Dill — Flavouring Profile

Dill

Feathery, grassy and faintly aniseed, dill is a cool, herbaceous note that runs through cured fish, soured cream, pickles and Scandinavian and Eastern European cooking. It is delicate: the right wine echoes its green, anise edge, the wrong one flattens or fights it.

What it asks of a wine. Bright acidity and a green, herb-toned character that meets the dill on its own terms. Dill is easily smothered by oak and overrun by sweet, exotic floral aromas, so the wine wants to be unoaked and savoury rather than fruity-perfumed.

Seek. A Grüner Veltliner from Austria — its green-herb and white-pepper snap meets dill head-on, with the acidity to stay fresh. A cooler-climate Sauvignon Blanc, such as a Loire example — grassy and unoaked, it mirrors the herb. An Assyrtiko from Santorini or a dry Furmint — saline and high-acid, herb-friendly without exotic fruit getting in the way. For dill-cured fish specifically, an unoaked white Bordeaux from Graves, gravelly and herb-toned, is the classic.

Avoid

Oaked whites, whose vanilla and toast flatten dill to nothing. Sweetly aromatic grapes such as Gewurztraminer or Muscat, whose lychee and rose pull against the herb. And full tannic reds, which simply overwhelm it.

In short. Dill loves a high-acid, unoaked, green-toned white — a cold glass of Grüner alongside dill-cured salmon is the pairing to reach for.

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