Pairing wine can be kind of an intimidating process. How do you know what’s going to taste good together? What if you do it wrong? I promise it’s all going to be fine. I still struggle myself sometimes, but the main point boils down to this— personal preference.
Consider the body.
Let’s start out with talking about the body of the wine. When I taught you how to taste with this post, I described that wine can be anywhere from light to heavy-bodied. When pairing, you want to consider pairing light-bodied wine with a lighter dish and heavy-bodied wine with a heavier dish. Why do we do this? In this instance, we don’t want the wine to overpower the dish and vice-versa. For example, a bold Cabernet will overpower a lighter dish like herb-crusted tilapia.
What would be an example of a good pairing based on the body of the wine? Personally, I love lamb and Cabernet Sauvignon. This is a good pairing in other aspects besides the “weight” of both the dish and wine, but I will get to that later. Good lamb will be heavy and deliciously juicy, so it only makes sense to pair it with a wine that is also heavy and deliciously juicy. Therefore, I have chosen Cabernet Sauvignon, but of course other wines will work with this.
We also want to think about what kind of sauce the dish has. It wouldn’t make sense to pair a big Syrah with a delicate lemon vinaigrette, right? But a buttery Chardonnay and a cream-based garlic sauce? Absolute perfection.
This isn’t always the case though. Some light wines taste really good with heavier dishes and this is where the flavor factor comes into play. Take a classic pairing such as Riesling and Thai curry for example; even though Riesling is a lighter-bodied wine, it pairs well with curry because spicy and sweet are contrasting flavors.
Which brings me to my next point…
Consider the flavors.
Let’s talk about the different types of pairings: complementary and contrasting. Complementary pairings are pairings that well… complement each other. What I mean by this is that they will either mirror the flavor profile (bitter and bitter) or they will accompany each other (tannin and fat; acid and fat). Contrasting pairings are pairings that contrast each other such as sweet and salty or sweet and spicy.
Whether you want to complement or contrast flavors is completely up to you. Let’s take the lamb and Cabernet pairing from earlier. I like this pairing because it pairs heavy with heavy, so one doesn’t overpower the other, but also the flavors are complementary that accompany each other. The fat of the lamb complements the tannins in the Cabernet Sauvignon, which is why it’s such a good pairing.
Consider the flavor components.
Why are the flavor components important? Well, this makes it easier for you to pair wine with your food. Think about the five tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami and what would taste good with each.
If you’ve got a wine with high acidity and food with acid (sourness), they’ll balance each other out and enhance the wine’s fruitiness. Now if the acidity in the wine is too low, the acid in the food might overpower the wine and make it seem simple. In a lot of wine classes or wine certification classes, the instructor will ask you to do an experiment where you take a sip of wine with high acidity, then bite into a lemon and take another sip to compare. Almost always does the wine taste more fruity after you take a bite into the lemon. Try it at home, it’s super trippy.
Umami is a weird taste and can be found in dishes with mushrooms or MSG (MSG is not bad for you, FYI). Cheeses like brie can have umami flavors or even your morning eggs. What does umami do to a wine? Umami flavors in food might make a wine taste more bitter or astringent and you might even notice that a wine is less sweet or fruity. So what does that mean for pairing? WSET says wines with concentrated fruit flavors and I say whatever the hell you want to drink.
Sweetness in food is hard to pair just because the sweetness can make a wine taste less fruity and more bitter. That’s why they say when you’re drinking wine with dessert to have the wine sweeter than the dessert. You can also have the wine as dessert such as a Port paired with bleu cheese if you’re into that sort of thing (I’m not).
Salt is good to pair with wine since it can’t really ruin a wine’s flavor. Salt can enhance fruit flavors and make the wine seem less bitter or less acidic. Salt is pretty versatile, so you can go ahead and get crazy on this one. A “salty” dish with something like Gewürztraminer would be a fun pairing. And that’s what I was talking about with contrasting pairings. Just like how chocolate covered pretzels are so addicting.
Finally, let’s talk about bitterness in food. If your food is bitter, it can make the wine seem more bitter. Bitter is one of those weird subjective things because there are those people who cannot taste bitter to save their lives (literally, it dates back to evolution) and then there are people who can kind of taste bitter, and then there are people who are sensitive to bitter and avoid it at all costs. So you might like the effect that a wine has on bitter food and you might not, but that’s up to you whether you want to experiment or not.
And not to forget the sensation of something spicy. It’s not quite a taste because the heat is something you feel. Spicy food will make a wine seem more bitter and/or more acidic and will also increase the burning effect of alcohol. If spicy isn’t your thing maybe don’t pair a highly alcoholic wine with spicy food. Like I said earlier, a lightly sweet wine with low alcohol (like Riesling) will be your best bet. I actually like my mouth on fire, so I wouldn’t mind Grenache with something fresh from the grill with a bunch of red chili flakes.
Consider personal preference.
They say to pair red wine with meat and white wine with fish, but this isn’t always the case. Sometimes a light-bodied red tastes better with fish than white wine does and that’s okay. That’s why it’s important to try to pair based on flavors and flavor components. If you like to drink Sauvignon Blanc with filet mignon, that’s your prerogative! Will a sommelier try to convince you to choose something else to pair with the filet mignon? Absolutely, but they don’t know your taste buds like you do.
If you take anything away from this post, it should be that food and wine pairing is based on personal preference. I’ve been told many times to stop pairing Hot Cheetos with Moscato d’Asti, but I love it! Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re wrong for liking something.
