The Secrets of Wine Food Pairings

Recently, I bought a ‘Wine O Clock’ personalised glass as a birthday present for a friend because she is such a wine fan.  She is one of those people who doesn’t just buy what’s on offer at the supermarket but plans her purchases around the meals she is making.  She can list what wine goes well with what meals but I always wondered what the basis for this was.  What are the secrets of the wine food pairings?

Flavour profiles

According to WineFolly, a good source of information for those in the know and those without a clue, there are six basic flavour profiles that can be used to pair up food and wine.  This is one of the main ways that a chef or a sommelier works out which wines should be offered with which meals.

The six profiles are:

• Acidity – this works well with fatty or sweet food
• Fatty – these foods need with an acidic or a high alcohol wine otherwise the wine won’t taste great
• Bitter – also called tannic wines can be balanced out with food that is sweet
• Salty – keep it away from acidity in wine and use it sparingly to make the meal have a little sharpness
• Sweet – both foods and wine work well with a little acidity
• Alcohol – high levels work well with fatty foods or to balance out a dish that is sweet

Pairing techniques

One of the easiest pairing techniques is to look at where the food and the wine are from and pair them by this.  So you can add a bottle of Italian wine to an Italian meal or a wine from Oregon to a cheese from the same area of the US.

Acidity is a profile that doubles up, unlike most of them.  This is because if a wine has less acidity than the food, the wine will taste really flat.  So think along the lines of taking an oaked chardonnay from a warm climate with a vinaigrette salad.

Combining profiles is another successful idea with sweet and salty being one of the most popular.  If you are a fan of salty food such as salted caramels or maple bacon, then a sweet wine makes for an ideal pairing.  Riesling, for example, works really well with some of the Asian dishes such as Pad Thai or fried rice.

Bitter food and wine don’t pair well but by taking a fatty food with a bitter wine, a perfect balance can be achieved.  This is the classic example of red meat and red wine but there are plenty more examples.  A red Italian wine such as Sangiovese works well with a Tuscan dish with tomatoes and rocket and a potato croquette as the fat in the croquette works well with the tannins in the wine.

Fatty foods also work well with acidic wines so champagne cuts through the fattiness of a dish – this is why white wine butter sauce is a popular sauce for many dishes.  The white wine works well in the butter and adds life to the dish.  If you have a fatty dessert such as cheesecake, add a glass of champagne.