Having been awarded a scholarship by Bonhams and AWSEC, and having recently passed the advanced level of the Wine and Spirit Educational Trust ("WSET") with rather respectable results, one of WOM's founders decides to waffle about the importance of pairing his two passions together. 

This is the first of a series of articles related to fermented grape juice.

Food and Wine Pairing

In a cheese tasting I organised a few months ago, the cheese expert and the sommelier of the restaurant had painstakingly paired each cheese with a drink. Most of the pairings were wines, but there were also the odd pairings of mimolette cheese with Hoegaarden beer, and epoisse cheese with an aged malt whiskey.  All pairings were sensational; the taste of the cheeses, and of the wines were greatly enhanced by each others' company.

Indeed, good food and drink goes hand in hand in the enjoyment of an epicurean life. The choice of what to drink with your food presents an opportunity: the wrong one can ruin the entire meal experience, but, when what you drink fuses with what you eat, something magical happens in your mouth, something of a sheer sensory experience. For this very reason, as mentioned in the cheese tasting, the role of a sommelier in a restaurant is to help achieve the perfect pairing for your food. This pairing is called "marriages" in French, and brings out the best qualities of both the food and the beverage. 

The Rules

The most important rule about food and wine matching is that there are no rules. Drink what you like. You can drink any wine with any food, even red wine with fish and white wine with meat! 

There are, however, a few very simple guidelines which can help you make an informed decision when a trained sommelier is absent.

The Regional Tie - if it grows together, it goes together

For Western cuisine, there really is nothing easier than pairing a regional delicacy with wine that is produced in the same region.  A regional focus gives you a starting point. It is organic, and it embodies the wisdom of time. 

Take Italy for example, in every region,they have been pairing local dishes with local wines for over a thousand years. The acidity of their tomato-based pastas, can easily be matched by the red grape Sangiovese with a good acidity-tannin balance, like a Chianti. In other countries, you can find foie gras from Perigord in France going very well with a sweet white Monbazillac, or a clean, crisp white wine from the South of Spain that cuts into the oil of the fried foods, a typical delicacy for the area. The list is endless. It can be a fun way to experience a region of a country, almost as if you are on a mini-vacation!

The Feel - body, tannins, acids, and sweetness

One of the most important aspects of what to look for in a bottle of wine to match the food, is the body of the wine (simply put, the alcoholic strength of the wine). The wine's body should be matched with the strongest ingredient in the food. Delicately flavoured foods such as a white fish or a poached chicken should be paired with a light-bodied wine such as a dry Riesling or a Pinot Noir from the New World. Stronger or more robust foods such as grilled tuna or osso bucco should be paired with something like a Chardonnay from Burgundy, or a Brunello from Tuscany.

Often, it is not the main ingredient (such as a piece of steak) that plays the main role in finding the perfect marriage with wine; the sauce is often the most powerful taste in the dish, and the pairing of sauces with wines are usually a better guide.

A tannic wine can be made softer when served with chewy foods such as a grilled steak. Equally, if you are eating a relatively rich and fatty dish, the tannins in red wine can help cleanse the palate. If you feel like a glass of white wine to go with fatty foods, then a refreshingly crisp and acidic wine should be able to cut through the oil. For example, try matching a Chablis or Sancerre with tempura prawns.

Since wines taste very acidic if served with sweet food, always finish your whites and reds before the desserts are served. This is the reason why so many European cuisines have a cheese course before dessert - for diners to finish their red wine.  As an anecdote, the Brits do it the other way round, with dessert before cheese, but that's only because they like to serve rounds of stilton cheese with Port. The obvious pairing of dessert is sweet wines. However, sweet wines also go very well with some savoury food; as mentioned, many stronger cheeses and foie gras both go very well with wines that are sweet.

The Balance of the Flavours - pair to compare or contrast

Always keep flavours in balance! You can pair to compare, like you do with milk and cookies, where both are full and rich and taste absolutely wonderful together. Or you can pair to contrast, like stilton cheese and Port, where one is salty and the other is sweet. In general, wines and food that "compare" are often thought to be "safer" than those that "contrast", as some flavour contrasts do not work. Nevertheless, when a contrast of food and wine "matches", they accentuate each other's flavours. See below for principles of comparing and contrasting.

The pairing of food and wine is not a science, but an art. There are so many variables, which lead to all kinds of fun ways to compare and contrast. Pairing food and wine also makes it very enjoyable to explore what goes behind the dish, its history, its preparation process; the same goes for the wines.

Be Daring and Enjoy

Finally, the degree of opulence is always a variable, and an extremely subjective one as well. Whilst you should pair grander dishes with grander wines, and modest dishes with modest wines, in an extreme case, it can be quite interesting to counterbalance a bottle of, say, Chateau Lafite, with a cheeseburger!

To repeat what I said earlier, the most important rule about food and wine matching is that there are no rules! Be daring, and enjoy.

Five Principles for Pairing to Compare:

Pair mild foods with mild wines, heavier foods with big fuller-bodied wines

Pair rich foods with equally rich, or richer wine (from a warmer region)

Match acids with acids. For example, pair seafood with lemon juice with an acidic wine that can keep up with the acids in the food

Pair subtle dishes with equally nuanced wines

Pair desserts with wines as sweet as, or sweeter than, the dessert

Five Principles for Pairing to Contrast:

Counterbalance salty foods with acidic wines

Counterbalance salty foods with bubbly bottles like Champagne

Counterbalance fatty and oily foods with acidic wines

Counterbalance bitter foods with fruity, full-bodied wines

Counterbalance hot and spicy dishes with wines that has a touch of sweetness