Wine and Music: 5 Classic Pairings

The thing I miss most about no longer doing wine reviews on this blog is the wine and music pairing that accompanied each review. The book I wrote with Clark Smith on wine and music pairing was a blast to write. So just for fun I paired five iconic wines with 5 classic tunes.

Wine and music pairings work because both are temporal, dynamic, and textural experiences whose expressive qualities unfold over time. Just as music has tone, timbre, texture, and emotional resonance, so too does wine. The tonal brightness or darkness of a wine’s aromas parallels high or low musical frequencies; shifts in a wine’s flavor and structural balance mirror changes in musical dynamics and instrumentation; and both can feel smooth or coarse, dense or airy, powerful or delicate.

Effective pairings often aim for congruence—matching a wine and a piece of music that share tonal, textural, and emotional traits. A bright, crisp wine may harmonize with music of light timbre and quick tempo, while a rich, brooding wine may call for deep bass and slower phrasing. But congruence isn’t always desirable: through “sonic seasoning,” music can instead balance or soften a wine’s flaws by emphasizing less dominant characteristics.

As in food–wine pairing, there are no strict rules—only guidelines, and exceptions abound. Success depends on perceiving a wine’s expressive personality (cheerful, austere, sensual, brooding) and matching it with music of similar affect.

Unfortunately, I don’t have these 5 wines sitting in front of me (neither do I have the bank account that would make that possible.) Fortunately I have my tasting notes and distinct memories of each of them. Here are five classic wines paired with 5 classic songs and why they work:

1. Dom Pérignon Vintage Champagne → David Bowie – “Let’s Dance”

• Structure: A tightly coiled spine of acidity in the wine mirrors the song’s crisp, disciplined groove; both hold their shape no matter how exuberant the surface.
• Texture: The Champagne’s fine mousse = the song’s shimmering guitar riff—both are airy but insistent, tiny points of energy constantly breaking the surface.
• Rhythm: A persistent 4/4 beat that’s impossible to ignore, like the steady rise of bubbles; the music swings while the wine dances on the tongue.
• Intensity: Medium-high but gleaming—there’s lift and brightness rather than heaviness; the crescendo is in sparkle, not in volume.

2. Château Margaux → Fleetwood Mac – “Dreams”

• Structure: Supple tannins support an elegant frame, just as Mick Fleetwood’s steady drum line supports Nicks’ vocals; the scaffolding is invisible but essential.
• Texture: Silk over steel—Margaux’s perfume-laced softness parallels the velvety vocal delivery layered over a bassline with tensile strength.
• Rhythm: Flowing, unhurried, each note and sip stretching into the next with a languid inevitability.
• Intensity: Moderate, with a slow build; emotion seeps in rather than bursts out, and the finish—like the song’s fade—feels inevitable and endless.

3. Penfolds Grange → AC/DC – “Back in Black”

• Structure: Monumental and built to last—dense Shiraz tannins are the equivalent of Malcolm Young’s granite rhythm guitar, unyielding and elemental.
• Texture: Thick, plush fruit as saturated as the distortion in the guitar tone—there’s no air in the middle, just richness and weight.
• Rhythm: Straight-ahead, driving rock; the wine’s progression is linear and emphatic, hitting in power chords rather than delicate arpeggios.
• Intensity: Maximal—no fade, no subtle decrescendo; the finish slams down like a final cymbal crash.

4. Sassicaia → U2 – “Where the Streets Have No Name”

• Structure: Bordeaux precision overlaid on Tuscan sun—like U2’s architectural layering: The Edge’s chiming delay guitar over Adam Clayton’s anchoring bass.
• Texture: Seamless transitions between lean, savory notes and lush, ripe fruit—mirroring the track’s slow bloom from minimalist intro to soaring chorus.
• Rhythm: Expansive pacing; each element enters in sequence, creating a sense of widening space, like stepping onto a windswept plain.
• Intensity: Crescendo over time—the first sip (or first bars) feels restrained, but the final swell fills every sensory register.

5. Vega Sicilia Único → Radiohead – “Paranoid Android”

• Structure: Multi-part, episodic—both wine and song shift shape midstream, requiring recalibration with each turn.
• Texture: Grainy tannins, earthy depth, and sudden flashes of brightness are like the song’s switches from menace to melancholy to catharsis.
• Rhythm: Alternating tempos—moments of suspended time followed by jagged forward motion; the wine moves from stillness to surge.
• Intensity: Unpredictable—some sections are hushed and inward, others hit like a percussive strike; the finish is haunting, with a residue that stays in the mind and mouth.