Pairing Food With Wine

Pairing wine with food can be very complicated or very simple. We’re going to take the simple approach (for a more complete look at pairing wine with food visit the Wine Pairing Guide).  The first thing to know is that a good pairing of food and wine is one that you like. Maybe no one else likes Merlot with sauerkraut but if that combination works for you then it’s a good pairing. Beyond that, there are only two considerations in our simplified approach to pairing food and wine.

The first and most important consideration when pairing food with wine is the strength or mildness of the flavor of the food and the wine. In all cases, strong flavors must be paired with strong flavors and mild flavors must be paired with mild flavors. Ignoring this overriding principle will result in disappointing pairings. This is a fairly obvious, but often ignored maxim. Foods with delicate flavors like veal or filet of sole will be overwhelmed by a full-bodied red wine, just as lasagna will render a Pinot Grigio tasteless. When drinking wine with food, you want to be able to taste both the wine and the food, not one or the other. The second consideration is deciding whether you want the food to be complimentary or contrasting to the wine. For example, a hearty stew would compliment a full-bodied red wine, while the same full-bodied red wine would be contrasting to a simple meal of bread and cheese. Both are good pairings, but each is different in approach. What you do is up to you. The best advice I can give is to experiment without fear. You will be surprised what foods and wines work well together.

Simple Wine & Food (Meats) Pairing Chart
	Grilled or Broiled No Sauce	Savory Sauce	Cream/Butter Sauce	Heavy Tomato or BBQ Sauce
Beef & Other Red Meat	Cabernet Sauvignon Zinfandel Merlot	Cabernet Sauvignon Zinfandel Merlot	Cabernet Sauvignon Zinfandel Merlot	Cabernet Sauvignon Zinfandel Merlot
Veal, Pork & Other White Meat	Pinot Grigio Dry Riesling Chardonnay	Chianti Zinfandel Merlot Syrah	Sauvignon Blanc Pinot Noir Zinfandel	Zinfandel Chianti
Ham & Other Cured Meat	Pinot Grigio Dry Riesling Chardonnay Pinot Noir	Pinot Noir Merlot Syrah	Sauvignon Blanc Pinot Noir	Zinfandel Chianti
Fish	Pinot Noir Dry Riesling Chardonnay	Chianti Merlot Syrah	Sauvignon Blanc Pinot Noir Chardonnay	Zinfandel Chianti
Poultry & Foul	Pinot Noir Dry Riesling Chardonnay	Chianti Zinfandel Merlot Syrah	Sauvignon Blanc Pinot Noir Chardonnay	Zinfandel Chianti
Game Birds	Chardonnay Sauvignon Blanc Pinot Noir	Chianti Zinfandel Merlot Syrah	Sauvignon Blanc Pinot Noir Chardonnay	Zinfandel Chianti

We need to forget the old maxim that white wine is for fish and red wine is for red meat. Pairing has nothing to do with the color of the wine or the color of the food. Chicken may be a white meat, but chicken cacciatore, in a dark rich sauce, requires a full-bodied red wine. Pairing is not about the color of the wine or the color of the meat, it’s about the flavor characteristics of the wine and the preparation of the food. It’s taste, not color that matters. The chart below is a simplified (some might say over simplified) indicator of how to pair popular wine varieties with common foods. Note that it is the preparation of the food, in this case how it is sauced, rather than the food itself that determines which wine to choose.

Be sure to visit the Wine Pairing Guide for more complete information on pairing wine and food.