| 100% | MATCHING | 8 | Wine-__, the pairing of wines with food |
| 62% | OENOLOGY | 8 | The study of wines |
| 61% | TERROIR | 7 | The "somewhereness" of wines |
| 54% | SWEET | 5 | Like the taste of most desserts and dessert wines |
| 53% | LAYER | 5 | With 67-Across, what five pairs of answers in the circles represent |
| 53% | MEHDEINCANADA | 13 | Like all the answers with pairs of circled letters, punnily |
| 53% | RETSINA | 7 | Classic Greek wine infused with the resin of pine trees |
| 52% | CROSSBREEDS | 11 | Animals with parents of two distinct varieties ... or a description of the pairs of shaded words? |
| 51% | DOUBLE | 6 | With 52-Down, betrayal, and what's formed by each pair of the trigrams |
| 51% | BOSH | 4 | Chris who won a pair of NBA titles with the Miami Heat |
| 51% | CLARET | 6 | Red wine with an aura of the "English upper class" surrounding it |
| 51% | BAILEY | 6 | The outer wall of a castle, paired with a motte |
| 51% | PINOTNOIR | 9 | Wine grape variety associated with the Burgundy region of France |
| 51% | VIRGINOF | 8 | "The ___ the Rocks" (a pair of paintings by da Vinci, with the same name) |
| 50% | LINCOLN | 7 | With 124-Across, dedicated in October 1913, project represented by the 13 pairs of circled letters |
| 49% | YEN | 3 | What a "Y" with a pair of horizontal lines through it is the symbol for |
| 48% | TETEBECHE | 9 | In philately, a joined pair of stamps printed with one inverted in relation to the other |
| 48% | OILS | 4 | With fats and sweets, group at the top of the U.S.D.A.’s now retired food pyramid |
| 48% | RECOMMENDS | 10 | A good waiter usually does this to help a diner pair the right wine with the entree |
| 47% | RATIO | 5 | Pair of numbers with a colon |
| 47% | OENOLOGY | 8 | The study of wine and winemaking |
| 47% | GRAYLING | 8 | Freshwater food fish of the salmon family with a long high dorsal fin |
| 47% | TETEBECHE | 9 | In philately, a joined pair of stamps printed with one inverted in relation to the other (4-5) |
| 47% | EMPTYCALORIES | 13 | What many junk foods contain ... with a hint to the initials of 17-, 25-, 48- and 56-Across |
| 47% | HIHAT | 5 | Pair of cymbals with a foot pedal |
| 47% | ANTLERS | 7 | The pair of horns on a deer |
| 47% | BOUQUET | 7 | The fragrance of wine or a liqueur |
| 47% | CALORIES | 8 | The units of energy found in food |
| 47% | HAKE | 4 | Food fish of the northern hemisphere with an elongated body, large head and two dorsal fins |
| 47% | EXTOL | 5 | ___ the virtues of (shower with praise) |