
Although I am a registered dietitian and eat just about everything on a regular basis, I often say the only thing I really love is pizza.
It’s just the perfect food: It has all possible flavor notes, including tangy, sweet, salty, spicy, creamy and toasty, and if you play your cards right, it can have all major food groups. It’s even an opportunity to engage in my favorite pastime of making exciting flavor pairings, and for my money, there’s nothing better than a big slice of vegetable with a fruity red.
So, when I heard about Pizza Hut’s new wine, I was hoping they meant it is a wine designed to pair perfectly with pizza, but no … they mean it is pizza-flavored.
Some brands play it fast and loose with the definition of “wine,” so I had concerns that this would turn out to be V8 with Everclear in it, but it looks to be an actual vintage. Designed to highlight Pizza Hut’s returning pizza, breadsticks and dessert in a festively festooned Triple Treat Box, it was made in collaboration with Irvine’s Just Beyond Paradise Winery in the Kaw River Valley area of Kansas.
Pizza Hut describes this wine as “[c]rafted from ripe, juicy tomatoes and infused with natural basil.” While that sounds … um, unusual … tomatoes are a fruit just like grapes, right? And basil works wonderfully in beverages; I often grow cinnamon basil just to add to sparkling water. I might survive this!
I’m shocked to find there is an actual cork involved here and not just a screw cap. I received the gift box with two commemorative stainless steel Pizza Hut wine glasses and a tomato-red wine opener, which retails for $60, or rather, it did, before it and the individual $25 bottles sold out faster than that one friend of yours nabs the last slice of pepperoni. Don’t despair, however — you can still sign up for the waitlist, or purchase bottles of the winery’s own Tomato and Pomodoro varieties on their website, along with several apple wines, a pear wine and a couple of meads.
Since this isn’t Irvine’s first foray into tomato-based wine shenanigans, I poured the glass pictured with optimism. I’ve chosen a clear glass instead of the steel ones in the box so that you can get a feel for its real appearance.

I’m a bit taken aback by the color, which looks like someone put a couple of drops of Red 40 in a glass of white wine, but the main pigment responsible for the red color of a tomato is lycopene, which is not only somewhat resistant to degradation from processing, but also soluble in alcohol. Irvine’s has made the right call with a dark bottle to protect those natural antioxidants from off flavors. I am going to choose to believe these are natural pigments, so I remain undeterred — until upon more careful reading of the label, I see mentions of oregano, oak and, alas, garlic.
Garlic? In a beverage?!? What did I ever do to hurt you, Pizza Hut?
Pizza Hut says its signature vintage may look red (kinda), but it tastes like a white wine (with a little garlic powder in it I guess), and they suggest serving it chilled, so I’ve had it in the fridge overnight after it arrived late in the day yesterday. Here I am at 9 a.m., trying this glass. (I’m way ahead of you, Hoda and Jenna!)
The first point in this gift box’s favor is that the corkscrew works, but now that I’ve wafted the cork under my nose, I am quite taken aback. After previous scuffles with other inadvisable libations, I was expecting just faint notes, a slim homage to the inspiration here. I thought maybe it would be tomato and fresh basil, and just a nod to garlic down low. Instead, I am greeted with an aroma so strong as to evoke one of those housewarming tips like boiling water with orange peel and cinnamon sticks for a holiday atmosphere, except that someone has decided to simmer a bottle of pinot noir with a tablespoon of King Arthur’s Pizza Seasoning.
Once I pick my jaw up off the floor, I risk a sip, and my instincts were correct except that it tastes more like a pinot gris. It is mercifully free of cheese flavor, but the pizza seasoning is unmistakable. There is sweet, fresh tomato especially up high, and then dried basil, oregano, thyme, maybe a little paprika and most definitely, most assuredly, garlic. I understand what they meant about the oak, too — there is just a hint of smoke. There’s even a salty quality to it, although garlic can have that effect as well. It is absolutely hideous in a glass.
Undrinkable.
However, as a wine to add to a homemade tomato sauce, especially a rich one that you plan to leave simmering on the stove for a bit, it would work perfectly. The flavors are real and would be appropriate in a marinara context. If there’s anything I can’t abide (even if I secretly love it), it’s shock flavors that don’t deliver authenticity. I couldn’t tell the difference between the margarita and the guacamole in Brach’s Taco Truck jelly beans, for instance. But when someone knocks the shock out of the park, like last Thanksgiving’s Philip Ashley’s Campbell’s Soup chocolates, or this wine? It’s electrifying, the pinnacle of camp culinary achievement.
You know the old adage: Never cook with a wine you wouldn’t drink. In this case, I’ve got a worthy exception to suggest.