Another set of food and wine pairing rules? No thank you! I will only offer guidelines. Intended to enhance your pleasure, they are a starting point – not the finishing line. Use these guidelines as you see fit and never be afraid to break them
Welcome to the second part of my semi-serious guide to food and wine pairing. My first article in this guide was an introduction. I highlighted the benefits that can be achieved when there is a beautiful marriage of food and wine. I also outlined some general principles to bear in mind when making such pairings.
In this part, I will delve into the details and set out some guidelines to maximise the chances of a successful food and wine pairing. I will also provide examples to help you visualise your next favourite food and wine pairing.
Before I go any further, I want to clarify my position on food and wine pairing. As I wrote in my previous article, I advocate a synthesis between objective and subjective perspectives. After all, the structural components in food and wine influence each other in a way that is objective and measurable. However, I’m also firmly convinced that subjectivity plays a pivotal role in determining whether that pairing is successful.
From the above, two main considerations emerge. Firstly, we can only postulate what is the effect of a particular combination. However, it would be unfair to assign a judgement value to that result. For example, from an objective perspective, pairing a dry, tannic red wine with chocolate exacerbates the bitterness in both constituents. Some will find that sensation unpleasant, but others will love that extra bitterness. For them, the pairing is a wonderful one no matter what the “general consensus” might be. Who is right? The answer to that question is also subjective. If you ask me, the answer is: everybody!
The second thing I’d like to stress is that my article contains recommendations, not orders. These guidelines originate from knowledge of the basic constituents of both food and wine (on this matter see What constitutes wine? Part 1 – Sweetness and acidity and What constitutes wine? Part 2 – Alcohol, tannins and body). Don’t be afraid to break the guidelines, but it is always helpful to know what they are and why they exist.
With that premise in mind, here are my personal guidelines for food and wine pairings. Enjoy!
Big with big, delicate with delicate
A wise principle is to pair food and wine in terms of weight and intensity of flavours. To put it simply match big with big and delicate with delicate. Bold, intense wines are more likely to withstand the robust flavours of a big dish. For instance, a structured cabernet sauvignon will pair well with juicy roasted lamb. Rich beef stews are often intense, earthy and meaty. They call for a wine with similar characteristics, such as an aged Barolo.
On the other end of the spectrum, a fresh summer salad would be overpowered by heavy or intense wines. For delicate culinary dishes, it would be better to opt for delicate and lighter wines. Try a Loire sauvignon, a muscadet, an Italian pinot grigio or an Alsatian pinot blanc.
Majestic or mundane?
You might want to consider “regality” when pairing food and wine. A simple and inexpensive sandwich needs an easy-going and unpretentious drink. Try an unoaked and uncomplicated white such as a sauvignon blanc, albarino or a village level white Burgundy with a tuna sandwich. If ham is involved, try a light red like Bardolino, mencia or Beaujolais.
While lingering over beef stew braised in Barolo, you might want to open that expensive bottle you had been saving for a special occasion. You won’t regret splurging!
Easy-to-pair food
During your culinary adventures, you may have noticed that some food is easier to pair with wine than others. An explanation for this phenomenon can be found in the way structural components in food interact with wine.
Two structural components in food are salt and acidity. They both make the wine taste softer. As such, salty food or those with high acidity will make a wine taste:
- Less bitter, astringent and acidic
- More fruity and sweet
Consequently, food with abundant salt and/or acidity is easy to pair with wine. When eating these types of foods, you do not have to make traditional wine choices. You can unleash your creativity. For instance, consider a nicely flavoured steak. Common folklore suggests to pair steak with a structured red but there are many more possibilities. Provided the wine has enough concentration to stand the steak’s rich flavours, there are a multitude of satisfying pairings available. Apart from the aforementioned red wine, you can enjoy your steak with Champagne, Oloroso Sherry, an intense riesling or a bold oaked white. Tasting is believing!
For the same reason, food rich in a combination of umami and salt are also relatively simple to pair. Parmesan and meat pair well with rich and tannic reds (cabernet sauvignon, nebbiolo, zinfandel, tannat, syrah, Brunellos, etc). For smoked seafood try some bold whites (viognier, oaked chardonnay, white bordeaux from Graves, Fume Blanc from California).
