There’s harmony between your favorite songs and the right bottle. This guide to pairing wine with music helps you find the perfect notes in every glass and tune.

I’ve long advocated pairing wine with mood and emotions. Don’t get me wrong, food and wine pairings are great. I’m not pushing to change that. But we don’t always drink wine when we eat, and we don’t always eat with wine, right?

Wine is—or can be—an everyday companion. It’s festive, it’s as great at the beach in the summer months as it is indoors next to a fire, watching snow fall, in the middle of winter. Got a promotion? Celebrate with wine! Friends coming over? There’s a bottle for that! Maybe you just want to wind down after a long day with a glass of your favorite Cab.

You get the idea. Wine goes great with all kinds of human experiences, and today I want to talk about one of them: pairing wine with music.

Wine is Art. Pair Wine with Art

Wine is the only work of art that can be drunk.

Luis Fernando Olaverri

There’s craft in wine. There’s also the hopes and dreams of wine producers inside each bottle. There’s life and evolution. Oh, and once uncorked, it’s open to interpretation. Yes, wine is art.

And I’m a firm believer that you can pair it well with other forms of art. Wine with a movie, for example. Or some Chardonnay with your favorite sultry book. Enjoying some Pinot Noir also sounds great while standing in front of Las Meninas[i], but I doubt El Prado Museum will allow me to walk in with glass and bottle in hand.

Some forms of art are easier to pair with wine than others. My favorite is music.

The Problem with Pairing Wine and Music

There’s emotion and nostalgia in music. It warms our hearts and makes us cry. It reminds us of sweet moments with good company, road trips with friends, and can put a smile on our faces even remembering a break-up from long ago. Music takes us places. Pearl Jam’s Yellow Ledbetter puts me in the passenger’s seat of my friend’s car in a sunny winter afternoon in Ohio[ii]. Just the first few guitar notes, and I’m there. Every time.

But that’s just the problem, isn’t it? It’s personal. Pearl Jam might not take you anywhere. Do you even like the band? And if it takes you somewhere, it’s not the front seat of my friend’s car just outside of Kent, Ohio. That’s the problem with pairing wine and music.

But there’s a workaround.

How to Go About Pairing Wine and Music

How can you pair wine and music that way? The short answer is mood. If a certain wine puts you in a specific mood, search in your mind storage for a bottle that makes you feel similarly.

I listen to a song and think about describing it in wine terms. Does it linger? Is it round? Is it dry? Meaty? Bright? Does it pop? Is it iconic?

Maybe you can do it the other way around. Pour yourself a glass and describe it musically. Does it have soul? Edge? Is the riff meaty? Is the bass line firm and smokey? Is the sound bold, cool, bitter?

Now, I’m of a different era. I’m like Abe Simpson when he said, “I used to be with ‘it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!”. I just don’t know contemporary music anymore, so my pairings involve music from the 60s to the 90s and maybe a dabble a few years into the current century.

It’ll be different for you. Draw from your musical taste and you’ll do all right.

Some Wine and Music Pairing Examples

Here’s some inspiration to get you started. Trust me, you can do the same with your favorite tunes!

1. The Beatles, Girl. This song’s all softness: a hush of breathy voices, a gentle guitar whispering. Oh, but it’s complex! This song seems fragile, floral, but carries a bitter undertone. País from Maule is the perfect pairing for this tune: fresh, delicate, acidic, and emotionally complex.
2. Florence + The Machine, Dog Days Are Over. This song is zesty, crisp, and almost feels bright. It’s an emotional rollercoaster riding the tension between the delicate and the robust. I like Sauvignon Blanc from Casablanca for this song: It hits your nose with big fruit aromas, but it’s also fresh and has the same joyful energy as the song.
3. Dire Straits, Money for Nothing. A song with a killer, iconic, weighty riff. A song both powerful and polished. A song with something to say, which stays in your mind because it’s catchy, but also profound. I’m, of course, talking about the wine now: Cabernet Sauvignon from the colder regions of Maipo[iii], a groovy wine with depth and energy.

You might’ve noticed the limitation in my approach. Unless you’re listening to some 20+ minutes progressive rock classics[iv], most songs are hip three-minute ditties. You’re unlikely to finish your glass, much less a whole bottle. This is why, even though pairing wine with music works remarkably well, it’s more of an experiment on pairing wine with emotions.

The Last Drop

I truly believe wine pairs well with mood, and music sure helps set one. Pairing wine with music is, then, a no-brainer. It’s flawed, sure. But then again, the perfect pairing, be it tunes, books, or grub, doesn’t exist.

That said, find something that sparks excitement within you, and pair it with wine. I’ve seen some creative folk pairing wine with movies and even clothes. It’s all about matching emotions.

I think you’ll have a great time pairing wine with music if you haven’t done it yet. Give it a go and let me know in the comments how it went, or if you have any questions about it. I’ll be happy to help!

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[i] You might’ve seen this famous painting by Diego Velázquez. This one right here.

[ii] This is the one, whether it transports you somewhere or you’ve never heard it before.

[iii] We call that general area Alto Maipo, but there’s a couple of Denominación de Origen subregions like Melipilla or Puente Alto.

[iv] Not all of them are progressive rock, of course. Some examples are Thick as a Brick, by Jetho Tull (43 minutes long), Supper’s Ready, by Genesis (23 minutes long), and In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly (17 minutes long).

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Cover Image: Pairing Wine With Music Albums. Photo by Engin Akyurt.