For thousands of years, wine has been a staple at mealtime. Drinking Wine by itself is OK; but consuming Wine with food lets you know how awesome wine can truly be. Pairing a wine to a particular food is a talent. It is a talent the develops over time and with a lot of experimentation. You should never stop experimenting with wine food combinations. Sometimes the combination is a success and sometimes it is a failure. Over time you learn what works and what does not. The ability to successfully pair food and wine is the mark of a true wine lover. The point of wine is to enjoy it, not to labor over correctness. So, we are going to give you some pointers and explain how to pair Wines and Foods. This page will inform you All Things Pairing Wines and Foods.
Matching the Weight of Wine and Food
The first thing to consider is matching a food’s weight with a wine’s weight is the most fundamental part of pairing food and wine. The idea is that a heavy food will overshadow a light wine; and vice versa, heavy Wines will overshadow light food. In general, one side of the pairing should not completely dominate the other. That is what most people tend to prefer; a blending of Wine and Food. The exception is if you are actually spotlighting the Wine itself; then, having the Wine overshadow the food is alright.
Heavy Wines and Foods have a robust, powerful flavors. With a wine, the fuller the body, the more the “weight,”. A wine’s body is determined by the amount of alcohol and the tannin level. In general terms, the food’s weight and a wine’s weight should be similar.
Flavor Profiles
There are two ways to pair Wine and Food using Flavors. You have Complementary Flavors and Contrasting Flavors. Whether you pair using Complementary Flavors or Contrasting Flavors is a matter of personal prefference.
Complementary Flavors
Pairing Wine and Food with like Flavors is uisng the Complementary method. For example, pairing oaky chardonnay with a cedar-plank salmon dish. There is a blend where one does not overshadow the other.
Contrasting Flavors
Pairing Wine and Food with different Flavors is uisng the Contrasting method. For example, pairing a creamy havarti cheese with a relatively acidic wine like a Chianti. The taste are unique and stand out from each other.
There is no right way to do it with pairing Flavors. Complementary works great in certain situations and Contrast Flavor works for other situations. You just have to experiment with Flavors to find out which one will be right and which ones will not.
Three Primary Wine Flavor Components
There are three primary flavoring components in wine: tannins, sugar, and acid.
Tannins
Tannins gives Wines the primary flavor of bitter. The maceration process extracts tannins from grape skins, seeds, and stems. Tannins interact with high-protein and high-fat dishes. Hard cheeses and red meats are great examples. They give off a slightly medicinal aroma and create a drying sensation in the mouth. It seems to dry and clean the mouth of oils, in a way.
Sugar
The sugar in wine corresponds to a food’s sweetness. The sweetness of a wine is often categorized by its level of dryness. You have Dry, Off-dry, and Semi-dry. When you hear about a dry wine, the residual sugars are completely fermented into alcohol. Off-dry wines are a little bit sweeter then dry wines. Semi-dry wines a bit more sweeter. Dessert wines are quite sweet.
If you are approaching pairing the wine’s dryness; for compatiblity, a wine should always be sweeter than the dish it’s being served with. And if you approach pairing this flavor from a contrast point of view, a wine’s sweetness tends to balance spice, peppers, and salt.
Acidity
In wine, the more acidic wine is then the more the mouth will water. It’s the exact opposite of the drying effect tannic wines have.
From a complementary standpoint, acidic wines often cancel out the tartness of acidic food dishes. From the contrasting standpoint, acidic wines can counter oily, rich, and fatty dishes by cutting through them.
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