It’s clear early on that this is going to be one of those days: no time to shop, no time to cook. My husband and I decide that one of us will stop at Chipotle on the way home this evening and pick up some tacos for dinner. While considering, in advance, what sort of wine might be best with Mexican takeout, I decide to focus only on white options. Next time, perhaps, I’ll think about the red possibilities. Of course there’s always Rosé too, which can be good with spicy 
food. And let’s not overlook sparkling wine, which is infinitely adaptable to a variety of foods. Are there grants available for ongoing research of this sort, I wonder?
Getting back to the basics, I’d better put some white wine in the fridge for tonight. But what kind of wine? Some experts think fresh, crisp white wine is best with spicy food, while an overwhelming majority of food and wine pairing aficionados swear that sweeter aromatic selections are more appropriate. I’m torn. I can see the philosophical arguments on each side but can’t decide where to place my bet.
I root around the white wines stored in our basement looking for a sample of each style. This is takeout we’re talking about, so although I’m not searching for rock bottom prices in this instance, I do want wines that would cost less than $20. I find a bottle of Robert Oatley 
Sauvignon Blanc, a good example of a refreshing wine with bright but not shrill acidity. And here’s the fruity but not over-the-top Pacific Rim Sweet Riesling I was looking for. And now, with both bottles chilling, I can get on with the rest of the day.
To make this a more complete experiment, when I arrive at Chipotle I order two kinds of tacos: Beef with spicy salsa, and pork with mild salsa. I ask for them to be folded into soft corn tortillas and topped with cheese, lettuce, tomato, guacamole and a dab of sour-cream.
Back home, we dig enthusiastically into the tacos and savor the way the icy Sauvignon Blanc delivers a clean sweep of citrusy flavor that refreshes palates blasted by hot spice. The wine’s slight herbal grassiness furthermore connects tastily with the tang of fresh cilantro that’s prevalent in the milder salsa. The Riesling, by contrast, offers ripe, peachy-pineapple tropical fruit flavors that bring out the full-bodied succulence of the pork, as well as the richness of cheese and sour cream. It also softens the sting of spiciness that infuses the beef taco. Honestly, it’s a bit of a draw. I’d expected to find a clear favorite between these two styles of wine, but each of them in its own way is appealing with the pair of tacos.
I would never contest the point that the right match-up between a given food and its accompanying wine make both of them taste even better. On the other hand, there’s usually more than one “correct” answer to what-goes-with-what. Sometimes it’s a question of mood as much as food. And once in awhile the guidelines we depend on should be put to the test. We all tend to get stuck in our pairing patterns, but since food and wine both have more versatility on the palate than we generally give them credit for it can be enlightening to think outside the box, if you’ll pardon the cliché. As Katharine Hepburn is credited with saying, “If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun.”
7