Food & Wine Matching - Christmas Edition
There are no hard and fast rules in food and wine pairing. Red with meat and white with fish is far too limiting when you consider the range of cuisines and drinks available today. We suggest that a better approach is to focus on the balance of your food and wine match but how do you go about achieving balance? Here are a few guidelines that will help you out as you try new food and drink combinations.
When pairing food and drink a good general rule is to match the intensity and weight of the food with a wine that has similar characteristics. This stops one from overpowering the other and makes pairing the flavours in the food and drink far easier. A rich and hearty stew would be great with the Rioja Graciano from Bodegas Ondarre (£11.95 on our Christmas offer), whereas a poultry, such as turkey, is better partnered with light to medium bodied red, like the Pinot Noir and Gamay blend from Domaine de la Creuze Noire (£14.95 on our Christmas offer).
Counter intuitively a wine’s acidity also helps acidic foods taste less acidic. For this to work you must have more acidity in the glass than on the plate, this makes any acidity in the dish taste less sharp. Smoked salmon with lots of lemon juice on top would be great with the Lagar de Cervera Albarino (£17.95 on our Christmas offer) as the wine’s acidity will both lift the flavour of the fish and reduce the acidity of the lemon. For those on a budget this Christmas you will get the same affect with the ‘Flying Rhino wine’ (otherwise known as the Parcellaires de l’Herre Blanc, priced at just £8.95 on our Christmas offer).
The tannins found in wine want to form chains with proteins, therefore when you drink red wine it sticks to the inside of your mouth. When you then eat protein, such as red meat, the tannin molecules will detach from the proteins in your mouth and reattach themselves to the protein particles in the food. This makes your mouth salivate and as a result the food tastes juicier and the wine smoother. Try the Traversa Marselan/Tannat/Merlot Reserva from Uruguay (£9.95 on our Christmas offer) with a steak or a nice piece of roast beef with the San Silvestro Barolo Patres (£29.95 on our Christmas offer) and be amazed by science and tasty food.
When pairing sweet foods with drink you need to have more sugar in the glass than on the plate. This is because if you have a wine that is dryer than the food it will taste bitter and unpleasant in comparison. The sugar in sweet wines can also combine beautifully with salty foods, such as blue cheese and Chateau Filhot, Sauternes (75cl bottle for £39.95) or Domaine des Baumard’s Coateaux du Layon (35cl bottle for £12.95) as they combine to create a beautiful balance of salty and sweet flavours.
Tannic wines often have a bitter note to them but if you want them taste smoother partner them with fatty foods. Therefore we often have port, like the Fonseca Crusted Port (75cl bottle for £18.95), with our cheese boards as the fattiness of the cheese will reduce the bitterness of the wine’s tannins. Another great example would be partnering a fatty piece of lamb with a tannic grape variety like Salice Salentino (we have the Cantele version on our Christmas offer at £14.95).
The acid in a wine, particularly those with lots of acidity, helps cut through any fat in a dish, stopping it from muting your taste buds and giving you a fresh taste of the cheese with each bite. Sparkling wines, such as the Poynings Grange Blanc de Blanc (£27.95 on our Christmas offer) or the Laborie Blanc de Blanc (£14.95 on our Christmas offer), are particularly effective at this as they also have bubble to help further clean your palate. Why not try a sparkling wine with your next fatty take away or with your festive cheese board?
Hopefully these simple guidelines will help you further explore food and drink matching.