Wine related articles
Ten rules-of-thumb for food and wine pairing
1. If you are taking wine as a gift to a dinner party, don't worry about matching the wine to the food unless you have been requested to do so and have enough information about what is being served to make an informed choice. Just bring a good wine. Match quality of food and wine. A grand dinner party with multiple courses of elaborately prepared dishes deserves a better wine than hamburgers on the grill with chips in a bag.
2. When you're serving more than one wine at a meal, it's customary to serve lighter wines before full-bodied ones. Dry wines should be served before sweet wines unless a sweet flavored dish is served early in the meal. In that case match the sweet dish with a similarly sweet wine. Lower alcohol wines should be served before higher alcohol wines.
3. Balance flavor intensity. Pair light-bodied wines with lighter food and fuller-bodied wines with heartier, more flavorful, richer and fattier dishes.
4. Consider how the food is prepared. Delicately flavored foods poached or steamed pair best with delicate wines. It's easier to pair wines with more flavorfully prepared food braised, grilled, roasted or saut้ed. Pair the wine with the sauce, seasoning or dominant flavor of the dish.
5. Match flavors. An earthy Pinot Noir goes well with mushroom soup and the grapefruit/citrus taste of Sauvignon Blancs goes with fish for the same reasons that lemon does.
6. Balance sweetness. But, beware of pairing a wine with food that is sweeter than the wine, although I do like chocolate with Cabernet Sauvignon. I also like chocolate with good dark beer. Come to think of it, I like chocolate with just about anything.
7. Consider pairing opposites. Very hot or spicy foods some Thai dishes, or hot curries for example often work best with sweet desert wines. Opposing flavors can play off each other, creating new flavor sensations and cleansing the palate.
8. Match by geographic location. Regional foods and wines, having developed together over time, often have a natural affinity for each other.
9. Pair wine and cheese. In some European countries the best wine is reserved for the cheese course. Red wines go well with mild to sharp cheese. Pungent and intensely flavored cheese is better with a sweeter wine. Goat Cheeses pair well with dry white wine, while milder cheeses pair best with fruiter red wine. Soft cheese like Camembert and Brie, if not over ripe, pair well with just about any red wine including Cabernet, Zinfandel and Red Burgundy.
10.
Adjust food flavor to better pair with the wine. Sweetness in a
dish will increase the awareness of bitterness and astringency in wine,
making it appear drier, stronger and less fruity. High amounts of
acidity in food will decrease awareness of sourness in wine and making
it taste richer and mellower sweet wine will taste sweeter.
Bitter flavors in food increase the perception of bitter, tannic
elements in wine. Sourness and salt in food suppress bitter taste in
wine. Salt in food can tone down the bitterness and astringency of wine
and may make sweet wines taste sweeter.
Flavors
found in wine
The basic flavors that occur in food are also found in wine which is,
after all, another type of food. They are sweet, tart (sour, acidic),
bitter (puckery, astringent sensation) and salty (which isnt found in
wine, but affects its flavor). In addition wine has alcohol which adds
aromas and body, making the wine feel richer.
The sugar that is present in grapes is converted during fermentation to
differing degrees. A wine with very little sweetness is called "dry."
Sweet white wines are Chenin Blanc, many Rieslings and Spumante. Sweet
red wines include Lambrusco and Port.
If a dish is acidic citrus or vinegar then an acidic wine would be
appropriate, although a lightly acidic dish can be balanced with a
lightly sweet wine. Acidic white wines are Sauvignon Blanc and most
sparkling wines. Acidity in wine cuts saltiness, so sparkling wines
generally pair with salty foods better than less tart wines such as most
red wines.
Tannins from the skins and sometimes stems of grapes and the oak barrels
used for aging cause the bitter or astringent aftertaste in some red
wines. Tannins mellow with age and are one of the components that add
complexity to a mature wine. Foods with a prominent salty, sour or
bitter taste will make a wine seem sweeter and less tannic. Bitter red
wines include Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Zinfandel and Syrah.
Alcohol gives wine a sense of body and weight, the higher the alcohol,
the more full-bodied the wine. Rich meat, fish or chicken dishes that
include cream are well suited to full-bodied wines (1315 percent
alcohol) whereas light, simply prepared and flavored dishes pair better
with low alcohol wines (710 percent).
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