Wine With Mexican Food: Tacos, Mole, Ceviche and More

The best wine with Mexican food is usually something fresh and moderate in alcohol: a sparkling wine or rosé for the table, a crisp white such as Albariño or Sauvignon Blanc for lime-and-cilantro dishes, and a soft, fruity red such as Tempranillo, Grenache or Zinfandel for grilled meat and mole. Chili is in almost everything, so big tannic reds and high-alcohol wines are the ones to avoid. Here’s what to pour, dish by dish.

The rules: chili, tannin and alcohol

Mexican food covers a huge range, from fresh, green aguachile to slow-cooked moles with dozens of ingredients. Tony Gopal, head sommelier at the Michelin-starred Kol in London, told Decanter that a smoky, dried-fruit mole poblano needs a completely different approach from the fresh heat of a raw seafood dish. Still, a few rules hold.

• Keep tannin soft. Tannin is the drying grip that red wine leaves on your gums. “Tannins can amplify chilies,” Noah Small, beverage director of New York’s Empellón group, told Wine Enthusiast. Luis Sánchez, sommelier at Rosetta in Mexico City, made the same point to Decanter: too much tannin can intensify the heat.
• Watch the alcohol. Wine Spectator’s Dr. Vinny says wines with low or moderate alcohol tend to handle spice better.
• Pair the sauce and toppings, not just the meat. Small’s first tip is to consider chili, onion, cilantro and sauce along with the protein.
• Start with bubbles or rosé. Dr. Vinny’s advice is to begin with sparkling wine or rosé, naming Cava, Prosecco and West Coast sparkling wines.

Wine Folly’s guide suggests thinking of the wine as one more ingredient. Its rough map: medium-bodied reds for beans and tomatoes; medium-bodied reds or rosé for chilies such as ancho, guajillo and chipotle, and for oregano; and light-bodied whites for cilantro, epazote and avocado.

Dish	Wines to try	Why it works
Tacos al pastor	Bandol or Tavel rosé, Rioja	Body and fruit for spiced pork and pineapple
Fish tacos	Albariño, Sauvignon Blanc, Txakoli	Brisk whites like a squeeze of lime
Beef tacos (bistec)	Tempranillo, Grenache, Malbec	Bolder reds for seared beef
Carnitas	Pinot Noir	Light, low-tannin red for rich pork
Mole negro	Zinfandel, Barbera, Champagne	Ripe fruit or toasty bubbles for a dark sauce
Ceviche	Albariño, Verdejo, Vermentino, Torrontés	Acidity and aroma for lime-cured fish
Guacamole	Grüner Veltliner, Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc	Acidity cuts avocado’s richness
Chips and salsa	Chianti, Sangiovese, Nero d’Avola	Tomato-friendly Italian reds

Sources for this table: Wine Folly, Wine Spectator’s Dr. Vinny, Wine Enthusiast and Decanter, as detailed below.

Tacos

Tacos are really several pairings in one, so let the filling decide. Small’s suggestions, from Wine Enthusiast’s taco guide:

• Al pastor. He likens chili-and-pineapple pork to barbecue: fatty meat with some sweetness. For wine, he suggests reds from the Canary Islands, or Rioja if you want something juicier. Wine Folly prefers a rosé with good body, such as Bandol or Tavel, which won’t overpower the pork, spice and fruit.
• Fish tacos. For Baja-style fried or grilled fish, Small reaches for brisk whites: Albariño, Sauvignon Blanc or Spanish Txakoli. Fiona Beckett, writing in Decanter, also picks Sauvignon Blanc and calls fish tacos the Mexican equivalent of fish and chips.
• Beef (bistec). “It’s a good chance to go for a bolder red wine,” Small says, naming Tempranillo, Grenache or Malbec.
• Carnitas. Dr. Vinny suggests Pinot Noir for carnitas and other pork dishes.

Our pick for a taco night with mixed fillings: a dry rosé, which sits between the white and red options and handles chili without fuss. Our Spanish wine guide covers Rioja and Albariño if you want to follow Small’s lead.

Grilled and smoky dishes

For grilled dishes with smoky chipotle, Dr. Vinny suggests reds that can stand up to smoke: Malbec, Tempranillo or Syrah. Wine Folly’s picks for beef fajitas are fruit-forward medium reds such as Mencía, a young Tempranillo (joven) or Zinfandel, which it says cut spiciness better than high-tannin wines. We’d pick a young Argentine Malbec here; our Argentina wine guide explains where it comes from.

