Not so long ago, serving white wine with red meat or serving red wine with a plate of fish or poultry was considered almost as inappropriate as eating a soup using your hands. Although the food and wine pairing rules are less strict than they used to be, many people still tend to be puzzled when selecting a bottle of wine to match their fancy dinner. If you are one of them, here you can find some useful tips and guidelines to help you match wine to the food.
The first and the most important tip is that the ancient wine and food pairing rules are not valid anymore. In fact, there are no rules when it comes to your personal taste. Your kitchen is your private chem. laboratory, so allow yourself to feel free to experiment new recipes, and creating unique wine and food pairing as much as you want.
A successful wine and food pairing is like a good relationship: the two different personalities has to live side by side peacefully without having one of them standing out on the expense of the other one. For example, pairing a beef stew with a chardonnay would be like matching a fat man with a skinny girl. The heaviness of the stew would take over the light, delicate nature of the wine and erase its presence. Therefore, it is recommended to pair a fuller bodied wine to a heavy meal and the opposite: serve a light dish such as chicken and vegetables with a light bodied wine such as chardonnay or pinot noir.
In addition to the lightness or heaviness of the meal, the flavors of both the wine and the food should be taken in consideration. You can either select a wine to contrast the main flavor of the food or to compliment it. Since there are no rules, both ways it can work out fine.
However, bear in mind that both food and wine react differently when tasted together than apart. For example, if you drink wine following a sweet flavored food such as a honey mustard glazed breast chicken, any wine would taste drier than it would if it tasted apart. Therefore, an off dry, slightly sweet wine like a Riesling or a white zinfandel would be the perfect choice to a food that its dominant flavor is sweet.
More examples: 1) If you are serving sour foods such as fish with lemon, high acid wines such as sauvignon blanc or pinot noir would be a great match.
2) Pair fruity wines such as merlot or chardonnay to foods that contain a bit of bitterness like a green salad.
3) Salty foods like anchovies would go well with sauvignon blanc or a light red Chianti.
4) A Riesling or a dry rose would balance a spicy food such as an Indian curry.
Bottom line, nothing can go wrong when pairing a good bottle of wine to a good dinner, especially if you add pleasant company to the equation. Bon appetite!
Pairing wine with the right food is a skill. You have to learn from trial and error what wine tastes best with what food. You will be able to eventually know right away what wine works with your menu. In the meantime, you can use the following 5 tips that experts use to know what direction to go with your wine and food pairing.
These tips give you some basic facts about pairing food and wine that can help you to understand more about why some wine and some foods do not mix well or why some wines work perfect with certain foods. Having this basic knowledge will help you out tremendously in your effort to learn how to pair wine and food.
1. Avoid food that damages the taste of the wine. There are certain foods that will alter the taste of wine or make it so you can not taste the wine properly. You want to avoid foods that will not allow you to enjoy the full flavor of the wine. Such foods include ? red meats with white wines; fish, vegetables and goat cheese with red wine; spice, garlic, vinegar and raw fruit with most wines.
2. Match old wines with delicate flavors. Older wines tend to have a mellower flavor that needs to be paired carefully. You can not use bold flavored foods or it will overpower the wine, perhaps even completely wipe out the subtle flavors of the wine.
3. Sweet or bitter foods accentuate the dryness of wine. You want to avoid pairing foods with a bitter taste, bitter aftertaste, or a sweet taste or aftertaste with any wine that tends to be dry. Instead you can pair these foods with a wine that is not dry.
4. Salty and acid flavors of food accentuate the sweetness of wine. As with bitter or sweet foods, with salty and acid foods you want to be careful paring it with wine that is sweet. You could end up with an overwhelming sweetness that prevents anyone from enjoying the wine. Try dry wines or those with a bitter taste with sweet foods.
5. More complex wines need less complex food flavors. Simple food with complex wine and complex food with simple wine is the general rule. This allows for the wine to stand out and to blend with the food.
Just remember, the most important thing is that you enjoy your wine and your meal.
There are no hard and fast rules to pairing food and wine. These general rules can assist you, but there are always exceptions to the rules. You just have to trust your own palette.
Be willing to sample and to try things out to see if they will work or not. Eventually you will know what goes good with your favorite wines. When trying new wines, though, it will usually be trial and error to find the perfect match. Pairing food and wine is not something that you ever master because there are so many variables that makes it a never ending lesson.
Both Jack Reider & Caroline Silverstone are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Jack Reider has sinced written about articles on various topics from Writing, Music and Recreation and Sports. Jack Reider is an enthusiast cook who loves to invent new recipes as well as food and wine pairings. As an enthusiastic player, Joseph also wr. Jack Reider's top article generates over 673000 views. to your Favourites.