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One of the most common questions I'm asked at any wine tasting is "what food would this wine go with?"
There are so many outdated 'rules' when it comes to food and wine...fish should be paired with white wine, steak can only be enjoyed with red wine etc etc, it can be all too easy to get your knickers in a twist, so here are my top tips for pairing wine and food...
1) The first thing to remember, is that there are no 'rules, only guidelines.. What you like, and what you enjoy is far more important than what anyone else thinks.
2) Start with a wine you know you'll enjoy. If you don't like a particular style of wine, it really isn't going to matter what food you eat with it.
3) If you find yourself with a red wine that has high tannins (these make the wine have a drying, bitter sensation) grab a salty snack to soften the tannins. You could go one better, and choose a nice mature cheddar...the combination of the salt and fat in the cheese will soften the tannins and make the wine seem fruitier.
4) Finish off your wine with your Sunday dinner before tucking into pudding. The sweetness of a dessert is too much for any dry wine, whether it's white or red, and the sugar in your pudding will make the wine seem more dry, more bitter and more acidic. Instead, treat yourself to a bottle of dessert wine to go with your sticky toffee pud!
5) Dessert wine isn't just for dessert. A sweet wine will be high in acidity to balance the sugar, so it works really well with a chicken liver pate which is high in fat, or a delicious blue cheese.
Want to know more? Food and wine pairings are covered in the WSET Level 1 Award in Wines. We teach in person in our Chelmsford classroom, or online for maximum flexibility. Click here for our next available course!
