjoy with BBQ food, whatever your budget.
In the late 17th century, Edmund Hickeringill managed to fight for three different armies, practice four different religions, and get himself convicted of forgery, slander and trespass. But today we should celebrate him as the man who introduced us to the word ‘barbecue’.
Hickeringill gave us the word in an account of a trip to the Caribbean. He described how he’d seen people slaughter animals "And their flesh forthwith Barbacu’d and eat". He learned that the thing they did it on was a ‘barbacoa’, from where we get ‘barbecue’.
Unfortunately, when Hickeringill wrote this in 1661 the choice of suitable ‘barbecue wines’ in Britain was dreadful. We drank red Bordeaux (too tannic), white wines from the Rhine (too light), sweet sherry (just no), and flat wines from Champagne (absolutely not).
Great barbecue wines didn’t appear until new winemaking countries adopted barbecues as their own. Places such as Australia, where they created the ultimate wine style for barbecues: sparkling Shiraz. The 5OS Project Sparkling Shiraz NV (12.5%, £19.99) is rich, bold and laden with red and black berries and spice… and sparkling. It’s rich and fruity enough for grilled meat and vegetables. And frothy, chilled, and fun for a barbecue vibe.
If that’s a step too weird, you can have a still version. Try Deluxe Australian Shiraz Barossa 2023 from Lidl (14%, £8.29), a big, bold Shiraz packed with warm plum fruit and spice. It’s a lot of wine for not much money.
Of course, not every winemaking country refers to an outdoor cooking fire as a ‘barbecue’. Chileans and Argentines call it an ‘asado’. In Chile, the best asado wine for my money is made from Carménère. De Martino Private Reserve Carménère 2024 (12.7%, £15.99) is quite astonishingly good. It has cherry and plum fruit alongside a distinctive smokiness and a touch of jalapeno pepper that matches grilled food brilliantly.
In Argentina, asado is made for Malbec, and I make no apology for recommending the most popular wine in the UK today: Trivento Reserve Malbec 2024 (12.5%, £9.50). It’s rich, velvety, juicy, and almost impossible not to like. This time, the wisdom of crowds is absolutely right.
In South Africa, a barbecue is a ‘braai’. I’m going to recommend a South African white here: Zalze Bush Vine Chenin Blanc 2024 (12.5%, £10). If you’re doing fish skewers or spicy prawns, this is the perfect wine, with its ripe apple and pineapple fruit and a lime-zest finish.
But the ultimate barbecue experience is perhaps most faithful to what Hickeringill saw in 1661: the smoker. Whether it’s a Big Green Egg, or a closed-lid Weber, the long, slow, tenderising effect of a large grill is for many the signature taste. And that smokiness needs a wine like Tesco Finest Old Vine Zinfandel 2022 (14%, £10) to match the deep, rich, succulent flavours. It’s jammy and blueberry-scented with a vanilla sweetness. And ideally served to the sounds of Texas rock (I especially recommend ZZ Top).
I like to think that forger, slanderer, soldier and priest Edmund Hickeringill would wholeheartedly approve.
(Hero image credit: GettyImages)
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