Pizza Today -March 2023 - 14

MAN ON THE STREET SCO TT WIENER
that it's hard for one to stick out from the
crowd. Ever since my Parma experience, I
always bring seltzer to the judges' table.
For a white wine alternative to Prosecco,
there's an excellent spumante called
Aspirinio. It has a gentle mineral on the
tongue but fi nishes with an exciting citrus
note. It's excellent with white pizzas. One
product, called Aspritz, even claims on
its label that it's the " best wine for pizza. "
You gotta love it when a wine tells you
exactly who it wants to hang with.
As for red wines, there's a fantastic
The Essence of
Eff ervescence
've been thinking a lot about bubbles
lately. Th e pizza world has long been
afl oat in a bath of bubbly beverages
like soda and beer, but the landscape is
rapidly bursting into fresh territory. Not
only are the world's biggest beverage
barkers betting big on spiked seltzers
and fi zzy wines, but they're also marketing
them directly to pizzerias and pizza
consumers.
As it turns out, bubbles are good for
I
your taste buds. Th ey liberate fl avor
compounds and release volatiles you otherwise
may never have detected. Carbonated
beverages are a great palate cleanser,
particularly when they don't have strong
lasting fl avors of their own.
Th at explains an experience I had a few
years ago in Parma, Italy. I was judging the
Campionato Mondiale della Pizza, which
diff ers from American competitions in
that it allows competitors to pair beverages
with their pizzas. Just about every pizza
maker presented their pizza with Prosecco.
At fi rst, I thought they were just trying to
get the judges buzzed, but I soon realized
the benefi ts of a dry sparkling wine like
Prosecco.
You'd normally think of a beverage pairing
as being complementary to the dish
with which it's served, but in this situation
the competitors employed Prosecco
to cleanse the judges' palates of whatever
they tasted previously. One of my biggest
pet peeves is when competitors act as if
theirs is the only pizza the judges will be
tasting. We end up eating so many salty
pizzas covered with sausage and pepperoni
alternative that's been popular in Naples
for years. Gragnano is Southern Italy's
version of Lambrusco but it's drier and
has smaller bubbles. Drinking it doesn't
feel zesty like seltzer, it's more of a
ticklish sensation. We serve Gragnano on
pizza tours and it's always a hit because
it's both delicious and surprising. I
particularly love it with fried pizzas and
pizzas with fatty meats.
Now that there's Italian precedent for
calling out bubbly wines as pizza pairings,
American companies are starting to get
into the game. Los Angeles-based Pie
Wine off ers three diff erent canned eff ervescent
wines. You can probably tell from
the company's name that pizza consumers
are their target market. Pie Wine has a
sparkling red wine (similar to Gragnano),
a sparkling white (a sweeter Prosecco),
and a rose. Th e company is aiming to
own Gen Z with its bright branding and
collaborations with YouTube stars and
infl uencers. If one bubbly wine company
is betting the farm on pizza, you can be
sure more will follow.
It doesn't take a genius to realize that
pizza loves bubbles. Whether it's a Coke
to cut through the greasy cheese of a New
York slice or a glass of Prosecco to compliment
a more delicate Pizza Romana
Tonda, it just works. And let's not forget
that bubbles are FUN! At the end of the
day if you're not having fun while you're
eating pizza, you're doing it wrong.
SCOTT WIENER is the founder of Scott's Pizza Tours in New York City and SliceOutHunger.org Instagram: @scottspizzatours
14 / PIZZATODAY.COM / MARCH 2023

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Pizza Today -March 2023

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