How to Pair Wine with Food

Our unique, practical, easily-understandable, and do-it-yourself method how to pair wine with food makes you a wine pairing expert in no time, without depending on any overwhelming book, website, or software. Our summarized, illustrative, and easy-to-use, tables and diagrams make wine pairing simple and still allow flexibility for personal preference by letting refine the selections for a specific taste (Dr. Farhey's Simplified Wine Pairing Logics™). The presented wine pairing topics are:

• Wine Pairing Table by Dish Types
• Wine Pairing by Taste
• Wine Pairing by Combination
• Wine and Dessert Pairing

For your convenience, we also compiled our method into:

• Printable Version:  A 3-page PDF file to keep in your kitchen drawer and use to pair wine for your favorite meal.
• Printable Summary:  A 1-page PDF file to keep with you and use to order wine with your meal in a restaurant.

Wine Pairing Table by Dish Types

The most simplistic guideline for pairing wine with food suggests:
"Red wine with red meats (such as beef, lamb, etc.) and white wine with white meats (such as fish, chicken, etc.)."

More refined suggestions cover a range of wine varietal selections due to the reasons:

1. A dish type is not always unique due to different ingredients, preparation styles, and additional components.
2. A wine varietal is not always unique due to different regions, grape qualities, and vinification practices.
3. Personal tastes differ.

The following table suggests a practical variety of pairing selections for a general distribution of typical dish types with some red and white wine varietals. In case the dish consists of more than one component (e.g., moussaka or a combination of pasta, meat, and vegetables):

1. Find the components that dominate the overall taste.
2. Pair the wine selections that the dominant components have in common.

Dish Types		Red Wines					White Wines
		Cabernet Sauvignon	Merlot	Shiraz	Petite Syrah	Pinot Noir	Chardonnay	Riesling	Gewürz traminer	Sauvignon Blanc	Pinot Grigio
Beef	Barbecued, grilled	•	•	•	•		•	•
	Cooked	•	•	•	•	•	•
	Roast	•	•	•	•	•
	Spicy			•	•		•	•	•
Lamb		•	•	•	•	•
Poultry			•	•	•	•	•	•		•	•
Fish	Sole						•	•	•	•	•
	Cod, mackerel, salmon		•			•	•	•	•	•	•
	Tuna		•			•	•	•
	Trout, smoked, sushi					•	•	•	•		•
Vegetable	Cooked, soup		•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•
	Salad					•	•	•	•	•	•
Asian				•	•		•	•	•	•
Italian	Pasta	•	•			•	•	•	•	•	•
	Pizza	•	•			•	•			•
Cheese	Hard	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•
	Soft, creamy		•	•	•	•	•	•	•
	Feta, goat, sheep			•	•		•	•	•	•
	Blue	•		•	•	•		•	•

 

Wine Pairing by Taste

A more refined guideline for pairing wine with food suggests matching two characteristics[1]:

• Body with intensity:  Matching the body of the wine to the intensity of flavors (sensory impression of smell and taste) of the food.
  
  • Body:  Concentration of alcohol, glycerol, sugar, and extract; thickness.
    Body levels:  Light, medium, or full (similar to comparing thickness of nonfat, lowfat, and whole milk).
• Spiciness with spiciness:  Matching a spicy wine with spiced or fragrant (not to be confused with flavorful) food.

For a good match, it is important to consider the main component(s) of the dish together with any side dish, sauce, or seasoning that are prepared or served with it and contribute to or maybe even dominate the overall taste.

The composition (body and spice) of a wine varietal from distinct wineries may be quite different, since it depends on many factors. The following two diagrams provide general pairing suggestions by body and spiciness for a typical distribution of some red and white wines.[1]

A complementary aspect to consider is matching the acidity of the wine by personal preference:

• Acidity with acidity:  Matching the level of acidity of the wine to the level of acidity of the food (such as lemon, vinegar, or tomato sauce content).
  Pairing acidic wine with acidic food matches the overall taste.
• Acidity with fatness:  Matching the level of acidity of the wine to the level of vegetal and animal fat content in the food.
  Pairing acidic wine neutralizes the fat in the food, and thus balances the overall taste.
• Acidity with saltiness:  Matching the level of acidity of the wine to the level of salt content in the food.
  Pairing acidic wine neutralizes the salt in the food, and thus balances the overall taste.

The acidity of a wine varietal from distinct regions and vintages may be quite different, since it depends on the climate. Warmer climate typically lowers the acidity and increases the sugar level of the grapes. Also, the acidity of a wine varietal depends on the various grape qualities and diverse vinification practices. In general, white wines have relatively higher acidity than red wines. The following table provides an approximate indication of the typically expected relative levels of acidity for some red and white wine varietals. The relative acidity levels are based on calculated averages of samples taken from various vineyards around the world. The numbers in parentheses show:  (number of samples: minimum acidity - maximum acidity) of the sampled wine varietals. The range between the minimum and maximum acidity values gives an indication of the variation and the expected deviation.

Acidity	Red Wines	White Wines
Higher  — — — — —  Lower  —	Petite Syrah (9: 5.98 - 7.85) Pinot Noir (24: 4.20 - 8.80) Syrah/Shiraz (13: 4.30 - 7.30) Cabernet Sauvignon (20: 3.00 - 6.90) Merlot (20: 3.14 - 7.00)	Riesling (21: 5.70 - 10.00) Chardonnay (24: 5.00 - 8.70) Gewürztraminer (24: 2.84 - 10.60) Sauvignon Blanc (17: 4.31 - 7.20) Pinot Grigio (14: 5.15 - 7.1)

 

Wine Pairing by Combination

Combination of the above suggestions provides a more sophisticated wine pairing (Dr. Farhey's Simplified Wine Pairing Logics™):

1. First, use the 'Wine Pairing Table by Dish Types' to identify the practical selections of wine varietals for the dish type.
2. Then, use the guideline of 'Wine Pairing by Taste' to refine the selections to a choice of a wine varietal for the particular dish at hand with the specific taste.

The following table summarizes the typically expected relative taste properties for some red and white wine varietals.

 

Wine and Dessert Pairing

A general guideline for pairing wine with dessert suggests matching the following characteristics by personal preference:

• Sweetness levels:  Matching the sweetness level of the wine to the overall sweetness level of the dessert.
  Pairing wine slightly sweeter than the dessert avoids dull and acidic wine taste. However, some prefer an acidic wine taste to contrast the sweetness of the dessert.
• Flavors and aromas:  Matching the flavors and aromas of the wine to the flavors and aromas of the dessert.
  Using common wine tasting sensory descriptors provides a general indication for pairing (see table in 'Comparison of Wine Tasting').
• Acidity with fatness:  Matching the level of acidity of the wine to the level of fat content in the dessert.
  Pairing acidic wine neutralizes the fat in the dessert, and thus balances the overall taste.

For a good match, it is important to consider the main component(s) of the dessert together with any sauce or garnish that are prepared or served with it and contribute to or maybe even dominate the overall taste.

 

Reference

1. "Wine and food matching," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 2008, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_and_food_matching>.