Yes, you read that correctly. I will be attempting to pair wine with Hanson in this post. There’s a little bit of a back story here, so let me get into it.

Back before I was wineing or a woman, I liked this little band called Hanson who gained a lot of popularity with a song called MMMBop. Maybe you’ve heard of it? I don’t know, it’s hard to remember all the way back to 1997 when the single was released. Anyway, 12 year old me loved these guys and convinced my amazing grandmother (lovingly called Gram) to bring me to see them in concert on June 26th, 1998. (I like to believe that she enjoyed the show almost as much as I did.)

Back to now, I just saw that very same band in concert this past Saturday. And in preparation for the concert, I was listening to some music, getting myself pumped up, and I tweeted a couple times about the band. The reaction I got was mostly heckling (that’s why I never told anyone at school that I went to see them in concert. I wasn’t brave enough at 12 to stand up to it.). After the heckling came a challenge:

Well, I accept. Mostly because I feel like Hanson gets a bad rap. I like them as a band and not just for nostalgia’s sake, but back to the meat of this post.

Sometimes you can pair wines with contrasting flavors and get a good result (dessert wine and cheese) but other times, you want to pair like with like. Big and bold red with steak; smooth silky white and anything with a cream sauce. You know, similar types of flavors to balance out. That’s what I’m going for here.

I’m going with Australian shiraz and here’s why. Remember that time when shiraz got really popular and everyone was drinking it? It got great scores and it was wonderful but then people hopped on the anti-shiraz bandwagon (the anti-flavor elite, if you will) and all of a sudden, it’s out of style. Some people are still drinking it, but psh, that’s garbage. Fast forward to years later when the wine has matured (for this example, let’s say the time elapsed is, oh, 12 years) and the big and bold, crazy Aussie shiraz flavors have mellowed into a very nice drinkable wine that a lot of people would like if they gave it a chance.

If you read that paragraph and replace shiraz with Hanson, that’s pretty much my thoughts on the band, too. So if you like, join the flavor elite, grab some Australian shiraz and rock out with some Hanson tunes. If you still don’t believe that they’re capable of more than just MMMBop, here’s this (my favorite song of the moment):

This was taken during the show on Saturday. We were 10 rows from the stage and got to touch them.