My family has been going “camping” at the same state park in upstate New York since my dad was in second grade. I say “camping” because it's cabins that have running (but not potable) water, electric, and a gas stove. But you still have to pack up everything except the kitchen sink, so “camping.”
We always rotate through which family is hosting dinner each day. There were some staples like my Aunt Julie's pasta, Aunt Tara's tacos, or Turkey London Broil at my parents', but there has only been one constant that is always present: s’mores.
Now, my family is competitive, type A, and vocal. From woods bike races to Survivor to muck-grabbing from the bottom of the lake (reigning champion here), everything is about who does it best. Nothing quite hits the same as toasting marshmallows. The perfect golden-brown marshmallow is an art: you have to wait until the fire burns down to bright red embers, hold your marshmallow at the perfect distance away, and slowly rotate it rotisserie-style until it's puffed, golden brown completely all over, almost-liquified in the center, and, if you're at expert level, drooping off of the stick to the point of almost losing it all.
The key to this is patience. I'm not sure if it was our parents’ way of keeping us still for a little while, but my (18) cousins and I would be locked in to making s'mores every year.
Cue my shock and horror when I first went to my now-husband’s grandparents’ house in upstate New York and everyone was toasting their marshmallows by sticking them right into the flames to set them on fire. The audacity! The texture would be all wrong, with a still “raw” firm marshmallow in the center and incinerated crust! I told him that he could not do it like that in front of my family or he'd be humiliated.
It's now however many years later, and my husband was sitting around the fire with my cousins, toasting his marshmallow in the flames in peace. It didn't have to be perfect, especially since that's how he enjoyed it.
In the same way, wine pairing doesn't have to be “perfect” to still be enjoyable. Sure, there are some guidelines for structure and balance that we'll get into later, but there’s a piece sometimes missing from pairings that I've only recently realized: fun. It's easy to fall into the trap that you can only enjoy certain foods with certain wines because it's the “best” pairing. But these can easily lack the whimsy and fun that's meant to be enjoyed with wine. Memories of past dinners, visits to regions, a wine you shared with a friend - all of these can be reasons to pick one bottle over another for a pairing. For me, my favorite pairing isn't technically the “best.” I know there's wines that would work better with s'mores on paper. But I love s’mores and Lambrusco together.
Lambrusco is a sparkling red wine from Italy (specifically Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy) that fell into a bad reputation for being sickly-sweet after one producer’s style choice became the most popular and profitable. Nowadays, it ranges in style from dry to sweet, with notes of wild strawberry and cranberry to even mushrooms and flowers with pleasant minerality. I first learned about it in college and have loved telling more people about this unique wine.
Does Lambrusco “work” with s’mores? Absolutely: the red fruit notes complement the chocolate and sweetness in the sweeter styles match the sweetness of the marshmallow. Is it perfect? No. But there's an inherent fun to sipping on this niche bubbling Italian wine with the flavor of summer in one of my favorite places in the world. And to me, that's the best kind of pairing.