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Freshwater, mild and sweet. Usually pan-fried, which is what you pair with.
Chablis, a dry Riesling, or Grüner Veltliner. Light, unoaked, high in acid — and the batter matters more than the fish.
Walleye is a freshwater fish from the northern United States and Canada, prized for flaky white flesh that is mild and faintly sweet with very little oil. It is nearly always pan-fried in a light batter or breading, which means the pairing has as much to do with the frying as with the fish.
The fish itself is delicate — closer to trout than to anything from the sea, and easily overwhelmed. That rules out oak, high alcohol and aromatic varieties.
The frying pulls the other way and asks for acidity to cut the fat. Fortunately those two requirements are compatible: a lean, high-acid, unoaked white does both jobs.
And walleye is almost always served with lemon, which raises the acidity bar again. A soft, rounded white will taste flabby.
Chablis. Unoaked Chardonnay, stony and sharp. The safest answer, and it has just enough texture to sit beside a butter-fried fillet.
Dry Riesling. Higher acidity, lower alcohol, and a delicacy that matches the fish rather than covering it. Particularly good with a lemon-heavy preparation.
Grüner Veltliner or a Muscadet from Melon de Bourgogne — both lean, both sharp, both cheap enough for a weeknight fish.
If it is beer-battered and deep-fried rather than pan-fried, treat it as fish and chips: bubbles.
The traditional shore lunch — fillets fried in butter over a fire, with potatoes — adds smoke and a lot of butter. Keep the acidity up; a Riesling handles it better than a rounder wine.
Tartare sauce brings capers, gherkins and vinegar, which resets your palate to a high acidity. That is one more argument for a sharp wine over a soft one.
What to avoid: oaked Chardonnay. It is the instinctive choice for a buttery fried fish and it is wrong — oak plus fried batter plus butter is richness with nothing to cut it.
Chablis, a dry Riesling, or a Grüner Veltliner. Light, unoaked and high in acid.
It sets the acidity requirement. A pan-fried fillet needs a wine sharp enough to cut butter and batter — which is compatible with the lightness the delicate fish also demands.
It is the instinctive pick for a buttery fried fish and the wrong one. Oak plus batter plus butter is richness with nothing left to cut it, and the fish disappears.
Capers, gherkins and vinegar reset your palate to a high acidity, so a soft wine tastes flat. One more reason to pick something sharp.
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