Good Morning!

I received a unique email asking me about pairing fast food with wines, I think this is pretty hard for me because when I am thinking about fast food it is mostly because I have drank to much wine! But my pal was saying he is not a cook and he often grabs something on the way home and pours a glass of wine and they rarely ever work together. So, I had some questions for him like what foods are you talking about and what wines are you trying to complement the food with. He made me a list of his standby favs to grab on the way home from work.

I am going to break these meals and discuss what I think might work with these fast food meals….this might be easy or I could throw in the towel, here we go!

Subway Black Forest Ham and American cheese with tomatoes and cucumber with mayo and mustard on wheat: Dan, you are being a pretty healthy guy with this selection 6 grams of fat and all but I have to say for me pairing anything with the bright yellow, French’s style mustard is really difficult. The mustard is a really sour and vinegary punch in the mouth. Mayo is easier to work with but the ham is easy…with ham, chill a rose’…but this mustard is gonna be a challenge. Dijon mustard is much more refined and if you decided to change it up to Dijon mustard I would say, find a bottle of Rhone wine (red) and it will either be predominantly Syrah or Grenache and you have a fighting chance at finding an lovely combination.
Actually, I have had great success with pairing roast pork in a mustard sauce with Rhone wines, so maybe give that a try. Like Mark Oldham (wine geek super expert) says, pair your wine to the sauce not the meat or the preparation style, you will be much happier.

McDonald’s Quarter Pounder combo: Dan, I love you for a million reasons and I love the fact you get the large Quarter Pounder meal…you sir are a manly man and should eat like one! OK, the salty fries are the thing that keeps me heading to the golden arches when I have had too much to drink, but pairing wine with this burger will be the fun part. It has a raw onion slice, pickles, ketchup and mustard on top plus the cheese if you order it that way. The struggle here is the condiments, a cheeseburger plain is easy, grab a Cabernet or zinfandel and you will be happy. Ti pair with the almost salad action you have going on with this sandwich, I am going to go out on a limb and say grab a chilled bottle of either Vinho Verde or unoaked Chardonnay. The meat might overpower this wine alone but with the salty fries and pickles and mustard, I am thinking it could pull it all together.

Taco Bell Burrito Supreme combo: This was my go to meal after the bars closed when I was in college. All the girls would go to Taco Bell and chow down after leaving King’s Corner in Muncie, IN on our drive back to Ball State University. I personally can not think of a wine that will work with their salty seasoned beef, onions, tomatoes and the processed sour cream…at that point in my life I would have ordered a Pepsi and called it a night….but as I think about this meal is kinda reminds me of beef stroganoff, stay with me…you have beef, sour cream and the burrito wrapper is kinda like the pasta in stroganoff…so the best pairing I know for that meal would be Gigondas, the wie from Southern France in Rhone Valley made from Syrah. I am going to have to try this for myself…I love Gigondas and I remember loving Taco Bell….so that is my guess for this meal.

Arby’s Giant Roast Beef sandwich with curly fries: This whole pairing depends on if you add Horsey sauce or the Arby’s (red BBQ) sauce. If you eat this sandwich plain you can grab a wine high in acid and it will pair perfectly with the meat so grab a Pinot Noir from the US or grab a bottle of Burgundy from France. But if you are going to have the firey Horsey sauce, open some Riesling, it will calm down the fire, but I doubt the Riesling will pair too well with the fries and their seasoning. If you are using the Arby’s sauce, open up a Zinfandel…Zinfandel and tangy BBQ seem to balance each other, the sweet from the fruit, cuts the richness of the sauce and meat.

FYI, I have not ever tried any of these pairings and they could be total train wrecks or I could possibly be the most brilliant wine pairing person in the universe. I plan on trying these (after vacation, I am kinda staying away from processed food currently), but when I do try them, I will report back and let you know if this is a huge success or an EPIC fail.

Much LOVE and wine,

Tammi