Best wine pairings with Super Bowl snacks

Worried about what wine pairs best with buffalo wings or an eight foot long sandwich while you’re watching the Super Bowl on Sunday? Read on.

With the Broncos-Panthers showdown in Super Bowl 50 now just a few days away, Zachys auction house has come up with a few wine-pairing suggestions for the most popular snacks consumed during the big game.

Traditionally viewed with a beer in hand, the Super Bowl is rapidly becoming a wine drinking scene too – to the extent that even beer giant Anheuser Busch is trying to remind everyone to drink beer with its new advertising campaign (see lead image).

It shouldn’t be too concerned, some 325 million gallons of beer, mostly Anheuser Busch products, will be consumed during the Super Bowl.

Consumed alongside it will be a staggering 1.6 billion chicken – or more accurately (for some reason) ‘Buffalo’ – wings.

You could simply stick to beer of course and you can see our suggestions for Colorado and Carolina-specific craft brews here.

If you’re stuck for wine pairings for your favourite nibbles though take a look at Zachys’, ever-so-slightly tongue-in-cheek, recommendations over the following pages.

Seven layer dip

Based on the American principal that more is better, ‘seven layer dip’ is, according to Zachys, “the most complex dip in the dip canon”.

Beans, guacamole, sour cream, salsa, cheese, black olives and then either beef, lettuce or jalapeno to be eaten with tortilla chips or celery and carrot sticks etc.

Complexity incarnate and what better to pair with such an immaculately layered dish than…1993 red Burgundy?

Actually, we’re not sure about this one.

Buffalo chicken wings

Hailing from Buffalo NY (hence the name, see?) the bright red, slightly sweet and spicy snack, smothered in blue cheese, is a tricky wine pairing.

Zachys suggests a good German spätlese, with both the sweetness and the acidity to complement and cut through all that tangy deliciousness.

Chili

Or ‘chili con carne’ as we in the UK rather more laboriously call it. Whether you add beans or not or make carnivore or vegetarian versions or make it spicy or mild, you’ll want a punchy, spice and fruit-driven wine to match.

“How about a big wine from [the] Rhône Valley”? suggests Zachys. How about that.

A giant sandwich

If you like your sandwiches eight foot long or ten feet high – generally looking like they came out of Scooby Doo – there’s only one option for you….

The BIGGEST bottle you can find – of anything, anything at all.

Because you’re clearly of the opinion that only size matters.

Potato chips

Or ‘crisps’ as we rather quaintly refer to them in the UK. The humblest of snacks, always by your side as you watch your favourite team come hell or high water.

They deserve the best, ready to drink claret for example. Go on, a guilty pleasure, like Champagne and fish and chips.

The simple pleasure of drinking good wine with no distractions save for the bland but satisfyingly salty crunch of a crunchy crisp/chip.