Wine Dinners: Caribbean Dream

• Choose a warm summer evening for your Caribbean getaway and ask your guests to dress the part. (You could even bring the party indoors to warm up a chilly winter night.) Go touristy bright with tropical shirts and Bermuda shorts or classically cool with linen and cotton in tones of natural and white.
• Punch up a buffet table with a dramatic bird-of-paradise floral arrangement. Fill vases with palm fronds and replace your knickknacks with pots of ferns and orchids. Arrange shells, dried sea stars, or sand dollars against the inside of a large glass bowl, then fill the bowl with sand and dot with tea lights.
• Line serving platters with broad green banana leaves. Use bamboo or rattan trays, placemats, and other accessories to express your island theme. Find bamboo-handled serving utensils at an import store. Stamp plain paper napkins with tropical icons such as palm trees, shells or parrots, and use the same stamp to embellish handmade invitations. Print out a menu card and display it in a picture frame studded with shells.
• For extra style points, create invitations that look like treasure maps, roll them up and send them in mailing tubes along with a sprinkling of sand and a small seashell or two.
• Set up a craft area with shells, fake pearls, googly eyes, glue, etc. and let guests create their own clam shell critters.
• Light up the night with solar-powered tiki torches and dance off the rum.
• How low can you go? Unless your back is in superb condition, leave the limbo to the kids.
• Shell-shaped chocolates and miniature bottles of Caribbean hot sauce make perfect party favors.

This meal makes me think of a fruity California Zinfandel. It will play well with the beefy ropa vieja and should be just as nice with the sofrito sauce and beans and rice. If it's a hot night and a warm red doesn’t sound so appealing, try a chilled Spanish rosé.

At first glance, this meal seems like a tough wine-pairing situation. But the more I think about the recipes here, the more I keep coming back to Sauvignon Blanc. It will handle the spicy flavors and the fruity flavors; it will be nice with the avocado and cilantro in the salsa; the lime juice, ginger and jalapenos in the jerked chicken; and the deep-fried fritters! Keep it an all-island affair with a nice young Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. And if you're not in the mood for wine, you can't go wrong with a cold Jamaican lager.

With these Puerto Rican dishes I'm drawn toward Gewürztraminer or Riesling. Riesling is a classic pairing with roasted pork, but I'm edging toward Gewürztraminer here. Besides working well with the pork dishes, Gewürztraminer should be an exciting match with the fried plantains and green banana salad. You can find inexpensive versions from Washington state and Alsace, France.

Generally speaking, any of the wines described above (Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, and Gewürztraminer) should be a reliable match with the exotic, often spicy flavors of Caribbean cuisine. A cold lager beer always hits the spot, as well. If you want something non-alcoholic, try a tongue-tingling ginger beer.