At a recent tasting, I chatted with a winemaker from Australia's Clare Valley as I sampled his wares: a ripe, leathery shiraz and a deep, dark cabernet sauvignon reminiscent of blackcurrant bushes. These were serious wines and good value, too. A generation ago, such gutsy New World reds were all the rage, but now, the winemaker lamented, Gen Z prefers lighter, cooler-climate wines with lower alcohol and brighter palates.
Why the Shift?
He had two theories. One was vanity: no one on Instagram or TikTok wants to drink a red wine that stains their teeth, bad news for high-tannin wines like malbec and cabernet. Two, it's about the changing Western diet. Aussie shiraz is the archetypal sausage-on-the-barbie wine; Argentinian malbec is a steakhouse cliché; in France, malbec is mainly grown around Cahors in the southwest, land of heavy cassoulets and fat-rich magrets de canard. You need something with muscle to stand up to all that.
Vegetable-Centric Pairings
As meat becomes less central to our plates, the prestige of classic "meat wines" may wane. So what to drink when vegetables are the star? Plant-centered cooking requires more creativity than frying a steak, and matching wines is similar. But don't overthink it: a floral white with a little acidity is an excellent match for green spring vegetables. Think Austrian grüner veltliner, Spanish or Portuguese albariño, or the rarer albillo.
It depends on how you cook the veg. If you add char, consider some oak. If pairing with cream or coconut, sweetness and tropical fruit work well. For Romy Gill's south Indian-style asparagus, I'd opt for an Alsatian gewürztraminer or torrontes from the Argentine Andes.
Red Wine Options
If you prefer red, aubergines, mushrooms, roots, and beans are your friends, but context matters. There's no finer accompaniment to a garlic- and tahini-drenched meze lunch than a bright young Bekaa Valley red. A Spanish-style bean stew may call for a nice tempranillo or old-vine garnacha, or a rustic southwestern French wine like braucol. If a strong hard cheese is the star, pull out something with more oomph, like a New World cabernet. After all, wine is a vegetable of sorts.
Four Great Wines for Vegetables
- Kew Gardens Albillo 2024 - £16.99, Laithwaites, 12.3%. A spring salad of a wine: peachy-fresh with excellent body.
- Tesco Finest Torrontes - £9, Tesco, 12.5%. Pineapple-scented, high-altitude Argentine grape great with southern Indian food.
- Waitrose Loved & Found Braucol - £9.25, Waitrose Cellar, 12.5%. A friend to beans and pretty much everything else.
- Château Musar Jeune Red 2022 - £16.90, VINVM, 14%. Demands an alfresco meze lunch.
