I’ve always wanted to learn more about wine and how to pair food and wine. This seemed like a great time to to do a little research and try some things out and share my findings. So this will be my guide for you, to show you the steps on how to select wines. Also, learn what to look for in pairing the wines with certain foods in order to bring out the flavor sensations.
When you pair wine with a particular food, it creates a balance between the components of the meal and the characteristics of the wine. Furthermore, as much as wine and food are complex, the basics really are simple to understand.
Food and Wine Basic Tips
First of all, if you are just starting out, the following basics can create consistently great pairing. As you continue, and become more familiar with different wines, you’ll grow more confident and be able to experiment and enjoy. So, below are some starter tips:
- Wine should be sweeter than what you serve with it.
- The Wine should be more acidic than what you pair it with.
- Red Wines pair best with bolder flavored meats, such as red meats.
- Your Wine should have the same flavor intensity as the food.
- White Wines pair best with lighter intensity meats, like fish or chicken.
- Bitter wines are best balanced with fat.
- White, Sparkling or Rosé wines create nice complimentary pairings.
- Best to match the wines with the sauce rather than the meat.
- Red wines can create great congruent pairings.
Food and Wine Congruent vs Complimentary Pairings
Congruent Pairings
In a congruent pairing the food and wine chosen will share several compounds or flavors. For instance, it can be a sweet wine paired with a sweet dish, a red wine with a buttery after taste paired with a buttery pasta dish. The important tip when creating congruent pairings is to ensure that the wine is not overwhelmed by the flavors of the food.
When this occurs it can make the taste of the wine become bland. The benefits of a congruent pairing is to allow the wine and the food to enhance the flavor of the other. Red wines are a great go to when looking to create congruent pairings. With aromas and flavors ranging from cherry to smoky, red wines are very diverse and easy to match with like food pairings. Take a glass of a Syrah, this is a full bodied wine and it will have a similar flavor profile of some of your favorite grilled meats, making it a great congruent pairing.
Complimentary Pairings
On the other hand complementary pairings are based on food and wine combinations that share no compounds or flavors, but instead complement each other. The flavors in each are balanced by their contrasting elements.
Rosé ,White ,and Sparkling wine make excellent choices for complimentary pairings. A sweet white wine paired with a spicy dish will allow the sugar in the wine to cool down and balance out the spiciness in the dish.
Another common complementary pairing is white wine with salty dishes. The saltiness from the food actually decreases the sweetness of the wine and brings out the wines fruity taste and aromas. A glass of Chardonnay or Pinot Grigio will pair perfectly with salty popcorn and specially well with fried dishes.
Food and Wine Basic Taste Components
Basic Wine Taste Components
Wine lacks three tastes: fatiness, spiciness, and saltiness. However, wine does contain acidity, bitterness and sweetness in various degrees. As a result, we have three different categories of wines;
- White, Rose and Sparkling wines have more acidic.
- Red wines are rich and more bitter.
- Sweet wines are lighter and sweeter.
Basic Food Taste Components
Simplify a dish down to its basic dominant tastes. For example, baked macaroni has 2 primary components: fat and salt. Southern barbecue is a bit more complex and includes fat, salt, sweet and spice (plus a little acid!). Even dishes without meat can be simplified. For example, a green salad offers acid and bitter; creamed corn offers fat and sweet.
Likewise, is the food light or rich. A salad might be consider light but the dressing may be high in acidity. Also if intensity is not known focus on the acidity, fat or sweetness.
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