Matching Wine & Food
The key to matching wine and food isn’t merely "red with red," or "heavy with heavy." It isn’t keeping both the wine and food from the same region and it isn’t just echoing flavors. The key to matching wine and food is about what’s already in the wine and the food.
Matching Wine & Cheese
Perhaps the ultimate match of food with beverage is wine and cheese. They’re nearly twins. Both date to ancient times. Both are fermented. Both are governed all over the world by appellation and quality standards. And each reflects the place where it is born, its terroir. One translates its terroir via a vine. The other, by an udder. Matching cheese with wine is the same as matching any food with wine. Matches work—or don’t—because of what’s in the wine and in the cheese, things such as acidity or fat.
Matching Wine and Vegetarian Food
The oldest wine-and-food rule is "White wine with fish; red wine with meat." But what if you eat neither? Vegetarians ought to be able to enjoy wine just as much as steer eaters or fish feasters. But no one hands out suggestions for veg-head wines. Some Matches Are Easy, Some Aren’t. Most vegetable dishes—especially those prepared with a predominance of rice or pasta—aren’t much of a problem for wine, especially white wines. But certain vegetables contain chemicals or components that are hostile to most wines and spoil their taste. Wines do go with them, but only certain wines.
Matching Wine and Asian Food
Most of us take for granted that beer is the proper partner for Asian cooking. It just seems right—a cool cold one at hand, light, sparkling, slightly bitter, a ready match for those hot, sour, salty-sweet flavors abounding in Asian foods. For that rare time when someone insists on wine with Asian fare, the standard suggestion is Gewurztraminer because, as the saying goes, the spicy flavors in the wine go well with the spicy flavors of the food. It’s a pat answer for a complex cuisine and the marriage doesn’t often take.
Matching Wine and Fish
In the world of wine and food, nothing is fishier than the hackneyed advice, "White wine with fish." Just any old white wine isn’t proper for just any old fish. Each sort of seafood or fish has its proper sort of wine and some of it is red. The same guidelines apply to the best pairings of wine and fish that also apply to matching wine and all those foods that don’t have fins and gills. That is, what matters are certain elements or components in the wine and in the food, things such as salt, sweetness, acidity and fat. Alcohol level sometimes matters as does the slight bitterness that may accompany oak aging.