Paula's Party Picks: Simple Summer Pairing Plan

Use a progressive wine list to please the palates of party members.

Each season, I intend to share my favorite party foods and several wine options to serve with a few of the courses, using what is called a progressive wine list.

Rather than grouping wines by color or varietal, progressive wine lists categorize wines by primary flavor characteristics, such as intensity and level of sweetness or dryness. Wines close together on the list tend to have similar tastes. For example, lighter reds like pinot noir and sangiovese can often be found next to each other on a list. Wines are organized from softer, lighter and milder to heavier and stronger within each category. It’s even possible that one grape varietal normally considered stronger than another could come before the so-called weaker grape if the specific wine’s individual intensity happened to be lighter. For instance, a light chardonnay might be listed before a medium-bodied pinot gris, although we normally think of pinot gris as one of the lightest whites.
Tim Hanni, Master of Wine, educator and consultant in the restaurant world, not only invented the concept of these flavor profile lists, now used widely by restaurants, hotels, parks and resorts worldwide, but also coined the term progressive wine list. He introduced his ideas over twenty years ago, and in 2001, formed WineQuest Solutions with several partners. WineQuest offers an online tool for the restaurant and hotel industry to easily create progressive wine lists comprising wines from their own libraries.