Knowing the right wine to serve with your food can make a normal meal great, and earn you points with your date, dinner guest, or friends. Instead of picking a random bottle off the wine list, taka a few minutes to learn five basics step to pairing food and wine properly.
1. Balance
It is always best to pick a wine that balances the natural flavors of the food. Spicy, flavorful food should be paired with a spicy, flavorful wine. Likewise, a mild, neutral dish should be paired with a mild, neutral wine.
Most beef dishes would be considered a fatty, flavorful dish, so they pair well with charismatic red wines like big Cabs and Zinfandels. Rich, creamy pasta sauce would be better suited to match with a rich chardonnay.
Use your instinct here. Think about the words you would use to describe the food (rich, buttery, etc), then pick a wine that has similar characteristics.
2. Acidity
Acidic dishes like pasta with tomato sauce pair well with a wine that is also high in acidity, like a Chianti. However, this same Chianti will overpower a mild seafood dish or a rich creamy pasta sauce. So, try to match the acidity level of the wine to the acidity in your food. For fish with an acidic lemon sauce, try pairing with a similarly acidic Sauvignon Blanc.
3. Palate Cleansing
Wines contain natural tannins which have an astringent flavor. This flavor makes your mouth pucker when you drink it, and the tannins cleanse your palate of the fats from your food. “Cleansing your palate” leaves your sense of taste clear and ready to fully enjoy the next bite. This property of tannins as a palate cleanser is especially useful in meat and steak dishes, which are higher in fat.
4. Dessert Wines
Make sure the dessert wine is the sweetest serving. Don’t pair a dessert wine with a food that is sweeter than the wine. For example, avoid serving a really sweet French apple tart with a subtly sweet wine. An easy to way to solve this problem is to serve the wine directly after the dessert, rather than with it.
Sauternes (pronounced saw-turn) is the easiest to pair when it comes to dessert wine. It is the most versatile, and therefore pairs well with everything. Pair sauternes with buttery, salty or fatty foods!
Wine and chocolate is the easiest wine and food pairing for dessert. Serve dark chocolate with any fruity red wine and you will be sure to have happy guests!
5. More info
The web has a ton of great resources for all things wine and food related. For specific wine and food pairings, I recommend www.foodandwinepairing.org.
You can pick from a huge variety of wines and foods and the site will pick the perfect pairing for you! Also, check out the Wine and Food for wine recipes, more info on wine and food pairing, basics on cooking with wine and a ton more great stuff! Matt Coughlin writes articles on wine tasting, various wine and food topics, and cooking.
See more of Matt’s articles at http://www.wine-in-a-glass.com!
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New York Steak With Red Wine Cayenne Sauce : New York Steak With Red Wine Cayenne Sauce: Preparing Garlic & Rosemary
