Wines for oysters: the classics prevail but there is room—just a tiny bit of room as long as you don’t go haywire—to diverge
Shuck and Sip, and Choose Carefully
Many, perhaps even most foods can be served with a variety of wines depending on personal taste. Other foods—raw shellfish most notably—require a specific, compatible taste in wine. Deviate too far and you will ruin the taste of both wine and food.
I eat local oysters only in season, during the cold weather months, when that clear taste of brine and minerals seem best. And I accompany them with only lean, austere, acidic white wines. To test my theories and see what other people’s taste might be, I decided recently to put together a panel to sample different wines with local, raw, late winter oysters. My only rules were that the wines be white, not sweet, and have never had a romance with an oak barrel. Several of the wines came from my cellar; the rest were supplied by one of the panel members, Michael Cinque, of Amagansett Wine & Spirits.
Beside Mr. Cinque, participants included Mark Smith, a partner in Nick & Toni’s and Rowdy Hall, and Brian Halweil, David Rattray and Helen Rattray, all colleagues from this newspaper, and Amy Slack, of Amagansett Wine. The panel was intended to be informal and lightly structured. Our aim was to see how suitable the individual wines were with oysters rather than judge the wines one against the other. The oysters, which I bought at Stuart’s, were bedded on ice but unadorned, since sauces could change taste perceptions.
Chablis, champagne, and to a slightly lesser extent Muscadet, are traditionally drunk with oysters in France and might well be considered benchmarks because they are so classically suited as an accompaniment. This assumption proved true. Our panel was unanimous in favoring a 2002 Dampt Chablis ($22) and a Champagne Louis Roederer Brut Premier ($25). Roederer Champagnes are characterized by lean, firm structure with discreet fruit balanced by crisp acidity. This particular one also offered subtle toast flavors and copious bubbles. Our Chablis was dry and flinty, perfectly balanced, with exuberant mineral notes. No surprise here: both were just about perfect with the oysters.
It was with other types of wine that individual tastes came into play. A Peconic Bay 2001 steel fermented chardonnay ($13), actually a favorite of mine for summer sipping, was redolent of fruit juice next to the oysters according to several panelists. Sunday Mountain 2003, a sauvignon blanc from New Zealand ($16), which usually would have a nice crisp taste also seemed dense and verdant when paired with the oysters.
A Paumanok 2001 Chenin Blanc ($13) fared better, with the dryness and acidity balancing the fruit flavors. Several panelists thought the taste actually reflected the oysters, using words like “haunting” and “extending” which I believe must have been the mineral notes in the wine. Also generally liked were a gruner veltliner, an Austrian grape with crisp focus and a clean citrus flavor. The bottle we sampled, a Lamm 2002, sells for about $32. Nora 2002 ($14), a Spanish varietal from the albarino grape, which contains high acid levels, was liked by Mr. Smith for its fresh flavor, but Mr. Halweil thought it should have been livelier. Overall, we judged it a pleasant and reasonable, if not highly distinguished choice for oysters.
Hungarian whites, from native grape varieties, tend to be full-bodied and fiery, but a pinot gris, Nyakas Pince 2001, was a decent low-priced entry in our judging. It was certainly an acceptable choice for me, although some panelists found its floral notes and lightly spicy finish interfered with their enjoyment of the oysters. I was happily surprised by a Roero (from a region in Piemont) arneis, a local grape somewhat similar to pinot blanc. The wine was lightly perfumed but dry, with a small amount of carbonation, significantly less than a spumante. Perhaps it was the bit of fizz that set it off from other varietals, but it received a generally favorable reaction from our panel.
Another surprise for me was Peconic Bay 2001 riesling ($13). It is not a grape that comes to mind immediately in its affinity for oysters, but some dryer rieslings can be good matches. With a nose of grapefruit and a steely, zesty character, I found it quite compatible with the oysters. Not everyone agreed, although Mr. Rattray thought it did something for him.
After considering the various opinions, my principal wine recommendation is to stay within the conventional guidelines—crisp, dry, high in acid, mineral-scented. These are natural affinities for oysters. Within that range you still have a generous choice of wines from around the world.
If you find these rules too restricting and are using a mignonette or cocktail sauce on your oysters, you might be a bit more experimental. But it is no time to be a wine daredevil.