Acidity is your best friend
Acidity is a good thing when present in either food or wine. In fact, acidity in wine is your best friend when it comes to pairing it with food. If you want to take away just one guideline, consider this: acidity in wine should be higher than the acidity in the paired food.
All food-friendly wines are high in acidity. The latter makes your mouth water, encourages the diner to linger on one more bite of food and/or take another sip of wine. The perfect culinary experience. On the other hand, a food which is more acidic than the wine will make the latter taste dull and flabby.
Italy has a long standing tradition of consuming wine during meals. So it comes as no surprise that most Italian wines are high in acidity and food-friendly. Among red wines, grapes such as sangiovese, nebbiolo, aglianico, nerello mascalese, corvina, cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc all have a natural high acidity. White grapes such as riesling, sauvignon blanc, furmint, chenin blanc, assyrtiko have a soaring acidity. For more versatile grapes, you need to consider the regional style. Chablis and Champagne wines have high acidity, but the same is not true for other styles produced with the same grape (chardonnay).
Tricky-to-pair food
While some structural components facilitate food and wine pairing, alas there are others that make that combination trickier. In particular, umami (on its own), bitterness, chilli and sweetness make wine taste harder and have the following unpleasant effects:
- Increase the astringency and bitterness of the wine
- Decrease the wine’s fruitiness and sweetness
- Sharpen the drinker’s perception of the wine’s alcohol content
The consequence of poor wine and food combinations can be dire. Here are some examples of tricky foods and tips of how you can avoid the pitfalls:
- Food rich in umami but poor in salt such as asparagus, artichokes, egg, mushroom and soft ripe cheese
- If possible add more salt to the food to help the pairing
- Otherwise, pair with aromatic whites or low tannin reds
- Whichever wine you pick, ensure they are fruity and have good acidity
- Among reds, you can consider a New World pinot noir, a simple Valpolicella, a barbera or gamay
- For whites, good options include dry muscat, gruner veltliner and Orvieto Superiore
- Bitter foods and the bitterness of a wine’s tannins can combine to create an overall unattractive experience.
- Pair bitter food with a white wine or a low-tannin red. Unless of course you enjoy bitterness, then pair bitter with bitter!
- Food that contains chilli exacerbates the perception of alcohol in wine
- Pair such foods with white wines or low-tannin reds that are low in alcohol
- Particularly interesting combinations include off-dry and fruity wines, such as Gewurztraminer, Alsace Pinot Gris or certain German rieslings. It’s not a coincidence that these wines are traditionally pinpointed as the perfect matching for Asian cuisines (as they often include chilli)
- Sweet foods such as desserts are more difficult to pair than you might imagine.
- Desserts should be paired with wines which contain at least the same amount of sugar – otherwise the wine will taste bitter. Once again if you love bitterness then ignore this recommendation!
- Desserts such as custards, pies and tarts (which are sweet but not intensely so) are slightly more versatile when it comes to wine pairings. Pair them with Moscato d’Asti, medium-sweet and and sweet rieslings, sweet Vouvray and Tawny Ports
- For very sweet desserts, for instance those containing chocolate, pair with intensely sweet and concentrated wine counterparts
- In my opinion, one of the best pairings with chocolate is Vintage Port. Other options include Banyuls, passito made from black grape varieties (from sagrantino or primitivo for instance), Rutherglen muscats or Pedro Ximénez Sherry
The old proverb: red wine with meat, white wine with fish
Probably the oldest adage in wine and food matching declares “red wine with meat, white wine with fish”. Of course that is a huge oversimplification. Nonetheless there is more wisdom in the proverb than one might think (or perhaps I’m just a closet traditionalist?).
Tannins in wine bind with proteins contained in our saliva to form bigger molecules. This process results in an astringent sensation where it can feel like all the juices in your mouth have suddenly been sucked up. However, when you drink a tannic red with meat, the proteins in the latter bind with tannins instead. The result is a mellow (and as a meat and winelover I would opine pleasant) sensation in the mouth. The wine tastes less astringent and bitter. The fresh mouthfeel invites you to take another juicy bite of that steak.
