This recipe caught my eye recently as I currently have an abundance of pomegranates lying around the house as well as a couple bottles of champagne. I enjoyed it on a sunny Southern Californian September Sunday morning. My only regret was that I didn’t find it earlier as I could have enjoyed it all summer.

Simply pour all the ingredients into a champagne flute and top with a few pomegranate seeds and watch as the seeds rise and fall, just like a lava lamp. I used pure pomegranate juice in place of the liqueur.

1 ounce Pama pomegranate liqueur or 3 tablespoons pomegranate juice
5 ounces brut sparkling wine
3 pomegranate seeds

Can't wait to see the other recipes Maria C. Hunt's The Bubbly Bar: Champagne and Sparkling Wine Cocktails for Every Occasion.

(Recipe from Maria C. Hunt's "The Bubbly Bar" Clarkson Potter, 2009)

We here at WinePairingsOnline are constantly emphasizing that food and wine pairing is not an exact science, and while we still hold that true, some researchers in Japan have come to the conclusion that science is a factor in good food and wine pairings, especially when it comes to seafood. The Japanese team found that red wine will often not pair well with seafood due to naturally occurring iron commonly found in many reds that will increase the fishy aftertaste when seafood and red wine are paired together.

The product development research laboratory from the Japanese wine producer, the Mercian Corporation, conducted the study by pairing dried scallops with different red wines with various iron levels. They concluded that there was a strong correlation between the level of iron in the wine and the strong fishy aftertaste perceived when eaten with the scallops.

The study also suggests that since the iron level affects the fishy aftertaste, red wines with low levels of iron may actually pair well with seafood. However, with the level of iron in any given bottle of wine unknown to the consumer we suggest you stick with the whites and pick up a bottle of Pinot Gris or a nice Riesling to match with your scallops.

Read the full article from the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.