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If you are taking wine as a
gift to a dinner party, don't worry about matching the wine
to the food unless you have been requested to do so and have
enough information about what is being served to make an
informed choice. Just bring a good wine. Match quality of
food and wine. A grand dinner party with multiple courses of
elaborately prepared dishes deserves a better wine than
hamburgers on the grill with chips in a bag.
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When you're serving more
than one wine at a meal, it's customary to serve lighter
wines before full-bodied ones. Dry wines should be served
before sweet wines unless a sweet flavored dish is served
early in the meal. In that case match the sweet dish with a
similarly sweet wine. Lower alcohol wines should be served
before higher alcohol wines.
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Balance flavor intensity.
Pair light-bodied wines with lighter food and fuller-bodied
wines with heartier, more flavorful, richer and fattier
dishes.
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Consider how the food is
prepared. Delicately flavored foods — poached or steamed —
pair best with delicate wines. It's easier to pair wines
with more flavorfully prepared food — braised, grilled,
roasted or sautéed. Pair the wine with the sauce, seasoning
or dominant flavor of the dish.
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Match flavors. An earthy
Pinot Noir goes well with mushroom soup and the
grapefruit/citrus taste of Sauvignon Blanc goes with fish
for the same reasons that lemon does.
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Balance sweetness. But,
beware of pairing a wine with food that is sweeter than the
wine, although I do like chocolate with Cabernet Sauvignon.
I also like chocolate with good dark beer. Come to think of
it, I like chocolate with just about anything.
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Consider pairing opposites.
Very hot or spicy foods — some Thai dishes, or hot curries
for example — often work best with sweet desert wines.
Opposing flavors can play off each other, creating new
flavor sensations and cleansing the palate.
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Match by geographic
location. Regional foods and wines, having developed
together over time, often have a natural affinity for each
other.
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Pair wine and cheese. In
some European countries the best wine is reserved for the
cheese course. Red wines go well with mild to sharp cheese.
Pungent and intensely flavored cheese is better with a
sweeter wine. Goat Cheeses pair well with dry white wine,
while milder cheeses pair best with fruiter red wine. Soft
cheese like Camembert and Brie, if not over ripe, pair well
with just about any red wine including Cabernet, Zinfandel
and Red Burgundy.
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Adjust
food flavor to better pair with the wine. Sweetness in a
dish will increase the awareness of bitterness and
astringency in wine, making it appear drier, stronger and
less fruity. High amounts of acidity in food will decrease
awareness of sourness in wine and making it taste richer and
mellower — sweet wine will taste sweeter.
Bitter flavors in food increase the perception of bitter,
tannic elements in wine. Sourness and salt in food suppress
bitter taste in wine. Salt in food can tone down the
bitterness and astringency of wine and may make sweet wines
taste sweeter.
