Food and wine
Now that we are a nation of foodies and wine drinkers, it seems that the notion of matching food and wine has almost become a competitive sport.
Moreover, the whole thing has become ever more complicated because there are now so many more styles and combinations of food and wine. A few years ago, modern British cuisine or Pacific-rim fusion food barely existed. In the wine world things have moved even faster. Now, you can get Oregon Pinot Gris, Chilean Gewurztraminer and Canadian Chardonnay. No wonder, finding the perfect partner for food and wine is a complicated business.
In that sense, all this choice has made things more complicated. But in another, it has actually simplified things. Purely because, with so many wines to choose from, it is simply impossible to find the perfect wine for a particular dish. However, the good news is that lots of wines will do the job!
As a result, my approach is not to get too worked up about food and wine matching – particularly in a restaurant where you often have to order one wine for four or five people – all of whom are having a different dish. In this situation, you simply have to order a wine which is sufficiently versatile to cover all the bases.
Above all though, food and wine matching is all down to personal taste and preferences. My wife happens to prefer red wine than white wine, so much so that she will often break the usual conventions of matching wine with food and quite happily drink red wine with fish.
Similarly, some people frequently bend the rules – simply because they feel like a particular wine at that moment in time. The wine writer Steven Spurrier once told me that for him ‘mood’ is often much more important than food when choosing a wine. In other words, if he wants a bottle of Leoville-Barton that night with bangers and mash, then that’s what he is going to open!
So there are no rights and wrongs about matching food and wine. Having said that there are some combinations and basic guidelines to food and wine matching which can enhance both the food and the wine. So here are several which you may find useful.
One of the most successful approaches is to harmonize the wine with a particular flavour in the food. For example, Red Burgundy with duck in a cherry sauce.
As a rule of thumb, red wine with meat and white wine with fish generally holds true. But don’t be afraid to break the rule because flavour is much more important than colour matching. Grilled salmon with a delicate Californian Pinot Noir is both daring and delicious.
The wine’s ‘structure’ should match that of the food. For instance, a big, oak-aged Aussie Chardonnay at 14% alcohol would over-power a subtle fish terrine. Instead, a lighter more delicate wine such as a Sancerre or Pouilly Fume from France’s Loire Valley would work much better.
Spicy Asian foods are difficult dishes to partner, but are not impossible. Avoid red wines and go for unoaked whites with enough palate-cleansing acidity to stand up for themselves. Try wines from Alsace (Riesling and Pinot Blanc) or a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.
Rich sauces with red meats require fuller bodied reds with fruit and tannin. Perfect choices would be top Bordeaux and good California Zinfandel or Cabernet Sauvignon. Equally ideal would be an Australian Shiraz or a Chateauneuf-du-Pape. For Venison, mature Pinot Noir such as red Burgundy is a match made in heaven.
Buttery, creamy or fatty dishes (especially chicken and fish) find an ideal husband in oaked Chardonnay from California, Burgundy or Australia. The combination works wonders because the wine’s smokey, butter-scotch flavours invariably complement the sauce.
Smoked dishes require wines which have enough flavour to stand up to them. Again, white Burgundy is excellent with smoked fish. With smokey bbq sauces, pick a powerful red such as an South African or Australian Shiraz or a Californian Zinfandel.
Being sweet, puddings cry out for sweeter wines. But beware also that super-sweet dessert wines can just as easily overpower a pudding. Generally though, the rule of thumb is to make sure that your pudding wine is sweeter than the dessert.
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