Creating a delicious pairing of food and wine need not be complicated, so we present this simple guideline to help you pair confidently. However, the most important rule of all is to trust your own palate and enjoy your meal!

 

The most successful food and wine pairings feature complementary elements, richness and textures. You can try for either a similar pairing or a contrasting one. There are a few elements that make both red wine and white wine pairings work, and they’re derived from characteristics of the food and how they mingle with those of the wine. These are: fat, acid, salt, sweetness, bitterness and texture.

 

Many of our favorite meats and fowl have a high level of fat; that's probably why they taste so good and rich. Wine does not contain fat, so when matching a wine with these richer foods, remember that it has to balance that fat with acid, cut it with tannin, or match its richness with alcohol. This is why a prime cut of steak tastes so good with a cabernet based wine; the beef’s protein and fat softens up the wine’s mouth-drying tannins. 

 

Another key component of both food and wine is acid. In wine it adds freshness and tang. Acid does the same with food, as when lemon is squeezed on fresh seafood. When looking for a wine to go with an acidic dish, you should make sure that the perceived acidity of the wine is at least equal to that of the food, or the wine will taste bland and washed out.

 

Salty foods may limit your wine choices. Salt can make an oaky chardonnay taste odd, dilute any fruity flavor from a red wine and make higher alcohol content wines bitter. But with a bit of imagination, you can create some remarkable combinations of salty foods and sweet wines. Bleu cheese and Sauternes is another one of the world’s classic food and wine combos. Sparkling wines are a homerun with salty, fried foods.

 

Sweet desserts can pair very well with a sweet wine, but  Here’s there are degrees of sweetness. Some recipes will have just a hint of sugar, such as a fruit sauce served over a pork loin. This light, fruity sweetness can be matched very well with rich white wines such as chardonnay.  Red wine and chocolate is a great combination but you have to be very careful to use a bitter, dark chocolate and a red wine with some sweetness.

 

A more adventurous path is to experiment with contrast: matching light foods to heavy wines and vice versa. This requires  more testing, to keep the tension dynamic and avoid having the lighter flavors over-shadowed by the heavy ones.