Serving Up Crab Or Lobster? This Is The Wine Pairing You Need

Crab and lobster are some of seafood's greatest gifts. Lobster has just come in season and that means many of us are about to enjoy delicious buttery lobster rolls. But whichever crustacean you're cooking with, you ought to celebrate with a well-paired bottle of wine. To find out the best wine pairing for crab and lobster we reached out to Vajra Stratigos, the Director of Operations at Jax Fish House & Oyster Bar.

"I'm a Chenin Blanc devotee," Stratigos told Tasting Table. "Which automatically makes me a buyer of wines from Vouvray and surrounding appellations." Vouvray is a French wine region in the Loire Valley southwest of Paris known for producing some of the finest Chenin Blanc wines in the world. "There is a style of wine from Vouvray called Moelleux," Stratigos continued. "That's a bit richer and rounder, yet still captivates the bright refreshing acidity from the Chenin."

Crab and lobster both have that bright salinity we associate with good seafood but have a distinctly velvety mouthfeel that Chenin Blanc pairs with so well. As Stratigos puts it, "When eating crab or lobster, it's important to consider both the natural opulence and the need for balance so I'd recommend a bottle of Domaine Huet Vouvray Moelleux Le Mont from 2017." It just so happens that we talked about this exact wine a few months back as part of our conversation with a sommelier about the best beginner wines.

It doesn't matter if you're cooking a full-course seafood dinner or snacking on fresh crab ceviche on a sunny afternoon, Chenin Blanc is the versatile wine pairing ready to fill the lead role. It may strike you as oddly specific for Stratigos to name the exact year to try Domaine Huet's Moelleux Chenin Blanc but the Vouvray AOC is known for its unpredictable weather and each year the vineyards produce slightly different grapes because of it. This makes Vouvray Chenin Blanc confusing to the novice but incredibly interesting to anyone who takes the time to familiarize themselves with which years are known for what flavors. To some extent, this is true of all wines, but the effect on Vouvray wines is particularly pronounced.

At this point, we understand the Domaine Huet Vouvray Moelleux Le Mont label almost entirely. Domaine Huet is the wine producer, Vouvray is the region, and Moelleux is the style. But we're missing an important piece of the puzzle: Le Mont. Le Mont is one of Domaine Huet's two most famous vineyards, renowned for its characteristically robust minerality since the vineyard is dense with stones that donate their unique terroir to the grapes.

When you combine that distinct minerality with the Moelleux style, you get the perfect wine for crab and lobster. Moelleux wines are the sweetest of Vouvray wines but the classification contains a broad range of styles and the 2017 Le Mont is perfectly balanced for the sweet, briny flavors of crustaceans.