It sounds corny, but what grows together often goes together. It makes sense, too— the land in any particular place supports only so many crops, which in turn inspires the local cuisine. Chiles, for instance, don’t tend to grow in wine-growing regions. That’s not to say that wine doesn’t go with chile-spiked food, but chiles often do pose a challenge to wine. Beer, on the other hand, has historically been made where chiles grow, and is the no-brainer match.

What people eat in a particular place also affects what wines they make. The wines, in a sense, are preselected to go with the cuisine. For instance, Galicia’s fish-based cuisine seems perfectly suited to its light, fresh white wines, and even the few red wines Galicia claims are so light they are almost white. Sure, climate has something to do with it, but you’ve got to think that the vintners also made some good choices. Wine is made to drink with food, and light white wines are what they wanted to drink.

Tuscany is another good example—heavy pasta, tangy, high-acid tomato sauce: This isn’t food that needs a rockin’ red wine. It needs something medium-bodied with good acidity, with flavors that will bridge the whiteness of pasta and the redness of tomato sauce. Hey, look—that describes Chianti, Tuscany’s main wine.

Think of classic pairings, and you can learn something from each one of them (even if it’s just that you don’t like it).

Champagne and caviar: This illustrates best the power of expensive wines and expensive food: whether or not it’s a great match, it sure says “celebration” like little else. You could also make an argument for texture, as good caviar bursts like little Champagne bubbles on the tongue.

Muscadet and oysters: Muscadet is the region around where the Loire River flows into the Adantic— home to oyster beds galore. The wine—light, crisp, and mineral-tinged—seems made for washing down cold oysters filled with the salty flavor of the sea.

Chablis and oysters: Chablis might be far removed from the ocean, but not as far as it looks on the map. The area where the wines of Chablis grow used to be an ocean bed, and the soil is still filled with ancient oyster shells. The wines seem to pick up a bit of chalky, oyster-shell flavor, too—which makes them great pairings with oysters themselves.

Chianti and pizza or red-sauced pasta: Tomatoes are acidic, and that acid can be tough on a red wine unless it has acid to compete. Traditional Chianti does.

Gewurztraminer and choucroute: Alsace’s famous sauerkraut-and-sausage dish has no better match than one of the region’s Gewurztraminers. The wine has both the acidity to cut through the richness of the dish and the body to stand up to it.

Fino Sherry and olives, chips, and other salty snacks: Visit a bar in Spain, and along with tapas—those little plates of salty and often fried snacks—people will be drinking Fino Sherry (or Cava). The wine’s extremely high acidity and salty tang cut through the richness of the food and make for an addictive pairing.

Port and Stilton: Big, sweet red wine and big, stinky, sweet-tangy cheese—it’s a match that goes so well together that some people actually make a hole in the cheese and pour the wine in. It’s volume that counts most of all here: Both of these have very big, mouth-filling flavors and rich, palate-coating textures. Sweetness counts, too, to play off the cheese’s tang.

There are classic pairings, but there are no such things as correct pairings. If you like oysters and red wine, go for it. There are no rules; only suggestions.

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You know far more about pairing food and wine than you probably think. You know, for instance, that a big glass of dense, dark red wine isn’t going to look very refreshing on a 95 degree day. In fact, you’ll probably want to reach for a beer. So on those hot days, think light, crisp whites, like unoaked Chardonnays and Sauvignon Blancs. No doubt you’ve already chosen light foods.

Same thing goes for wintertime. If you’re starting dinner with a white wine, you might want to look toward richer whites, like toasty oaked Chardonnay or lush Rhones.

An easy way to think about what wines fit the climate is to think of what people drink in like climates. Summertime whites? Think of the Mediterranean. Wintertime reds? Think of northern Italy, and central and northern France. It’s not infallible, but it’s a good trigger when you’re feeling lost.

Guided by Vibe

This is a bit of a no-brainer: Match the wine to the vibe of the occasion. For instance, burgers and Grand Cru Bordeaux can be a wonderful match, especially if the burgers are served on bone china at a clothed table. In the backyard, fancy Bordeaux not only has the possibility of looking pretentious, but the wine will probably be wasted on people since the spread won’t feel like an occasion to pay much attention to what’s in your glass. Bulgarian Merlot might just be a better pick.

Weigh the Choices

You can answer many wine-pairing questions simply by asking yourself how weighty the dish is. Take a nice filet of sole with a butter sauce, for instance. How about a big, juicy Shiraz with that? I didn’t think so. The wine is going to knock that fish right out of the sea, not because it’s a red wine with white fish, but because the wine’s flavors are simply bigger, louder, more aggressive. How about a big, oaky Chardonnay? Better, but that’s still going to clobber the delicate sole. A wine as delicate and plain as the fish itself, like a crisp, unoaked Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc, sounds far better.

There are very few rules in pairing wine and food, but this is one of them: Match the weight of the wine to that of the food. If the wine is too heavy, it will obliterate the dish; too light, and the dish will obliterate it. Give them each a fighting chance to be tasted, and you’re halfway there, or more.

Texture

We tend to think of wines as simply wet, but when you get down to it, some are smooth as silk; others are heavier, more like satin. Some are rough with sandpaper-like tannins; others use bubbles to more genteelly rough up the tongue.

Think of a food’s texture when you’re pairing it with wine, and ask yourself whether you’d like more of the same, or some point-counterpoint. This isn’t the sort of interaction that will ruin a pairing, but it might make it more interesting. For example, with a smooth, rich pate, which would you rather have—a sweet wine as smooth and rich as the spread, or a bubbly that will scrub it off? One isn’t more correct than the other; they’re just different pleasant effects.

Uncategorized food and wine, pairing food and wine, pairing wine

What wine for what food isn’t a question to worry to death; wine is supposed to add joy, not anxiety, to a meal. There also aren’t any rigid answers to the pairing question. Although wine lovers will often say that a certain wine will be “perfect” with some dish, it’s only a manner of speaking, a guess that says more about the style of wine than its exact tastes in combination with a dish.

But it’s worth learning a little about the basics of pairing food and wine because when you get the right wine with the right food together in the same place, the whole is greater than its parts. And that means more deliciousness, which is the whole point of all the wine study, right?

So, what’s the big deal about pairing wine? Why can’t you just put a good wine and good food together and expect that everything will work itself out? Well, you can, but the effect might not be the one you want. The food and wine might agree to get along but not really combine in any interesting way, or they might go at it in your mouth, the wine pummeling the food until you can’t taste it anymore, or the food knocking out the wine with a powerful punch of flavor. Not so pleasant, right?

Worse even, the wine could play a nasty trick and make the fish taste like metal, or the artichokes could take revenge on the Chardonnay and make it taste like dessert wine.

Dinner is no place for battles of any size, even small ones that play out in your mouth between wine and food, and a little learning can keep those battles to a minimum. In the best matches, wine enhances food, like a splash of lemon, a pinch of salt, or a tangy sauce that can bring out more and different flavors in a dish. Wine can be more exciting and interesting than any condiment, because wine brings its own delicious set of flavors and sensations to the table, and food can enhance these, too.

How do you keep the battles to a minimum and aim for perfection? Much of it is just common sense.

Uncategorized pairing food and wine, pairing wine