Wine and food

The combination of food with wine covers a very wide spectrum in which there is a huge scope for trial and error as well as discussion and also includes a great many different approaches.

There are die-hard conservatives who take care to observe the strict tried-and-trusted traditional rules, by which a wine must be paired with foods that have been prepared in a certain manner. Then come the modernists, who, not knowing the previously tried-and-tested culinary delights, preach food and wine matching combinations as their taste buds command, as long as their sense of fantasy and taste is being sated.

However, a basic set of rules for the study of harmony in the culinary arts does exist. Let us try and revise a few of them, some of which you are perhaps familiar with. You will then be better able to make your choice of wine according to your personal taste:

• Acidic + acidic adds up. Acidic food with acidic wine will come across as aggresive, as acids taste metallic.

• Acidity + fatty foods. Acidic wines dissolve the greasiness and the result is quite pleasing.

• Acidity + alcohol + spices. Acidity with alcohol increase the pungency of the spiciness.

• Acidity + sweetness. Stand up well to each other and increase the vigour of the dish.

• Tannins + salt. Mutual enemies, cannot stand one another and cause a confusion of tastes.

• Salt + sweetness. Do not entirely come to terms, but the sensation softens.

• Tannins and sweetness. Tannic food and sweet wine complement one another nicely.

• Bitterness + acidity. Do not go together as they increase the sensation of bitterness.

• Tannins + fatty foods. Suitable combination. They neutralise each other.

• Sweetness + sweetness. Harmonious combination. The impression of sweetness does not increase, in fact it is lowered if the wine is sweeter than the food.

• Bitterness + tannins. Tannic wine increases the bitterness of the dish. The only exception is a combination of walnuts with a youthful red wine.

• Tannins + smokey tones. The bitterly tannic taste of young red wines, which would be unpleasant when combined with other dishes, will be eliminated in the company of smoked or grilled foods.

• Smokiness + acidity. Only wines that have well-rounded acidity or oak ageing in barriques with high toasting.

The combination of food with wine covers a very wide spectrum in which there is a huge scope for trial and error as well as discussion and also includes a great many different approaches.