Fireplace & Wine Pairings: The Essentials!
Not many people know this but the ancient Roman art of pairing wines to fireplaces has been happening for thousands of years. Rumor has it even cave men would only drink the finest vintage wines around communal fires or special red blends while roasting their mammoth legs. Finding the right combo can be tricky for beginners but luckily our expert researchers have found some tried-and-true pairs you can’t go wrong with!
1. Smoky Reds with Victorian Masonry Fireplaces
The smokiness of your red wine pairs well with the heavy puffs of smoke that waft into your room immediately after you light the fireplace for the first time since the home was built in 1870. Did the fireplace ever work? For that you would need to visit your local historical society and track down the family of the man who built it and ask. They might not know the answer but they will tell you how the mantel surround was salvaged off the Titanic moments before it sunk. The further you get through the bottle, the more you will taste the dark, inky, and earthy aftertaste, or is that the whale oil lantern burning next to you?
2. Vacation Wine with Linear Gas Fireplace
You’ve been waiting for a reason to show your friends the new 72” linear gas fireplace that’s bigger and heavier than both of your children put together. You also needed to tell them about this vacation you went on that totally surpassed your expectations, and DID YOU KNOW there’s a WINE REGION in southern Illinois? I KNOW RIGHT! But as you give everyone else a scant pour and slug down half the bottle in eight minutes, you probably won’t notice how the tart, fruity taste goes well with the calm, dancing flame. Time to grab that second bottle from last summer’s Michigan trip!
3. Natural Wines with Electric Fireplace
The latest and greatest with fireplace tech pairs extremely well with the most cutting-edge natural wines on the market. Take your time to taste, I mean really taste the wine while changing the flame color like some sort of god. Your neighbors probably wonder why you keep staring at a color-only TV screen for hours on end, but they just don’t get it. And after you’re 3 bottles deep and finished knitting your cat a new pair of moccasins, you can take solace knowing your fireplace only used 4 cents of electricity.
4. Boozy White with High-efficiency Wood Insert
Let no time go to waste as you pick out the most potent wine on your shelf. You forgot that you left the thermostat at 48 in prep for tonight’s fire and the family comes home in 20 minutes! You promised the wife that the new insert you picked out would heat the whole house, and you’re ready to prove it! Between each gulp you can taste the mix of pear, apple, cranberries, pickles, cherries, no no definitely not pickles! But the fire! Why isn’t it lighting quicker? Did we store the wood at the bottom of the pool outside? When you see the headlights pull in the driveway you skip the glass and take a pull from the bottle, just as nature intended. It’s at that point you hear a crackle from the fire and taste the real notes of the wine who’s label you forgot already: Apples, pecans, and success.
5. Old Milwaukee Beer with Uncle Dan’s Wood Stove
You thought getting the wood chopped and in the cabin was the hard part, but you were wrong. Uncle dan’s stove has been a fixture for longer than you’ve been alive, and it acts it’s age. In these types of situations, we recommend skipping wine and getting right into an ice-cold Old Milwaukee. After the stove magically gets a whiff, it perks right up and starts gulping down the wood you feed it. Log after log, and beer after beer, you grow closer to the stove. The nutty, refreshing taste warms your belly while the stove warms your soul. It’s at that point Uncle Dan joins and farts. Life is normal again.