Contemporary thought on wine pairing is having a slight departure with conventional wisdom on the subject. While conventional wisdom assures wine drinkers they must always pair a hearty robust beefsteak with a hearty robust red wine and that fish should never be served with red wine, contemporary thought on the matter allows for many exceptions to the rules.

Matching foods with wines in modern times requires more artistry than it once did because the world has gotten small enough that all of the cuisines of the world are becoming native to everyone. Such merging of cultures has caused a combination of culinary categories and foods that do not fit in to conventional red wine or white wine categories.

Of course, you should start by learning the basic rules for wine pairing before you try to revolutionize the rules for wine pairing. While wine pairing comes down to personal tastes, human palates usually have enough in common to agree that certain things taste good and certain things taste good. Because of this, you should begin with the conventional wisdom of European wine and food tasting rules.

Conventional wisdom is really quite simple. You want to balance and enhance the flavor of the wine and the flavor of the food with the pairing choice that you make with your food and your wine. You want to avoid allowing either element to overpower the flavor of the other element.

If you cannot taste one of the two elements, what is the point of having both? If all you can taste is your wine, then for what do you need the food you are having with your wine? If all you can taste is your food, then why do you choose to waste money having wine with your food? Instead, you want to have food that makes your wine taste better and wine that makes your food taste better.

Human palates have enough in common with each other that people usually agree that certain flavors are strong and certain other flavors or subtle. Consequently, when people eat strong hearty foods, they know that if their wine is not full and hearty, it will not balance or enhance the food. Wine must be bold before it can enhance strong food.

Once you have mastered the basic principals of pairing heavy, full flavored foods with heavy read wines and pairing light, delicately flavored foods with crisp clean white wines, you can go on to experiment with unconventional food and wine pairings.

For instance, spicy Mexican foods or spicy Indian curried foods have traditionally gone unmatched with wine. Of course, as a wine lover, you want to have good wine with your Thai food and your curry, so you should experiment with different wines with such foods until you find something that does not detract from the full flavor of such foods but that will enhance them.

While you might find it difficult to come across just the right wines that enhance the flavor of foods that are already so incredibly flavorful, when you do, you will have found a match made in heaven.