For birria, the rich, spicy stew, Beckett recommends a well-structured New World Cabernet, or a GSM blend. In our view that is the one place on the table where a fuller red earns its keep, because the stew’s fat and depth absorb the tannin.

Mole

Mole is the hardest Mexican dish to pair. Jill Gubesch, sommelier for Rick Bayless’s Frontera Grill and Topolobampo in Chicago, told Wine Spectator that black mole from Oaxaca, with around 30 ingredients and layered sweetness and spice, is a real challenge. Her choice at the time was a Priorat, for its velvety tannins and concentration.

The experts’ answers fall into two camps:

• Ripe, fruity reds. Beckett pairs mole negro with Zinfandel, because you need ripe fruit with its dark, chocolatey flavor. Dr. Vinny also suggests a fruit-forward Zinfandel or a Barbera.
• Champagne. Wine Folly calls Champagne with Oaxacan black mole its most unexpected pairing: the wine’s toasty, nutty notes echo the sauce, and the bubbles and acidity refresh the palate.

Gubesch also offers a useful exception to the “low alcohol” rule. For sauces made with pasilla chiles, which taste of bittersweet chocolate and espresso, she likes a ripe, fruit-forward Napa Zinfandel even at high alcohol, because the fruit balances the building heat. Our Zinfandel guide explains the grape’s ripe, jammy style.

We’d start with a Zinfandel for mole at home and save the Champagne for when you want to surprise your guests.

Enchiladas, tamales and quesadillas

We didn’t find a named expert pairing for enchiladas, so here we apply the sources’ rules. Pair the sauce:

• Red chile sauce: Wine Folly matches dried chilies with medium-bodied reds and rosé. We’d pick a Garnacha or a young Tempranillo.
• Green tomatillo sauce (enchiladas verdes): Dr. Vinny suggests crisp whites such as Sauvignon Blanc or Albariño for lime, cilantro and tomatillo dishes.
• Cheese and cream (enchiladas suizas): Wine Folly’s quesadilla picks, Riesling, Chardonnay or a French Sauvignon Blanc, cut through melted cheese.

Beckett notes that corn, the base of tamales, tostadas and tacos, loves Chardonnay. For pork tamales, Wine Folly suggests lighter reds such as Pinot Noir, Beaujolais or Cabernet Franc, whose earthy notes suit the dense masa.

Ceviche, guacamole and salsa

Ceviche is fish cured in lime juice, so it is very tart. Wine Folly suggests Albariño, Verdejo or Vermentino, wines that suit seafood and match the lime. Beckett adds a twist: she finds aromatic whites such as Friulano or Torrontés work better than citrusy ones, which the marinade tends to cancel out. More shellfish and white fish ideas are in our guide to wine with seafood.

For guacamole, Wine Folly suggests Grüner Veltliner, Pinot Gris or Sauvignon Blanc: their acidity cuts the avocado, and their citrus notes stand up to cilantro and onion. For chips and salsa, it points to tomato-friendly Italian reds such as Chianti, Sangiovese or Nero d’Avola.

What about Mexican wine?

Dr. Vinny suggests Mexican wines as a natural match, noting that Baja wines are much easier to find these days. Wine Enthusiast’s report on Mexican wine in US restaurants focuses on Valle de Guadalupe, in Baja California, the peninsula just south of San Diego.

Winemaking in Mexico is old. According to Wine Enthusiast, the Mission grape (now known to be Listán Prieto) was brought to the Americas in the 16th century, and Jesuit and Dominican priests later planted vineyards at missions along the Pacific coast. The same article reports that Valle de Guadalupe has almost 5,000 acres of grapes, and that producers there face few rules on what to plant or blend, so you’ll see Tempranillo-Nebbiolo blends next to Chenin Blanc. Mexican wine isn’t cheap: a London restaurateur told Beckett that import taxes make Baja wines expensive in the UK, and Wine Enthusiast describes US prices as far from entry-level.

Finding a bottle

Most of the styles above, from Spanish rosé to Albariño and Malbec, are easy to find for under $20. Our best wine under $20 list picks bottles by comparing published critic scores with dated US prices. For the principles behind these matches, see our wine and food pairing guide.

Wine is for adults of legal drinking age (21 in the US). Please drink responsibly.