Seafood linguine

Seafood linguine

Assuming linguine with mixed shellfish in a light sauce of garlic, chilli, parsley, white wine and a little tomato. The word linguine on its own is the most common way menus name this plate.

Shellfish and oak react to leave a metallic taste, so a barrel aged white spoils this rather than merely failing it. Past that the sauce is sharp and salty and the shellfish are delicate, so the wine wants salinity and real acidity but not perfume: a strongly fruity aromatic white fights the clean sea character instead of joining it.

Pairs Perfectly. Falanghina, Campania, Italy. An ancient grape from the coast where this dish belongs, with lemon and white peach over a saline finish and no oak anywhere. It has the acidity for the tomato and the garlic, and it stays quiet enough to let the shellfish through, which is the harder half of the job.

Pairs Well. Txakoli from the Basque country, Spain. Bone dry and faintly spritzy with a sea salt finish, made within sight of the water it belongs with. Sharp enough for anything.

Pairs Well. Arinto from Bucelas, Portugal. Lemon and green apple on a saline mineral base with high natural acidity. One of the few Portuguese whites that keeps its freshness in a warm year.

Worth Seeking Out

Stony, lemon sharp and structured without a barrel. Portugal's best white grape and barely exported.

Avoid

Oaked whites, and strongly perfumed ones. Oak reacts with shellfish to throw metal, and a very fruity aromatic wine smothers the sea character the sauce is built on.

Failing That

A Gavi, Piedmont, Italy.

If All Else Fails

Trebbiano d'Abruzzo.

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