It was a perfect evening. You were with friends and the meal was so perfect and delicious. After that perfect meal, it was an evening of wine, fun, and conversations with a great group of people. It was a magical experience with the right combination of great wine, great food, and great friends. An evening to remember. It was an evening that you would like to experience over and over again. So how do you create the same experience? How do you create a fabulous meal? Are you looking for help with pairing wine with food to create that magical evening?
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Pairing Wine with Food can be Difficult.
Have you had that experience of the perfect meal where everything went so well together and wondered how the host was able to accomplish it? The right wine can enhance a dish to perfection. While there are no hard and fast rules for pairing wine with food, it’s ultimately a matter of personal taste. There are basic guidelines on what wine connoisseurs and food lovers consider make good choices. Here are some suggestions to help guide you to creating a meal that becomes an event and a great memory.
Start with an Open Mind.
This is only a guide and is a starting place on your journey to enjoying your favorite wines with our favorite meals. If you prefer different combinations, nothing is stopping you from enjoying those combinations. In fact, I encourage you to experiment and try new things. The principal purpose of guides is to enlighten your understanding of common pairings, and the reasons behind them. It’s also about taking some guesswork out of pairing wine with food until you’re comfortable enough to enjoy pairings from your own experience. Ultimately, you’ll learn to tune into your own palate as the best guide to what wine works with what food. The basic guideline is to ‘Match’ and ‘Complement’ the characteristics of the wine to the food or ‘Contrast’ – counterbalance overpowering characteristics. For example Spicy foods with a sweeter wine.
Be aware that some wines can be “spoiled” by the introduction of certain food flavors, just as they can be enhanced. If you find that a wine you’ve always loved suddenly doesn’t taste as great as it has in the past, note the food you paired it with. Try drinking it without food before dismissing the wine outright.
Seek a balance in the wine’s components (fruit, acid, alcohol, sweetness, and tannin), and the food components (ingredients, manner of cooking, and the resulting tastes). It is more than just the flavor. Also consider the texture, weight, structure, and bouquet of both wine and food. Normally you will find, delicate food suits a delicate wine, while richer and more robust food will pair better with heavier, fuller flavored wines. Of course, remember that there will be exceptions as you will find when you experiment with different pairings.
How is the food cooked?
The manner in which a food is cooked will also impact the taste of a wine. The nature of a food changes according to how it is prepared, be it roasted, baked, poached, steamed, marinated, seasoned, cooked in sauce, or left in as near to its original state as possible. This is why generalizations are too simplistic – the flavor, texture, weight, and composition of the food needs to be considered individually, regardless of the principal component of a dish. Also take into consideration as to what side dishes are being served as they will influence the meal experience.
While similarities attract, opposites can be wonderful. Remember, food and wine complement one another in such a way that you can be drawn from the wine to the food and back again without losing the essence of either.
Keep the food flavors simple. If the flavors of the food are too complex, it will be difficult to pair because the food becomes so dominant. If you have a particularly complex or rich food dish, it’s recommended that you don’t try matching your prized wines. Rely on cheaper, more readily available wine in case the pairing does not go well..
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Know how to taste food and wine together.
Being aware of how to taste the food and wine together is vital and will enable you to grow beyond the generalities. Try to do the following:
Take a mouthful of wine and roll it around your mouth. Swallow.
Ask yourself what you taste and smell. Look for familiar fruit, berry, and wood flavors.
Is the wine light or heavy.
What is the sweetness or acidity of the wine.
Take your tasting of the wine, and try to match it to similar characteristics in food. Find at least one aspect that corresponds with the food, such as the sweetness, the flavor, the texture, etc.
Try the food. Eat a small piece, chew, and swallow it. As with the wine, consider how it tastes, as well as the aftertaste. If it’s a pleasant experience, you’ve hit on a winner; if not, the pairing isn’t made, and it’s time to try a different wine for that particular food.
Know your taste experience.
There four to five tastes – saltiness, bitterness, acidity, sweetness, and the Japanese umami. These are the tastes that you’ll be combining together the same way an artist combines paint on the palette:
Saltiness: The easiest taste to recognize and it lingers. Saltiness brings out sweetness, hides tannins and increases bitterness. Sweet dessert wines go well with salty foods, or very fruity reds.
Acidity: Highly acidic foods are not ideal with wine. They tend to cancel out the wine’s flavor. As such, leave the vinegars, vinaigrettes, and dressings to a minimum. Acidity is a taste that lingers, it can hide tannin and bitterness and make wine seem sweeter. An acidic wine should be paired with a dish that is of lower acidity to prevent flattening the wine. For example, add a little sugar to take the edge off a vinaigrette.
