Curious to hear from those who take wine and food pairings seriously. I’ve had great pairings at restaurants, and I get it how good it can be. But at home, I don’t think it’s worth the hassle. If I ignore the idea of pairing, then I just pick something I want to drink while preparing dinner and for after, and I’m generally happy. If I try to pair wine with dinner then maybe my food and wine are better because I picked a good match, but more often than not, either the food or wine are not their best because of their interactions with each other.
Curious about other people’s opinions because I find trying to pair wine with food a hassle that just eliminate good bottles I’d like to drink because of the food.
To me, it makes all the difference, to the food and the wine. But a lot of people don’t care, or don’t pay any attention to how one affects the taste of the other. Lots of people drink wine before they pick up their fork and after they put it down, and not in between. For them, the food won’t matter. I’m the opposite and will eat food very slowly so I still have something on my plate until the last drop if the wine is really good.
It also makes a difference what kinds of wines you like. Tannic and high acid wine tend to taste much better with food. On the other hand, softer, riper wines may be easier on their own.
Matching doesn’t have to be a big hassle. If you pay attention and learn from experience, and do a little reading, it can become second nature. Think of it like cooking. There’s a certain point where you can improvise because you have a sense of technique and flavor combinations.
For example, I find that cabernet doesn’t play well with tomato-dominated dishes. I’d rather have a zin, or a Rhone or sangiovese. On the other hand, cabs and merlots can be fabulous matches for mushroom-dominated dishes (e.g., morrels with cream). Off-dry riesling is superb with smoked fish.
There are some guiding principles. Be careful about matching tart wines with a dish that has a sweet element (say a meat course with fruit in it). Conversely, don’t match a fat, ripe red with a dish with lemon. Both may taste lousy.
Very sweet desserts can be tricky. A wine that’s only off-dry will taste nasty and sour. On the other hand, a very sweet wines will simply compete with the dish. Better a less sweet dessert (I sometimes reduce the sugar in a recipe) and real sticky or, if the dish is very sweet, consider a port or amaro or something that has some alcohol or bitterness to play off the sugar.
It’s really no different from matching one food to another. There are good, indifferent and bad matches. And some people will never notice or care.
I dont pair as heavily as many in here, but the perfect example for me is that I always eat with young sangiovese or nebbiolo, but rarely when they are aged. The general rule I follow is you want the wine to be a bit more acidic than the food. With desert I find it
With deserts I follow the same general rule above. If the wine doesn’t have enough acidity to balance out the sweetness of the desert it doesn’t work for me. I should note that this general rule, helps me make decent pairings. To consistently make great pairings, you need a lot more knowledge than I have.
These 2 links at winefolly I found to be pretty useful for people who arent experts.
I put a lot of energy into pairing wines with food, particularly at a “big” dinner with guests. I think John Morris’s observations are terrific, particularly when talking about sweet wines with dessert. With a very sweet dessert you need a very sweet wine (some Loire chenin blancs; Monbazillac; Cuvee Madame, etc.); something like a slightly sweet cake goes well with many aged Sauternes, though don’t ignore a cheese course as a great place for a Sauternes, particulalry a cheese course with triple-cream cheeses. It’s difficult, though not impossible, to come up with red wines that go well with cheese.
I find that what helps is to think about the food course, then think about what wine might go well. Just imagine the wine’s flavor profile, mouth feel, acidity. This kind of imagining of the pairing helps steer me away from bad matches and towards good ones, some of which are surprising.
Of course, they don’t all work well. If they’re really off I’ll choose a different one, and put the cork back in the first bottle for consumption at a later date.
I have found the book “What to Drink With What you Eat” by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg very helpful. It has one where they list ingredients and then matching wines and another where they start off with varietals and suggest food for them. IN addition, there is a good section describing how they go about pairing (similar to John’s email above, but in more detail). I don’t treat this book as the last word, but rather a first place to look if I am planning a pairing.
I like to pay attention to pairing, but I get lazy here and there.
Did any of you ever see the original Iron Chef when the wine expert competed? He killed!!!
One of my favorite episodes…
Shinya Tasaki: The winner of the Association de la Sommellerie Internationale’s Meilleur Sommelier du Monde (World’s Best Sommelier) in Tokyo in 1995, the first (and as of 2020, still only) Asian national to win the competition. Also president of the Association as of 2013. Tasaki is also the only non-professional chef to have won in Kitchen Stadium after defeating Kobe with fatty tuna as the theme. Though it was not a stipulation of the battle, by virtue of his being a sommelier, both he and Kobe chose wines to pair with their dishes. Also invited to perform sommelier duties during the series finale.