No shortage of options to get fired up about

When many of us are confronted with the quandary of which wine to match with barbecue, there's one easy call.

Beer.

And that's not a bad choice, although with the ever-widening array of beers available, nailing a pairing can get pretty complicated. In fact, it might be simpler to delve into the unusually arcane world of food-wine pairings, keeping in mind one simple rule:

Likes attract -- in this case, on a couple of fronts.

As with many other matchup scenarios, foods and wines from the same region are meant for each other. Argentinians love their beef, and the grilled cuts generally rock with malbec, that country's foremost red varietal. Or think grilled pizza with Chianti; hot dogs and burgers with that all-American grape, zinfandel, even riesling or gewürztraminer with mustard-laden German sausages.

"A lot of great barbecue countries are great wine countries," said grilling guru Steven Raichlen. "Argentina is a major grilling area and a major wine area. Uruguay is coming up. Northern Italy is the same way. In Spain, they do very interesting grilling and make very interesting wine.

"Traditionally one thinks of beer with barbecue, but wine often has an intimate relationship with grilled foods."

Food that has been cooked over wood chunks or chips has a, well, woody aspect to it; that holds true to a lesser extent with charcoal and even gas grills, which have improved greatly in imparting that flavor.

Wines that have been aged in oak, then, would have a natural affinity for such foods. An oaky California chardonnay (try one from Hess), which might overwhelm sautéed shrimp, scallops or chicken, will step up to the plate nicely when those foods are grilled, especially with a bit of charred corn.

Napa cabs (Beringer Knights Valley) and Australian shirazes (McWilliams) generally spend a lot of time in toasty oak barrels and thus are good pals with most any wood-cooked meat or fowl. In addition, most foodstuffs take on a rich, full-bodied structure coming off the grill -- think smoke and caramelization -- and thus have a kinship to those robust reds, as well as the bullish petite sirahs (C.G. di Aire) and racy pinot noirs (Au Bon Climat) coming out of California these days.

Barbecue is another matter, however, because the sauce can be a more essential matchup no matter how long those ribs or shoulders have been smoked. A spicy zin (Dry Creek) or Rhône blend (Jaboulet Parallele 45) might work, but here's a chance to try something that also fairly shouts summer -- rosé (Red Guitar).

In fact, those pink concoctions, which often combine the richness of red wines with the crispness of whites, might just be the most versatile choice around, making them ideal for surf-and-turf or other mixed-grill scenarios.