Conversely, oily fishes (mackerel, sardines, swordfish, monkfish) with red wines typically generate an unpalatable metallic taste. A combination that most people would want to avoid.
Generally, fish and seafood is rich in umami but not always in salt. Therefore a red wine when paired with fish (unless it has a low level of tannins) would struggle and generate an undesirable bitterness. I’m not saying to avoid red wines with fish altogether, but consider the level of tannins in the red as the most important factor when considering a red-with fish pairing option.
Embrace low-risk wines
A thorough understanding of the structural components in wine can help predict which wines are low-risk and those that are high-risk when it comes to pairing. So what type of wines are low risk?
Low-tannin red wines with moderate intensity and high acidity are normally very versatile with food. As such, these wines fall into the low-risk category. Examples include Chianti (mostly the ones on the light side, for example Chianti Classico Annata), medium-level red Burgundy (regional or village appellations), Oregon pinot noir, gamay, Austrian zweigelt, Spanish mencia, Sicilian frappato and Alto Adige schiava wines. These wines are refreshing, not too complicated and pair well with most food – even fish!
However, the safest bet of all for food and wine pairings are simple unoaked white wines. Some of them will contain a bit of residual sugar. They are likely to be pleasant with virtually any food. By the same token, simple unoaked wines are also unlikely to add anything interesting to the pairing. These wines are inoffensive, passing almost unnoticed when sipped between courses.
Be careful with high-risk wines
At the other extreme of the structural gamut, wines which have an abundance of structural components exhibit numerous interactions. If a wine simultaneously has a high level of acidity, strong alcoholic presence, pronounced astringency from different sources (tannin and oak), excessive body or sweetness (or both), complex and intense flavours – it will be difficult to pair with food. The good news is that we don’t have to!
Meditation wines are enjoyable on their own. The expression was created by the Italian wine writer Luigi Veronelli who described meditation wines as
Very complex and unusual wines. They should be enjoyed on a long winter evening, sip by sip by the fireplace, in every sip contemplating their complexity and history.
Luigi Veronelli
Therefore there is no need to trouble yourself with finding compatible foods.
The winemaker of a top Priorat label offered me more or less the same advice. I was sampling their top tier wine, when he proclaimed: “the only things you need to pair with this wine are a good conversation and the shared laughter of friends”.
Your own experience is the best teacher
In this article I offered some general advice upon food and wine pairings. Use or discard them at will to help build your library of successful food and wine pairings. Consider my advice not as fixed rules, but rather as what they really are: just guidelines. Not a finishing line, but a starting point.
American wine writer Eric Asimov splendidly wrote ‘in pairing wine and food, experience is the best teacher’. Asimov’s article can be found here.
Once you find a combination that you love, remember it for the next time. Did you enjoy your spaghetti alle vongole with a greco from Campania? Next time, try that dish with a wine with similar characteristics. For example an Etna Bianco, or a vermentino.
Afterthoughts
For some people, food and wine pairing is a source of anxiety and shame. They feel they have to read books, study and memorise a vast amount of information to select a wine they can enjoy wine with food. Nothing is further from the truth.
If you are reading this article you are probably eager to deepen your vinous knowledge to some degree. But do so only to the extent that it is still enjoyable and comfortable.
At the end of the day, to relish food and wine, you need just those two ingredients! Everything else, my guide included, is simply a tool to enhance the experience. Approach food and wine pairing with a light heart. Be eager to find out more (if you wish to) but never allow the shame of not knowing enough to stain your food and wine pairing experience.
What’s next?
I hope this second article of of my semi-serious guide to food and wine pairing gave you an insight of the basic mechanisms underlying successful food and wine combinations. This is a three-part series consisting of the following:
- Part 1 : An introduction to food and wine pairing, highlighting the benefits of working on this marriage. I also outline some general principles to bear in mind when pairing food with wine
- Part 2 (this article): I lay out some general principles which will help your food and wine pairings. With plenty of examples to show these principles applied in practice
- Part 3 : I will outline the different approaches to wine pairing taken by wine experts and connoisseurs
Stay tuned for my third and last part of the series. In the meantime, feel free to suggest (in the comment section below or through my media channels) your favourite food and wine matching. I’m always glad to try new combinations of these two magical elements!
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