The Absolute Best Wine To Pair With Steak Au Poivre

The number one rule for pairing food and wine is to match intensity — the flavors and body of both should be equally light, medium, or bold so that one doesn't just drown out the other. Further professional-level food and wine pairing tips include choosing more acidic wines so they cut through characteristics like richness and umami, and considering flavors in a compare-and-contrast way. Common flavors make for harmonious pairings, but you also want differences, which create a mutual highlighting between the food and wine. A pairing that deliciously checks all of these boxes is steak au poivre and syrah. Take it from an expert like executive chef of Fort Lauderdale's Steak 954, Matthew Kreider, who picked the syrah when we asked what would live up to steak au poivre's boldness. Kreider's reasoning is that "the structure of the wine should hold up to all the spices and big flavors [of] an au poivre sauce."

Syrah wine is made from syrah grapes and is usually red, though rosé can also be made with these grapes. They're primarily grown in France, Italy, Australia, the United States, and South America, and many of the options from Australia as well as some other regions are known instead as Shiraz. There are some differences: Both are spice-forward, but American and Australian syrah and shiraz wines are fruitier, while French and Italian syrahs are acidic, earthy, more savory, and even spicier. They often have peppercorn notes, specifically, so it's these syrahs that you want for steak au poivre.

When thinking about the best wines to pair with steak, those wines have two different criteria to meet. They must meet the intensity of the meat itself while cutting its umami and fat with tannic astringency and acidity, and they must do the same for any of the classic steak sauces to create compare-and-contrast moments with the chosen sauce's different elements. Syrah is up to all of these tasks, as its grapes are packed with tannins, which provide astringency and acidity that act like a palate cleanser. Take a bite of juicy, rich steak, and then let a sip of syrah balance that with a bright burst. The wine's fruit notes are a lovely match for any sweet, caramelized edges on the steak too.

Syrah's savory, spicy notes are really what set it apart here. It's a great way to spice up the steak itself but a pitch-perfect match for au poivre sauce; you'll really get the intensity of the peppercorns from both the wine and the sauce. The wine tempers the sauce's own butter and cream richness just as it does for the steak's fats, and it also brings in herbaceous, earthy notes that play against the sweet fruit notes of the brandy in the sauce and further amplify the present spices. Between the syrah wine, the steak, and the sauce, you'll have a complex, complementary bouquet of spice, fruitiness, herbaceousness, and richness.