Pairing Wine With Spaghetti the Connoisseur Way

Sitting in the best Italian restaurant in NYC, wondering if wine would be the right choice with a spaghetti dish is not very uncommon. People usually consider spaghetti as a casual, everyday dish and save wine for more elegant, refined meals like lobsters and steak. But that is not how it should be. Wines perfectly complement spaghetti and thus can be a choice if you want it to be. But which wine would pair best with the spaghetti dish you wish to order? This is one question that needs an understanding more than direct answering. So, let’s understand and learn more about spaghetti and wine pairing, shall we?

Types of Spaghetti

Spaghetti is not just a type of pasta but has a family. Depending on the width or thickness of the spaghetti noodle, different sauces and wines are preferred or paired for a better experience. The difference may not be as prominent or impactful when it comes to wine pairing but it certainly has a subtle difference that changes the sauce preference which eventually can change the choice of wine.

Spaghetti is the regular, thin cylindrical noodle that is most known and preferred for spaghetti pasta meals.

Spaghettoni is slightly thicker than the regular spaghetti noodle and goes best with thick sauces that have a rich taste.

Capellini is a pretty thin spaghetti noodle that is even called angel hair pasta.

Sauces Served With Spaghetti

More than the type of spaghetti noodle, the sauce served with pasta affects the choice of wine that one would go for. Usually people imagine spaghetti with a tomato based sauce and meatballs but people, that is not the only option you have. Spaghetti can be served with different sauces and every sauce will perfectly compliment the pasta.

Classic Marinara Sauce: as already mentioned, this sauce is the most preferred and often associated with spaghetti. It is the classic tomato based sauce, rich in its tangy flavor combined with Italian spices.

Ragu: Ragu may look similar to marinara but is a little dull or dark in color. It is a meat based sauce, mostly made with beef and the richness of flavor can be easily guessed by that. Filled with the mesmerizing, mouth watering flavours and tenderness of meat, it is very dense in taste.

Pesto: Pesto is the light weight, green sauce served with several pasta shapes. Spaghetti is also on the list, so it’s a good day for all the pesto lovers. Made with basil leaves and olive, pesto sauce gets its rich flavors from nuts and cheese.

Alfredo: this is one sauce that is not generally served with spaghetti but if you are lucky, you will find this on the menu. Alfredo is a creamy sauce that has mild flavors.

Choice of Meat

Spaghetti is often served without meat and chicken, it is believed to taste best as a vegetarian meal but of course we cannot simply move past spaghetti and meatballs, that will be an insult for the love of our lives. Usually, when you are asked to consider a meat preference, beef is what comes to mind as it compliments red sauce pasta and spaghetti the best but in case you are ordering something lighter, you will and should go for chicken or shrimps.

The choice of meat, on its own, may have a huge impact on selecting the wine that would pair best with the chosen meat but in case of spaghetti, it is not given much preference. That is, no matter what meat you opt for, your choice of wine will still be influenced by your choice of sauce.

Best Wines that Compliment Spaghetti

Now that you have selected your spaghetti dish of the night, it’s time to order wine that would perfectly compliment YOUR spaghetti dish. Different sauces demand different wines so we are going to dive right into the best wine that would pair with each spaghetti dish that you can consider ordering.

For Marinara Sauce: Red sauce pasta is best complemented by red wines. Stay away from white wines if you can. For marinara sauce, we highly recommend Pinot Noir. Perfect for the simple, everyday spaghetti dish, pinot noir is an affordable, well rated red wine that has a rich taste that goes really well with tomato based sauce.

For Meatball Spaghetti: We may have said that meat or choice of protein does not necessarily impact the choice of wine but we believe it’s good to give you options. So, even though pinot noir can be a great choice for this dish too, we would highly recommend choosing Chianti. As it is another rich, red wine that pairs best with marinara sauce but its tannins can cut through the fat of the beef or meat. Giving you a clean palette after every sip.

Pesto: Pesto is the type of sauce that pairs perfectly with white wine. Chardonnay can be your choice if you have ordered this creamy, light bodied pasta as it has a subtle nutty, oak flavor.

Alfredo: if white wine is not your choice but creamy pasta is, Barbera d'Asti will be suggested. Medium bodied red wine with hues of violet, it has a really intense fruity flavor that goes perfectly well with creamy and rich sauce like both alfredo and pesto.