Jens Amazing Offers

When it comes to food and wine pairing, your personal preferences supersede any of the rules you will learn here. But, you can learn food and wine pairing basics so you can create your own pairings. You’ll also learn what to look for in a recipe in order to make great wine matches. A great food and wine pairing creates a balance between the components of a dish and the characteristics of a wine.

9 Tips For Pairing Wine & Food

1. The wine should be more acidic than the food. Think of fish with a squeeze of lemon, the wine in this instance serves the function of the lemon.
2. The wine should be sweeter than the food. Dry wine with sweet chocolate is not nearly as good as sweet, viscous wine with unsweetened chocolate.
3. The wine should have the same flavor intensity as the food. Delicate dishes like poached fish deserve delicate wines, whereas smoked meats need bolder, more full-bodied wines.
4. Red wines pair best with bold flavored meats (e.g. red meat).
5. White wines pair best with light-intensity meats (e.g. fish or chicken).
6. Bitter wines (e.g. red wines) are best balanced with fat.
7. It is better to match the wine with the sauce than with the meat.
8. More often than not, White, Sparkling and Rosé wines create complimentary pairings. Complementary pairings are those which counteract discordant tastes by matching opposite dominant flavors in order to create balance.
9. More often than not, Red wines create congruent pairing. Congruent pairings match similar compounds in the food and the wine which come together to intensify certain flavors.

Basic Taste Identification

You need to focus on 6 tastes when pairing food and wine: Salt, Acid, Sweet, Bitter, Fat and Spice (Piquant).

Basic Taste Components in Wine

For the most part, wine lacks the 3 tastes of fatness, spiciness and saltiness but does contain acidity, sweetness and bitterness in varying degrees. Generally speaking, you can group wines into 3 different categories:

1. Red wines have more bitterness.
2. White, rosé and sparkling wines have more acidity.
3. Sweet wines have more sweetness.

Basic Taste Components in Food

Simplify a dish down to its basic dominant tastes. For example, baked macaroni has 2 primary components: fat and salt. Southern barbecue is a bit more complex and includes fat, salt, sweet and spice (plus a little acid!). Even dishes without meat can be simplified. For example, a green salad offers acidity and bitterness; creamed corn offers fatness and sweetness.

Consider the Intensity

FOOD: Is the food super light or super rich? A salad may seem lighter, but perhaps the dressing is balsamic vinaigrette with high acidity. If the intensity of the dish isn’t obvious at first, just focus on the power of each taste component (acidity, fat, sweet, etc).

WINE: Is the wine light or bold? Here are a few examples:

• Sauvignon Blanc is light-bodied, but it has higher acidity
• Chardonnay has more body, but it’s usually not too acidic
• Pinot Noir is lighter bodied (for a red wine) and it doesn’t have too much tannin (bitterness).
• Cabernet Sauvignon is more full-bodied and has high tannin (more bitterness)

Specific Wines and the Foods that they pair with well.

Pinot Noir: Is great for dishes with earthy flavors

•