If wine and cheese pairings have you yawning, Google Wine Guide is here to shake up your world. This app gives wine pairings for everything from gummy bears to your Chipotle steak burrito. We asked Google Wine Guide founder Stu Carnes to share some of the most unique wine pairings people are requesting.
Carnes was inspired by Gary Vaynerchuk’s Wine Library TV. This channel turned Youtube into a home for approachable wine education, with a hint of irreverence. Similarly, Carnes wanted to give Google Home an accessible library of wine knowledge. Like Wine Library TV, Google Wine Guide takes an unpretentious outlook on wine.
“I saw an opportunity to bring real value to wine enthusiasts like myself, who love wine and want to pair it with their favorite dishes, but don’t have the time to search long articles and want an instant answer wherever they are,” says founder Stu Carnes. To find the right wine pairing, Google Wine Guide thinks about the main ingredients in the dish, consults multiple wine publications or websites, and then makes a final recommendation. It culls through authorities such as Wine Library TV, Food & Wine, Food Network, Wine Spectator, and Wine Enthusiast to identify what wine will match your dish. It can even offer example bottles to try.
Ultimately, Google Wine Guide’s goal is to make it quicker and easier to access wine pairing knowledge. Today, Google Home and other voice assistants can’t easily answer wine pairing questions. Google Wine Guide enables Google Home, your mobile phone, and even your laptop to become a personal sommelier of sorts.
Think you’ve mastered wine pairing? Here are a few unexpected, unique wine pairings that are surprisingly popular on Google Wine Guide:
- Snickers with Zinfandel – Need a match for your sticky, sugary Snickers bar? Consider a California Zinfandel to wash it down. Its fruity, often chocolatey notes and sweet tannins will stand up to the candy.
- Burger King Whoppers with Syrah – The smoky, peppery notes of a Whopper burger patty meld harmoniously with the aromatics of Syrah. In particular, Syrah from the Rhone region of France will have more pronounced smoky notes.
- Chipotle Chicken Burrito Bowl with Verdejo – Burrito bowls usually come with some pretty acidic flavors, from fresh lime juice to tomato salsa. The bright, crisp Verdejo with its mouthwatering acidity makes for a refreshing match.
- Powdered sugar donuts with off-dry Riesling – The straight-up sweetness of powdered sugar will overpower most wines. An off-dry Riesling will hold its own against this saccharine donut flavor.
- Chicken Tikka Masala with Gruner Vetliner – The delicate sweetness of off-dry Austrian Gruner Vetliner is excellent for taming spicy foods. Its racy acidity and minerality also help cut through the richness of this dish.
In fact, some of the wine pairing requests go beyond unique into farcical territory. Even a request for “boogers” or “Donald Trump” pairings will leave Google Wine Assistant unshaken (we suggest you try the app for those answers!). No wine pairing is too lowly or weird for Google Wine Guide, which takes an unpretentious stance on wine.
Looking for more pairings? To get started, simply send Google Wine Guide to your Google Home speaker. Or, download the Google Assistant app on your iPhone or Android and ask for Google Wine Guide. As a tip, it helps to be as specific as possible in your search (ex.: “sausage pizza” instead of “pizza”).