The Odd Couple: Wine and Grits

Unlike ‘My Cousin Vinny’, Dezel has seen many a ‘grit’ over the years. In my younger years, it was commonplace to have eggs, fresh sausage, and grits for breakfast every morning. Yummy!

I was quite surprised, when living in California and now here in Virginia, to see how many people dislike or are not familiar with this popular southern selection. I know people in Louisiana and Texas who would choose grits over chocolate for dessert.

~Shrimp and Grits~

Dezel was quite surprised when visiting Tuscarora Mill in Leesburg this past Saturday and spotting grits on the dinner menu. Matter of fact, once I spotted this menu selection my eyes looked no further. The menu item read as follows:

Shrimp and Grits
sautéed gulf shrimp, sausage, tomatoes,
greens, madeira, cheesy stone ground grits

Now that I had a satisfying food selection, I found myself teetering on the side of uncertainty as to what wine would pair well with this fine dish. I have honestly never thought about which wines would pair well with a grits dish because most of the time I think of grits as a breakfast food, and milk or juice are no-brainers.


After a few minutes of pondering the wine list, I took the safe route and went with a Spanish Cava Brut. I figured this sparkling wine would be dry with a nice level of acidity making it a food friendly selection. Overall, the pairing was a good date and the sparkling brut displayed some nice tree fruit flavors with a pleasant presence of acid.


Now since grits are back on my radar, I plan on fixing some southern dishes such as fried catfish, oysters, shrimps and you guessed it, grits. Which wine selection do you think will marry well with this food combination? I was thinking about a dry Riesling, what would you recommend?

Happy Sipping!

Dezel