by Jeff Miller of Artisan Family of Wines (Seven Artisans, Sly Dog Cellars, Red Côte Rosé)
I’m always amazed at how much ink gets spilled over the subject of wine and food pairings, when it’s such a simple subject. The level of angst is way out of line with the difficulty of the problem.
First off, most foods go with most wines. Not all, but most. So a pairing made totally at random is more likely than not to work out okay.
Second, to the extent there are rules, they are more slanted towards identifying pairings to avoid.
The first, and really only, rule is that the wine and the food should be of similar character. The weight of the wines and foods are a good place to start. Three weights, heavy, medium, and light, are more than enough for purposes of discussion. Now a few examples:
1) Petite Sirah is a big brawny (“heavy”) wine. Prime rib is a big (“heavy”) food. Nothing wrong with that pairing.
2) Chardonnay is a light wine. Maybe not always light for a white, but when considering food and wine pairings, it’s on the lighter side. Filet of Sole is a lighter dish. The pairing works. Maybe an even lighter wine would work a little better, but, then again, maybe not. I would lean towards a lighter, fruitier chardonnay over an over-oaked butterball chardonnay, but either probably works okay.
3) Petite Sirah (“heavy”) and Filet of sole (“light”). Not a good idea. And this is really the one thing to remember—avoid matching foods with wines that are very different.
Mediums tend to work okay with both heavies and lights, though not quite as well as a light with a light, or a medium with a medium. So Pinot Noir goes okay with both light and heavy foods. As a general rule, Pinot Noir seems to go well with almost anything.
The “weight” of the foods and wine stand out as being most important, but the same general rule, keep the two similar, applies to other aspects of the foods as well. If the food is slightly sweet, then a wine that’s slightly sweet is a good choice. The same applies to tartness (a fresh crisp wine with a lemon sauce, for example).
And that’s about it. I do believe that there are some pairings that work particularly well, but there’s no rule that tells you what those pairings are. And, to some great extent, my special pairing may not be yours. For me, the best wine with seafood is Semillon, but that’s not a pairing I hear much about, so it might just be something peculiar to me.
Most of the pairings that you hear about fall squarely within this rule. Oysters (“light”) with Muscadet (also “light”). Prime rib with Cabernet Sauvignon. Etc.
If I had to pick the worst pairing, it would be salmon with a heavy red, particularly one with some vegetal flavors and lots of tannins. There’s something about that pairing that is particularly repugnant.
Despite it’s fame, I find dry red wine and chocolate a terrible pairing. But if the red wine is sweet (e.g., port), the pairing works fine. Again, the rule is to pair similar with similar.
There are a few special cases, which call for some comment, but reflect the general rule that food and wine should be similar in character.
Asian food doesn’t go well with most wines. Rosé, however, is usually a good match.
Cheese is a controversial food. Traditionally, it was supposed to go well with red wine. More recently, there’s been a counter-school of thought, that it doesn’t go well with wine at all. Personally, I fall in the traditionalist camp. Most cheeses, for me, are in the medium category, and therefore should go with a medium wine.
I’ve never found a wine that I thought went well with Mexican food, which really seems to want to bond with beer.
One final rule. Generally, lean towards choosing a wine you like, even if it seems it doesn’t “pair” quite as well as some other wine you don’t like. The fact that a pairing seems to be a good one is unlikely to overcome choosing a wine that you don’t really like. You wouldn’t usually choose Filet of Sole as you main dish if you don’t really like it very much, just because it seems like it would go well with the wine. The same is true in reverse.
So, when it comes to wine and food pairings, keep it simple.
Jeff, I know we’re friends and all but ” Chardonnay is a light wine” - seriously? 16.5% ABV oak monsters from the RRV are hardly airy. OK, that’s an extreme example of a wine whose only positive attribute were the 96 points a lawyer with a dulled palate gave it (what do lawyers know about winemaking anyway?
) but I’d be bard pressed to find a good chard under 13% ABV, without gobs of oak, overripe flavors or excessive lees treatment and some RS.
These generalizations of matching weight don’t always hold water, which is why I don’t look at weigh as much as structure, acidity, astringency, RS and aromatics for pairing.
People need to understand a few basics of how human physiology perceives the sensory elements o wine and food and how those can interact. It’s not rocket science but it can make a world of difference in the success of a pairing.
Not too sure how I found this blog but glad I did find it. Think I was looking for something else on yahoo. Not sure I agree 100% with what you say, but have bookmaked and will pop back to read to see if you add any more posts. Great website