Wine & Food Pairing Guide

Wine & Food Pairing is easier with this innovative guide.

I have done over 1,500 wine tasting events in my career.  99% of them had some food component in the tasting. 

I learned quite a bit about matching wine & food.

It's not all about red wine with meat and white wine with fish anymore!

Our modern cuisines have changed the way we look at wine and food pairings.  

Don't stress, just match the wine to the dominant flavor of the dish!

While there are some time-tested wine & food pairings such as Port with blue cheese, or Cabernet Sauvignon with steak, wine & food pairings can be daunting.

White fish was usually fried and served with lemon (an acid) to give the fish a bit more flavor.  A white wine with some acid, like Verdecchio from Abruzzo, would also enhance the taste of the white fish.

Salmon is a denser fish with more flavor and body.  A medium-bodied red such as Pinot Noir or Dolcetto would be an excellent pairing with the salmon, especially if grilled. 

Generalizations of a particular grape varietal pairing with traditional foods could be trouble.  Not all varietals are the same in flavor or body weight.

Chicken, for example, be it boiled, fried, or roasted, will have 3 different flavor profiles.  You could pair 3 different wines, white or red.

I feel it's not a one size fits everyone.  Therefore, we need to simplify it by breaking it down into 3 ways to pair. 

The Way To Wine Pairing Bliss-

I break it down into just three food types-

1) Lighter flavored foods.

2) Medium flavored foods

3) Full flavored- robust foods. 

I like to brake down the wine into three types.

1) Light bodied,

2) Medium-bodied.

3) Full-bodied. 

Take a baked snapper (lighter) and pair it with Pinot Grigio, or Soave (lighter bodied wines) thus light with light.  That should be a good pairing.

If you take that same Snapper and pour a glass of Chianti Classico for an example, a medium-bodied wine, the wine will overpower the fish and any flavor it might have had.

Now if you were to cover your snapper in hearty tomato sauce, you could have a great time with a Chianti Classico because the sauce is a stronger flavor than the snapper and would pair better with a fuller bodied wine.  You are not pairing with the fish anymore; the sauce is the stronger flavor. 

Full flavored foods like beef or lamb benefit from a full-bodied red such as Brunello or Barolo or Chianti Classico Riserva.  The full bodied wine is a great match for meat as they are both stronger flavors, complimenting each other with similar flavor profiles.

If you can keep light to light, medium to medium, robust flavors to full bodied wine, you should go through life with great pleasure in great wine & food pairing. 

A medium-bodied wine can give you greater range to pair from lighter flavored foods to full flavor foods. 

Just figure out what is the strongest flavor of the food you're going to eat and match your wine to it! 

A great restaurant wine list can organize their wines by body weight; light, medium and full bodied.  That would make pairing so much easier.

Don't over think it. Our tastes are not all the same, and that is a good thing!

There isn't always going to be the perfect match!

But it is a lot of fun trying to find it!