Which wine goes with carpaccio?

With beef carpaccio goes a light red wine with little tannin and firm acidity, for example a Gamay from Beaujolais or a Pinot Noir.

The meat is thinly sliced, cold and lean, and the plate gets its strength from the accompaniments: salt from the Parmesan, acidity from the lemon, bitterness from the rocket. A wine with a lot of colour, a lot of alcohol and firm tannin lays itself on top of that and drowns out the meat. A light red wine with fresh acidity stands alongside and lets the dish do its work.

Styles and grapes that have this shape:

• Gamay from the Beaujolais and from the Loire.
• Pinot Noir from Burgundy, from Germany as Spätburgunder and from cooler regions elsewhere.
• Schiava from Alto Adige, called Vernatsch in German-speaking regions.
• Frappato from Sicily.
• Cinsault, bottled on its own instead of in a blend.
• Zweigelt and Blaufränkisch from Austria.
• Cabernet Franc from the Loire in the lighter style.

On the shelf in Bathmen there are 27 bottles with pinot noir and 7 with gamay, alongside 308 red wines with an alcohol percentage of 11 to 14 percent.

Heavy tannin clashes with raw lean meat because tannin binds to protein and to fat, and with carpaccio that fat is not in the meat but in a thin layer of olive oil.

The most widely accepted explanation for the astringent feeling of tannin is that tannin precipitates the proteins in your saliva, which makes the mouth feel dry and rough. If there is fat in the dish, the tannin gets something else to bind to. Researchers in Bordeaux showed in 2021 that catechin, one of the building blocks of grape tannin, attaches itself to oil droplets, and in the same study a panel rated tannin solutions with oil as less astringent.

With a pan-fried steak there is plenty of fat and warm protein to absorb that tannin, and a robust red wine actually feels softer there. A thin slice of raw, cold beef tenderloin of a few grams does not offer that. The tannin finds nothing and stays behind as dryness on the tongue.

A white or sparkling wine is the better choice with carpaccio as soon as there is no beef on the plate, so with carpaccio of fish, salmon, scallop or beetroot.

Fish and beetroot lack the iron-rich, meaty character that a red wine matches, and red wine often tastes metallic with fish. A dry white wine with clear acidity and little or no oak keeps the plate fresh: Sauvignon Blanc, Grüner Veltliner, Vermentino, a dry Riesling, or an unoaked Chardonnay. A dry sparkling wine also works, because the bubbles and acidity wash away the olive oil each time.

Beetroot also brings an earthy sweetness, and a white wine with a little more body suits that better than a very slender one. The wine category in Bathmen includes 308 white wines, 86 sparkling wines and 42 champagnes, with Chardonnay on the shelf 65 times and Sauvignon Blanc 36 times.

Parmesan, rocket, truffle, lemon and balsamic each pull the choice of wine in a different direction, and the strongest ingredient on the plate decides what goes in the glass.

• Parmesan brings salt and savouriness. Salt calls for acidity in the wine, so a fresh, light red wine or a sparkling wine.
• Rocket brings bitterness. Tannin adds up with bitterness, so the more rocket, the less tannin the wine may have.
• Truffle brings earthy depth. A pinot noir with some maturation goes well with it, and a full-bodied white wine can do the job too.
• Lemon brings a lot of acidity. The wine must have at least as much acidity, otherwise it turns out flat and limp.
• Balsamic vinegar brings sour and sweet at the same time. A red wine with ripe, juicy fruit holds its own against that, a tight dry white wine does not.

If there is a lot on the plate, look at what you smell first. In practice, that is also what you look for first in the wine.

Serve a light red wine with carpaccio at 12 to 14 degrees, so clearly cooler than room temperature, and a white or sparkling wine at 6 to 8 degrees.

Temperature changes what you notice in a wine. A panel at Washington State University described the same red wines at 10 and 16 degrees more often as sour, bitter and astringent with little aroma, and at 16 and 22 degrees more often as spicy, fruity and even sweet. The warmer the wine, the more aroma compounds are released, and the more the alcohol comes to the fore.

With a wine with little tannin, serving it cooler costs little and gains a lot: the acidity stays sharp against the lemon and the olive oil, and the alcohol stays in the background. With a heavy wine with a lot of tannin, the same cold works against you, because cold makes that tannin hard. Take the bottle out of the fridge half an hour before dinner, or put a bottle from the shelf in briefly, and pour it a little too cold. In the glass the temperature rises quickly enough.

Anyone who wants to get through the whole starter with one bottle chooses a dry sparkling wine, because next to carpaccio it also suits salty cheese, fish and fried snacks.

Acidity and carbonation are the two properties that can be used most widely at the table: they clean the mouth every time and they clash with almost nothing. If a main course with meat follows, the sparkling wine serves as aperitif and starter wine and you open a second bottle for the main course.

If you do want red on the table, a light red wine of around 12 percent, served cool, is the most accommodating choice for a starter with several small plates. The selection below this page is set up for exactly that: 308 bottles from 183 brands from 16 countries. Step into the shop in Bathmen with the menu in hand, and we will find a bottle together from the more than 6,500 items in the shop. We do not sell alcohol to anyone under 18.