The Perfect Herring Wine

Hollandse Nieuwe is back. Too tempting not to eat, right? At the stall, they slide down so easily. But if you take them home, you’ll obviously need something liquid to go with them. And what pairs best? A saline, chilled sherry, of course. 

However delicious a little herring may be, it doesn’t like to be paired with just anything. The fat and creamy, salty flavor demand quite a lot from an accompanying drink. And if it’s also been liberally sprinkled with onion and pickle, you can forget about it altogether.

Wrong onions

That’s why I eat mine without any fuss. The subtle flavor disappears anyway beneath the bed of pickle and onion. It’s completely unnecessary too, because did you know that those onions are actually meant to hide any off flavors? A truly fresh herring needs no help, so you simply eat it as is.

Herring match

But even so, what should we drink with it? Our editor-in-chief Marcus opts for white wine or aquavit, but without a doubt I have a different favorite. What really tastes good with it is sherry. Manzanilla sherry, to be precise. While ordinary white wine is quickly overwhelmed, a chilled Manzanilla stands proudly upright. And compared with aquavit, sherry’s alcohol content is pleasantly low. So having an extra glass with a second herring is no problem.

Because this old wives’ drink is completely hip again

Sherry, yuck?

And don’t immediately think: yuck, sherry! Because this old wives’ drink is completely hip again. Especially the saline Manzanilla from the Andalusian coastal town of Sanlúcar de Barrameda is dry, invigorating and refreshes your mouth anew with every sip. That’s a perfect match for such a salty herring. This Spanish aperitif could well be the ideal herring pairing.

Gastronomic competition Copa Jerez

The fact that sherry is completely back in our country is also clear from Olanda’s convincing first place last week in the international final of the sherry-and-food pairing competition Copa Jerez. The Dutch chef-sommelier team—Leon Mazairac and Goos van den Berg from Utrecht restaurant Podium onder de Dom—effortlessly combined typically Dutch flavors with all kinds of sherry styles in Spanish Jerez. And it was delicious! The international jury was unanimous.

Prefer something else after all?

Is that sherry still a bit too much for you? What a shame. Alternatives for washing down your herring deliciously are dry champagne, apple cider, sake or a saline muscadet. Otherwise, there’s always aquavit, of course.