Acidity

Acidity is the lemon squeeze of the wine world. It magnifies flavors, it brightens, it lightens, it almost makes the sun shine. Acidity cuts through fat like a knife. Think of that lemon squeeze over a fish fry; replace the lemon with a bright, crisp white wine, and the effect is very similar. It makes the heavy flavors feel livelier, and more importantly, it scrapes the film of fat off the taste buds so that they won’t get fatigued.

Acid will also magnify elements that don’t need magnifying—tannin, for instance. Pour a tannic red wine with an acid-rich sausage-and-sauerkraut dish, and every time the acid and wine combine the wine will seem extraordinarily tannic.

What works: High-acid wines with high-acid foods, or fat

What to avoid: High-acid wines with tannin

Oak

Wood has no equivalent in food, except for maybe those rare occasions when you’re having cedar-planked salmon. The flavors oak adds to wine range from near-nothing (in which case it’s no worry) to heavy vanilla and butterscotch notes. It also can add a little of its own tannin, a challenge covered previously under “Tannin.”

It’s the sweet vanilla, toast, and butterscotch flavors that are a concern. If the flavors are light, they might not interfere with the flavors in food, especially if the food itself is a little sweet or smoky, like, say, grilled tuna with mango relish.

If they are heavy, they’ll need a very rich dish to stand up to them, like barbecued brisket with sweet sauce for an oaky Shiraz.

Beware of salt when it comes to oaky wines, too, unless you want to taste even more of the oak and emphasize its tannins.

What works: Oaky wines with sweet or smoky dishes

What to avoid: Oaky wines and salty food, delicate flavors

As you can see, the reactions between food and wine can be dynamic. Knowing them can help you make sure the dynamic is a good one. Still, sometimes you’ll hit it and sometimes you won’t; not even sommeliers get it right every time. Worse things could happen. After all, it’s just dinner and a glass of wine.