Pairing · oysters and seafood
What wine goes with oysters and seafood?
A young dry white Bordeaux, served at 8 °C. Entre-deux-Mers with oysters, Graves or white Bordeaux with a seafood platter. The selector below builds the rest of the menu around it; the page then says how much to plan and at what temperature to serve it, which matters as much as the label.
Build the menu around the seafood
Oysters are preset as the starter. Change the main course, the cheese and the dessert: each line gives a family of appellations, a colour, an age and a price range, with no brand names.
Three dry whites, three uses
Entre-deux-Mers
Mostly Sauvignon, lively, briny, no oak. It is the wine of the oyster huts on the Bassin d'Arcachon, at €7 to €9 a bottle. No need to look any further for a dozen fines de claire.
Dry white Bordeaux, white Graves
A little more Sémillon, a little more roundness. Stands up to mayonnaise and butter. €9 to €15.
White Pessac-Léognan
Aged in barrel, rich, long. It is the white for the wedding main course, not for oysters with drinks. €25 to €45. Details on the what wine with fish page.
How many bottles for oysters and drinks
Standing, an oyster in one hand and a glass in the other, people drink fast but not much: the wine is very cold and the mouth is already salty. Allow one bottle for four people over an hour, six 12 cl glasses per bottle, 80% drinkers. Beyond an hour, the pace drops to one bottle for six.
| Guests | 1 hour | 2 hours |
|---|---|---|
| 20 | 6 bottles | 6 to 12 bottles |
| 40 | 12 bottles | 18 bottles |
| 80 | 24 bottles | 30 bottles |
| 120 | 30 bottles | 48 bottles |
Rounded up to the case of 6, 8% margin included. Unopened cases are not taken back: better one case too few and a bottle of red in reserve than one case too many.
Temperature makes the wine
A dry white served at 14 °C tastes heavy and sweet with an oyster; the same wine at 8 °C tastes taut and precise. There is no successful pairing with a lukewarm wine. So plan the chilling before the wine: a tub of water, ice and salt brings a bottle down to 8 °C in twenty minutes, while a domestic fridge takes three hours for twelve bottles and barely holds more. The tubs and kilos of ice are worked out on the chilling 50 bottles fast page.
On a terrace in August, a bottle out of the tub warms up by 2 °C every ten minutes. Serve in small amounts, leave the bottles in the iced water between rounds, and don't open everything in advance.
A wedding in Arcachon, oysters and drinks on the Bassin
Oysters with drinks have become the drinks reception (vin d'honneur) of weddings on the Bassin: a hut, an oyster farmer, fifty dozen and a dry white. The calculation changes on two points compared with a classic drinks reception: less sparkling, more white. Over two hours with 100 guests, allow 30 bottles of dry white and 18 of sparkling, instead of the other way round. The rest of the menu is put together on the food and wine pairing for a wedding menu page.
Delivery to the venue is possible, including an oyster hut, provided someone is there and a van can get close. Preferably the day before, so the bottles spend the night somewhere cool.
For seafood restaurants
Three whites by the glass are enough: an inexpensive Entre-deux-Mers for the oysters, a white Graves for the platter, a Pessac-Léognan for the lobster. Dry white at 8 °C keeps for three days once opened under vacuum, which makes serving by the glass almost loss-free. Over a summer month, a seaside restaurant easily serves 200 bottles of white to 40 of red: that is the ratio the quote should reflect.
What white wine goes with oysters?
A young, unoaked, very cold dry white: Entre-deux-Mers or dry white Bordeaux, Sauvignon-based. The wine must be livelier than the oyster; a rich or oaky white crushes it. Serve at 8 °C, never above 10 °C. For sushi and raw fish the same logic applies, with a few traps: see what wine with sushi.
Can you serve red wine with seafood?
Not with oysters or shellfish: tannin and iodine give a metallic taste. With grilled fish or fish soup, a light, cool red works. For a platter, stick to white or, at a pinch, a very dry rosé.
How many bottles of white for 50 people at an oyster aperitif?
One bottle for four over an hour, so 13 bottles, rounded to 18 with the margin and the case of 6. Over two hours, allow 24. If you also serve sparkling, take a third off the white and add it as champagne or crémant.
Does champagne go with oysters?
Yes, a lively, low-dosage brut champagne works as well as a dry white. It costs three times as much. Many weddings on the Bassin serve dry white with the oysters and keep the sparkling for the toast. Champagne is available; crémant de Bordeaux, cheaper, is possible on request.