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Pairing wine with Sichuan food, Creole flavors, Spanish chorizo, American barbecue and other spicy cuisines can be a mind-bending conundrum. Because the spiciest foods evolved outside of most wine-growing regions, some of the basic rules of thumb—such as pair white wine with white meat, red wine with red meat or what grows together goes together—don’t seem to apply.

“The heat from any spicy food reacts with the various components of the wine,” explains John Sarich, culinary director of Ste. Michelle Wines. “Reds, for example, have tannins and usually an oakiness aspect. The spice’s heat takes away the fruitiness and leaves a woody taste, and tannins will turn up that heat.”

So, should we turn to whites for spicy food? Not necessarily, Sarich says. “People like chardonnay because of the vanilla and butterscotch flavors that the oak barrels give the wine, but again, spicy foods will make the wine taste woody,” he says. His advice is to look for wines with residual sugar and high acidity: “Riesling, pinot gris and semillon are wines that pair very nicely with highly spiced foods.”

Rules are made to be broken, however, as Sarich notes that some reds will work with spice: “Pinot noir with its low tannins and lower alcohol or a good, fruit-forward syrah can add a nice black pepper nuance to food, as can a very ‘jammy’ merlot,” he advises. Charles Walpole, a chef at Queen Anne’s How To Cook a Wolf, agrees that sometimes red wine does work with spice. “With spicy-sweet sauces, wood smoke and richer-fattier meats the food really needs bigger wines,” he says. “Brisket works best with a big fat cab.” For Walpole, big flavors need big wines.

Ole Thompson, wine director and sommelier at Wild Ginger Asian Restaurant and Satay Bar, says sweet wines work best with spicier foods and suggests trying an experiment to understand why. “Take a tiny amount of wasabi, eat it and then drink some beer,” he says. “The heat sensation will disappear for a moment or two, then return. Then try a sip of an auslese (a sweet riesling wine) and one should find that the spicy heat will dissipate.”

“The wasabi dries the mouth, the cold beer only numbs the palette for a moment, but the sweet wine forces the saliva to return and provides a kind of protection from the heat,” Thompson explains.

On that sweet note, Brasa Restaurant’s general manager and co-owner Bryan Hill says champagnes and sparkling wines are a good—and often overlooked—option to pair with spicy foods. “My day-to-day choice is a rosé sparkler, but the Northwest has some very good sparkling blanc de blancs, like Washington’s Mountain Dome and Soter Wines from Yamhill County in Oregon,” he says.

Because Brasa’s menu is based on the foods of Spain, Hill also looks at Spanish wines to accompany ingredients such as chorizo. “Albarino, made from an indigenous grape found in Northwest Spain, has a bright, fresh taste and some mineral-steely notes that make it a great match,” he says. “Also, a Portuguese vinho verde, which has fairly low alcohol and can be ‘Frizante,’ possessing a light fizziness, does very well.”

For wines to pair with Cajun spice, we turned to Steelhead Diner chef-owner Kevin Davis. “Cajun cuisine was considered a ‘beer cuisine,’” says Davis, who grew up in southern Louisiana. “Creole, with deep roots in French and Spanish cuisines, was accompanied by French wines. When I moved to Seattle, I discovered that there were a lot of good rieslings, which add to the flavors of Creole foods.”