Ok, which wine with salad?

Always an interesting and debatable subject..type of salad and which dressing? Quote... "Love a tart vinaigrette? Creamy, ranch-style dressing? Sweet sesame-ginger? Consider this: The tanginess, creaminess, and light sweetness of each of those styles, respectively, will affect the flavor of the wine you pour".

2020 Domaine du Salvard Cheverny Blanc, Upper Loire.

Very tight natural cork, 85% SB and 15% Chardonnay (?). 13% alc, $20 Cda.
Just a mixed green salad with a creamy style balsamic dressing. Very light straw color, soft aromatics, no cats pee! Mineral citrus, passion fruit and melon. Honeydew and watermelon flavors, nice mix of tropical fruits, tangerine, crisp acidity. Lemon notes prevail over 2 days, hint of richness but really undecided about the blend here. Comments welcome!

[Jenise]

Haven't had the current vintage, but I love that wine.

As for salad, well, as you note, as with meats, it mostly depends on the ingredients in the sauce. I'm someone who serves salad daily, but I pretty much only serve vinaigrettes--never too sour, never sweet, never store-bought, and my salads are never overdressed. Some lean more herbal, some more garlicky, and the individual oils and vinegars in play (I employ many of both) can have a marked influence. For Bob and I, wine isn't usually matched to the salad but to the main course and is generally pretty neutral. For guests and multi-course dinners, it will depend a lot on what's coming in the next course--things should flow.

Thanks very enlightening.
Do you know this winery Jenise?
https://devinewines.ca/products/#?productId=18186

For Bob and I, wine isn't usually matched to the salad but to the main course...

Yes, one of our standard Saturday night/wine dinners at home is pizza and salad. Only with beautiful greens from the farmers market and with a basic (but admittedly mustardy) vinaigrette. I always consider the salad an enemy of the wine and eat it during a lull in the wine drinking, requiring plenty of palate cleansing before I can resume wine tasting.

Bob, I concur more or less with what Rahsaan and Jenise say. Our salads usually come after a main course and are nearly always accompanied by a vinaigrette, sometimes slightly sweet with a balsamic vinegar which regarded as heretical by some French chefs. None of these vinaigrettes are very wine friendly. The wine is chosen for the main course but often there is some left over for drinking with the salad, if not too unsuitable. IMO, the wines which clash least with the vinaigrette, especially wine or cider vinaigrettes, are young dry mineral whites without a lot of complexity. Your Cheverny may be too rich for a wine or cider vinaigrette but better for balsamic.

We're also usually salad after main people, and most of the time I use for a palate break with seltzer.
Like Tim I find crisp mineral whites best if you must have wine.

[Jenise]

Thanks very enlightening.
Do you know this winery Jenise?
https://devinewines.ca/products/#?productId=18186

Yes, I do. They sell very well hereabouts. And they're one of the few North American wineries to make a Gruner.

[Jenise]

I want to add that I'm not in Rahsaan's camp of considering salad the enemy of wine.

Last night's salad was asparagus topped with halves of sungold cherry tomatoes lightly soaked in olive oil, white vinegar, salt and tarragon. I didn't serve wine with it because I didn't want to open a bottle for just one glass, but a Sauvignon Blanc would have paired beautifully. Ditto salads which feature tangy goat cheese. Italian red wines actually show very well with green leaf lettuce, blue cheese and toasted walnuts dressed with a light mix of lemon juice, toasted nut oil and salt. I make this often when I know guests will be bringing more red wines than we can consume with the main course. A pile of butter lettuce wilted under a warm dressing of sliced mushrooms sauteed with herbs d'Provence and finished with a fruity red wine vinegar and olive oil is a killer pairing with syrah. Sliced tomato salads rather like pinot noir. Etc etc etc.

Point is, the concept 'salad' isn't monolithic, and lettuce and vinegar aren't automatic wine killers. But sweet, goopy dressings generally are. Thousand Island? Can't go there. And to Bob Parsons, your creamy balsamic dressing sounds, to my ears, perfectly awful. But that's me--I like neither 'creamy' nor sweet, as most balsamic vinegar is. I don't think there's a good match for either.

But salad and wine can work--like with almost everything about wine, it's a matter of balance.

Point is, the concept 'salad' isn't monolithic...

Fair point. I was thinking pretty narrowly along the lines of lettuce and vinaigrette. When you broaden the perspective, you can get creative. Although the sharp bracing role that salads tend to play can still tend to be challenging, even if not always an automatic 'killer'.