Four tips for Food and Wine Pairing
Food & Wine Pairings don’t have to be complicated or overwhelming!
One of the main reasons why I started learning about wine was so that I could know how to pair food and wine together. If you’ve ever tried a wine with your meal and thought the wine tasted awful, it’s possible that the food actually tainted your taste buds to give you a negative perception of the wine. Some food can actually overpower your wine and vice versa. Imagine if you were having a light shrimp caesar salad for lunch, but you drank a heavy cabernet sauvignon with it. The wine would be very strong and would likely overpower the light salad, which could prevent you from enjoying either your lunch or your wine!
So how do you know where to begin when you’re pairing food and wine? Well Episode #3 of The Wine CEO podcast is completely dedicated to this topic, so I highly recommend you go listen!
I cover the common factors you want to take into consideration when you are matching your meal with your wine, but I also touch on the factors that wine industry professionals may not tell you!
4 tips for pairing food & wine
My favorite part of this episode is where I break down 3 white wines and 3 red wines that you can pair almost ANY dish with! These are my recommended 6 wine varietals to start with when you are beginning to learn how to pair food with wine. There are obviously tons of wines out there that will go great with various cuisines, but I recommend starting with these basic 6 and then building up from there. To complement this episode, I also created a helpful “Beginner’s Guide to Pairing Food & Wine”, where I list out these 6 varietals and then include specific wines that you can find in your local grocery store that fit those categories! This is extremely helpful if you are going to go grocery shopping to find these wines in your local store, or if you want to keep it handy on your phone for when you are dining out! The only way to get this wine pairing tool is to sign up for my newsletter, so be sure to subscribe at the bottom of this blog post! I promise not to spam you with tons of emails and will only let you know about important content drops and new wine materials.
Now for my 4 tips when pairing food and wine…..
Always pair food and wine from the same region. If you're going to be eating Italian food, pair it with an Italian red or white wine. If you're eating fish, try a wine from a coastal region where there's a seafood influence in the cuisine like Portugal, California, or New Zealand. Wine makers will produce wines that naturally taste great with the cuisine from their region. Why would you make a wine that you plan to drink all the time and have it not pair with the food you eat everyday, right? So winemakers in Italy will make wines that taste delicious with pizza, pasta, tomato sauces, pesto, and more, because they want to enjoy their wine with the foods they know and love. So, you can feel fairly confident sticking with any wine from the region where your meal is from.
Try to pair "like" with "like". So, if you are eating a dish with a rich and buttery sauce, look for a wine that is heavy, rich, and buttery - like a chardonnay. Similarly, if you are eating something light like fish or a salad, pair it with a light and refreshing white wine - like a Sauvignon Blanc. A peppered steak will pair nicely with a cabernet sauvignon or syrah with peppercorn notes. Sweet desserts go perfectly with even sweeter wines!
Opposites can also attract! If you are eating something spicy, try to pair it with a sweeter wine like Riesling. If you are eating something fatty, look for an acidic wine with good tannins like Cabernet Sauvignon. (Obviously remember rule #2 and be careful that you aren’t trying to pair a light dish with a heavy wine or a crisp and refreshing wine with something fatty and heavily seasoned.)
When in doubt, stick to bubbles! You may think I’m a millennial who just likes bubbles, but honest, there are few foods that don’t go well with sparkling wine and champagnes! The bubbles and acidity can cut fatty foods with heavy sauces or fried components. And depending on how sweet the wine is, it can complement spicy ethnic dishes unlike any other wines. Plus, the bubbles make you salivate which will give the sensation of being hungry and prepare you for any meal when you start sipping before dinner. It also goes perfectly with appetizers and dessert, so you can drink the same bottle throughout your entire meal and not have to worry about clashing flavors as you move from one course to the next! So if you’re on a budget and want to buy one bottle that will work with your entire meal - stick to a sparkling white wine and you’ll be good to go!
There are many more helpful tips for wine pairing that we will discuss with future blog posts and podcast episodes, so stay tuned for more exciting content! Please leave a comment below if you found these tips helpful, and don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter below to receive your free “Beginner’s Guide to Pairing Food & Wine”!