Bitterness: Bitter foods include radicchio, olives, rocket, etc. It’s a taste that outlasts all other tastes. Bitterness is able to cover up acidity in a wine, hides the tannins, and brings out the sweetness. Young red wines work well with bitter greens, wild herbs, and olives.
Sweetness: Another easy taste for many, although the ability to taste sweetness declines with age. Sweetness doesn’t last long as a taste. It minimizes bitterness and acidity in a wine. Aim to partner sweet wine with food that isn’t overly sweet; to have both as sweet as the other will cancel out the wine. If you have chocolate, enjoy a liqueur Tokay or a Muscat rather than a sweet wine.
Umami: This is the taste that emanates from broth style or earthy food, such as soups, miso, stock, consommé, roast meats, mushrooms, etc. Umami takes off the edge of tannins and brings out the sweetness, making it a good choice.
Start pairing wine and food.
You’ll find suggestions for pairing food with wine everywhere. However, as already noted, such generalities are very broad. They don’t account for the manner in which the food is cooked or what is accompanying it. It is so important to rely on your own palate. Continue exploring and experimenting to find out what combinations you enjoy the most.:
Beef and lamb: Generally red wine is paired for beef and lamb dishes. Usually a full-bodied red such as a Shiraz or Cabernet/Shiraz blend works well.
Chicken: White wine is the usual pick. For grilled or roast chicken, try a Chardonnay. For chicken cooked in a rich sauce, try a Shiraz or a medium-bodied Cabernet Sauvignon.
Fish and seafood: Select a white wine for fish and seafood. These wines would include Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon Blanc and Gewurztraminer. Grilled firm-flesh fish matches well with Chardonnay or an aged Semillon, while a hearty fish stew is excellent accompanied by Pinot Noir. For flaky fish, choose a dry Riesling or a Chardonnay.
Spicy: Choose Riesling and sweet Gewürztraminer if your meal is spicy. The sweetness of these wines can be drank quickly to offset the spiciness of the food. Avoid adding a Chardonnay as it will taste bitter.
Game: Choose a spicy red like Sangiovese or Shiraz for game such as venison, bison, or kangaroo.
Tomato (acidic) based meals: Serve Barbera, Sangiovese, or Zinfandel with tomato-based meals (i.e. spaghetti and pizza).
Duck, quail: Try a Pinot Noir or a Shiraz.
Cheese: Full-bodied wines go well with hard cheese, such as a full-bodied Shiraz with cheddar cheese. Soft cheese partners well with dry Riesling, Marsanne, or Viognier. Sweet wine is a good match for blue cheese.
Dessert: Sweet wines are a good choice, provided that the dessert is not as sweet as the wine.
Deepen your pairing knowledge.
Discover the nuances in each wine variation. It’s easy to say that chicken goes with white wine, or beef goes with red wine but which wine? And is this choice clear cut? Pairing wine with food will depend heavily on how the food has been prepared. If the chicken has been poached, making it simple and delicate, a simple wine such as a young Semillon will be good. When roasted, the fat makes the chicken richer, requiring a heavier textured wine such as an aged Semillon. If barbecued, the chicken becomes smoky, and goes well with a wine aged in wood, such as a light Chardonnay. When chicken has been cooked in cream, it becomes really rich, a heavier Chardonnay will pair well. When it’s made into a darker dish, such as by adding soy sauce, it can take a light red such as a Pinot Noir.
Each wine style has it’s own unique flavor. Match the subtleties to the food ingredients. For example, fruity elements and wood overtones impact the wine flavor. If you can taste peaches, coconut, tropical flavors, smokiness, herbs, etc., then take those flavors and find their food matches.
Wines are light, medium or full-bodied, referring to the depth/weight of flavor on the mid-palate. When trying to discern the weight of the wine, either ask the retailer, or check the depth of color. Apart from Pinot Noir, normally the darker the color, the heavier the weight.
Use your sense of smell. Trust your nose. Wine smells can be floral, perfumed, mineral, fruity (common fruit smells are peach, melon, and fig), butter, nuts, earthy, truffle or mushroom, meaty, or even like the barnyard. If the smell is unpleasant, avoid it. An aging wine can have overtones of toast or engine fuel.
Consider pairing wine with the region or origin of the cuisine.
Plan the meal and wine.
When planning dinner, many people opt for planning the food first and adding in the wine according to the food. However, you might like to work from the other way, and plan the meal according to the wine. Either way is appropriate but will impact how you explore the flavors, and the perspective gained by looking at the wine first, then the food, can be quite a refreshing one.
So the next time you want to create a magical event, remember to pick your wine that was just delivered to your door and create your meal. Invite good friends and sit back to enjoy! You can find some recipes here. Come back as I will be adding more!
