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Bin End Shop Food & Wine Advice

Whether you’re planning a posh dinner party or simply want to find an everyday quaffer to match Monday’s sausage supper, our expert wine advisors will be happy to offer you advice about suitable wines. With hundreds of wines to choose from, they’ll be able to suggest wines to suit any budget, palate or occasion, so you’re guaranteed to find the perfect vinous partner.

Brilliant with Barbecues

Barbecuing is a fast cooking method that seals in food’s natural juices and flavours. The high temperatures quickly sear the outside of the food and caramelise its sugars and fats, which further intensifies the natural flavours and also adds sweetness to the finished dishes. Sweetness is often accentuated by the use of marinades and sauces, such as barbecue or sweet’n’sour sauce. Sometimes there is a chilli and spice element to be considered too, as well as the smokiness that’s imparted from the charcoal (if you use this type of fuel). So you need to serve wines that will balance any spiciness in the dish as well as complement:

Intensified natural flavours of the food
The sweetness of caramelised fat and sugar
Smokiness imparted from charcoal or wood

Grapes grown in hot climates ripen easily and the wines made from them are full-flavoured and taste sweeter/riper (think about strawberries and how the ripest berries are the sweetest). Often there is more residual sugar in a hot climate wine than a cool-climate wine, hence they seemingly taste ‘sweeter’. These characteristics match those found in barbecued food. The ripeness or sweetness in some wines also will balance the flavour of smoke and any heat and spice (just as sweet chutney balances hot curry). So hot-climate wines like those from the Mediterranean, Australia, Chile and California are often the best choice.

Staff Choices

In a former life, during a high-flying City career, our shop manager Nick Page caught the food and wine bug over numerous business lunches and decided to join the wine trade. A senior lecturer at the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (educators to the wine trade), Nick honed his expertise to write WSET’s Food & Wine Curriculum.

With more than a decade of experience and research under his belt, Nick is now Berrys’ foremost food and wine matching expert and lectures at our Wine School in London. Defenceless against his contagious enthusiasm, Nick’s shop team share his passion and expertise, and are equally able to offer expert advice to our customers. Meet the team...