Millions of words have been written on the subject of wine
& food matching. Do we really need a thousand more from me? Just as
everyone has their own taste and preferences, so each author has their own perspective
and insights. What I write is the fruit of over 35 years of serving food with
wine and trying to pair them in such a way that both are experienced at their
best. I learn something every time I open a bottle, every time I read another
writer’s opinions, every time I go to dinner at a friend’s house. As we approach the season of festive soirées and celebration dinners, I hope my
words offer something you haven’t thought yet; perhaps a few simple pointers if
you are new to this style of entertaining, perhaps an unusual recommendation if
you’re feeling a bit jaded with it all.
First things first: there are no rules.
None.
Forget “red
wine with meat, white with fish.” Forget “driest first, sweetest last.” These
are but advice. What matters is what delights the diner. If that is a £100
bottle of Sauternes with their game casserole, who am I to argue? If it’s dry
Cava with a cream cake that pleases your palate, go ahead; enjoy. I can
describe to you the effect a certain wine might have on the taste of a certain
food, or I can tell you what has pleased many of my guests, but I can’t tell
you with certainty what you will enjoy. So play with your matches. Use my
suggestions as a springboard, but try out other combinations and see how your palate responds.
Let’s think about how dry or sweet a wine is, and how much
sugar there might be in the dish you want to serve with it. Our palate gets
used to a taste experience very quickly, so a sweeter wine will make any
acidity or saltiness in the food stand right out. In the same way, sweet food
will make dry wine seem much sharper than savoury food will. The same is true
the other way, of course: salty food like cheese or anchovies with make the
fruitiness stand out in a wine; dry wines can really enhance delicate flavours
like sole or interesting vegetables like your home-grown salads. Sweet flavours
tend to linger in the mouth longer, and this is the reason we’re often advised
to drink drier wines before sweeter ones, but I have enjoyed many meals that
paired a medium-sweet
German riesling with a cheese & nut salad starter. Another effect sweetness has is
to turn down the heat in chillies and spices. You might want to consider a
German or Alsace wine with a Thai red curry. A dry wine would enhance the heat.
The choice is yours, of course - how hot do you like it?
Acidity is another key factor to consider. Rich foods like
pâtés and dishes finished with cream or butter cling to the mouth and make it
difficult to taste anything else. A more acidic wine will break through that
fattiness and is likely to be experienced as refreshing and tasty. That’s the
reason sweet but acidic wines from western France are served with foie
gras. A wine with low acidity, such as a gewurztraminer from Alsace may seem a
little insipid with rich food but will taste fruity and floral if served with
fermented or marinated foods.
It’s hard to define exactly what we mean by “body” in a
wine. I suppose it really comes down to the intensity of flavour. This is where
the old “red wine with red meat” adage comes from. A lot of our popular red
wines are very full bodied. They have an intense flavour, backed up by a lot of
tannin, the substance that gives some younger wines that drying feeling in your
mouth. If you don’t know what I mean, have a swig of some strong, black tea: that’s
tannin. Obviously, if you’ve spent good money on a nice, full red, you want to
show it off at its best. You can afford to pair it with a strongly flavoured
dish like a venison steak in whisky sauce, but a delicate, steamed savoury
custard with tofu risks being totally swamped by the big flavour of the wine.
There are lighter reds that really sing, in my opinion, when paired with fish.
Something like a Beaujolais or a New Zealand pinot noir will have very little
tannin and a lighter, less intense flavour. With meatier fish like monkfish or
a fish dish that also uses pancetta or ham, these wines can have exactly
the right intensity to balance your dish. A festive roast turkey might be better balanced with a light red than with a light white. White wines have negligible levels of
tannin but can still be lighter or fuller bodied. A lovely salad of carrots,
orange and cumin has a lot of flavour, and will overpower a light wine such as
a pinot grigio. The deeper-flavoured wines from South Africa, Australia and south
America might be a better pairing.
Finally, and this is the hardest point to define, remember
that I have said in other blog posts and articles that serving food in courses is like telling a
story? Your wines need to be part of that story. Sometimes, it’s best that the
wines take a back seat. If you’ve got a star dish to show off, you might want
to avoid a showy wine. If the dish has lots of flavours going on (or "all the trimmings"), I’d suggest
you pair it with a fairly simple wine, so you’re not adding even more flavours.
Some wines – young reds, sparkling whites – feel innately “frivolous,” whereas
older wines and fuller bodied ones have a “seriousness” about them that might
not suit the occasion or the feel of the dish. Be bold, then, and break the
supposed rules. It’s your dinner, your stage on which to dance. Be creative and
playful, and I’d love to know what combinations you discover in the process.
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| Sometimes, a beer can be the best "wine" match! |
This post is adapted from an article I originally wrote for The Yorkshire Times.
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