Creative Wine Pairing Ideas
What Is Wine Pairing
Wine pairing is an exquisite process that demands attention and skill. It is the art of combining food dishes with their perfect wine companion. This helps to take the dining experience to another level.
Food and wine pairing aims at matching complementary flavors in order to bring the best of each element. You can apply this concept when combining wines with various dishes. It is not only about matching a superb dish with an extraordinary wine because their excellence alone does not guarantee a good combination.
Read on to learn more about pairing food with wine, and how to pair your favorite dishes with their perfect wine match.
How To Pair Food And Wine
A lot of people get nervous around wine pairing. It is like it must be done at a fancy restaurant by someone who knows more about wine than you. Additionally, we tend to think that wine should be paired with fancy and expensive food, which also happens to be a myth. You can pair wine with any food you like. If you consider flavor elements, wine pairing becomes a simple and fun work.
When combining food and wine, we want to think of the way each one tastes in the mouth. In wine pairing, we basically have to deal with salty, acid, sweet, and spicy traits. Each combination of these characteristics will have a distinct effect on our tastebuds, and our goal is to maximize the good sensations and minimize any possible unpleasant effects. So, here are the seven pairing rules with practical examples of specific wines and foods.
7 Wine Pairing Rules
#1 is Salty Likes Acid
The classic combination of the acidity of champagne with the punch of salt in oysters is representative of this pair. Another perfect and rather unexpected fit is salty fried chicken.
#2 is Salty Likes Sweet
Here you can think of Tawny Port wine with pretzels for your next session of watching some football. This is a ying-yang combination featuring the saltiness of the pretzels and sweetness of the wine.
#3 is Fat Likes Acid
How about pairing French chardonnay with your favorite macaroni and cheese? The acidity in this type of wine cuts through the fatty feeling in the mouth and makes you want to take another bite.
#4 is Fat Likes Alcohol and Tannin
A great choice would be California cabernet with a hamburger or steak. There is a lot of fat in the meat and there is a really good relationship with tannin because tannin softens the fat.
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#5 is Acid Likes Acid
Chianti wine from Sangiovese grapes goes greatly with a tomato-based pasta dish or pizza. The reason behind it is that when you have a high acid food, you need a wine to match the acid intensity.
#6 is Sweet Likes Sweet
A Moscato wine is a great combination with many kinds of desserts, from grilled peaches and gelato to a handful of cookies. When pairing wine with sweet foods, it must also be quite sweet, or else it will taste very sour. A glass of red wine might look great alongside a bar of rich chocolate, but they are not a tasty match. Same for champagne and wedding cake–better enjoyed separately.
#7 is Spicy Likes Sweet
A German riesling is a perfect pair for Thai food or buffalo wings. Buffalo wings are extra special because you don’t get only spicy and sweet flavors together. You also get the salty taste of wings and salty blue cheese with acid wine. There is still a match between the acid from vinegar sauce with the acid from wine. So, for your next Superbowl party, when your friends want something other than beers, come up with a bottle of Riesling and it will surely be a hit.
Now that you have learned the basics of how to pair great wine with your favorite foods, it is time to know how to taste your wine. It might seem intimidating at first, but it ends up being truly the best way to make the best of your dining experience.
How To Taste Your Wine
Anybody can enhance their tasting skills just by following four simple steps. You may think you don’t have the “right palate” for wine tasting, but this is about training. We have our food preferences because we tasted them many times until we learned what felt better in our mouths.
So, if you want to take a little bit more from your next glass of wine, these four steps are for you. They are courtesy of V is for Vino.
The First Steps Of Wine Tasting
First of all, there is sight. People underestimate this step but you can learn a lot about a wine just by looking at it. Start by assessing the clarity, or concentration of the wine. Most wines will be pretty clear because they are filtered, so this is about the depth of that color. You can position a piece of white paper on your table, then slightly tilt your glass and try to see through the liquid. If you can see something typed on the page it means less body and less alcohol in the wine.
Still considering visual aspects, you can assess the color of your wine. Color has to do with age and oxygen in wine. White wine will go from straw to gold to amber. Red wines will go from purple, through red, to a more brownish color. This variation is about how long they aged, especially in oak barrels which allow oxygen to come in contact with the wine.
The final visual assessment of wine is about looking at the walls of your wine glass. All you have to do is tilt your glass a bit and watch as part of the liquid will “stick” to the glass. You will see something shaped like tears coming down. People wrongly assume that this has to do with the quality of the wine, while it really is about alcohol content. The more “tears”, the more alcohol.
Stay tuned for our next article where we will share the final steps of wine tasting, brought to you by Vegas VIP Limousine. Are you a fan of wine? What is your favorite kind? Let us know in the comments.