Learn the basics of food and wine pairing so you can create your own pairings. This guide will show you the steps to perform the pairing. You’ll also learn what to look for in a recipe to make great wine pairings.
A great food and wine pairing creates a balance between the components of a dish and the characteristics of a wine.
While pairing food and wine is complex, the basics are easy to understand.
Congruent vs. Contrasting Pairings
A contrasting pairing creates balance by contrasting tastes and flavors.
A congruent pairing creates balance by amplifying shared flavor compounds.
Blue lines show flavor coincidences and gray lines show flavor clashes. Design is from Wine Folly: The Essential Guide to Wine
Identifying Basic Flavors
Today, we’ve learned that there are over 20 different flavors in food: from the basics to , which includes sweet, sour and fatty, to the extreme, which includes spicy, umami and electric. Fortunately, you only need to focus on 6 tastes when pairing food and wine: salty, sour, sweet, bitter, oily, and spicy (spicy).
Basic components of taste in wine
For the most part, The wine lacks the 3 flavors fatty, spicy, and salty, but contains acidity, sweetness, and bitterness to varying degrees. In general terms, wines can be grouped into 3 different categories:
- Red wines have more bitterness.
- White, rosé and sparkling wines have more acidity .
- Sweet wines have more sweetness.
Basic Flavor Components in Foods
Simplify a dish to its basic dominant flavors. For example, baked macaroni has 2 main components: fat and salt. Southern barbecue is a bit more complex and includes fat, salt, sweet, and spices (plus a little acid!). Even meatless dishes can be made simple. For example, a green salad offers acidity and bitterness; creamed corn offers fat and sweetness.
Consider intensity
FOOD: Is the food super light or super rich? A salad may seem lighter, but perhaps the dressing is a balsamic vinaigrette with a lot of acidity. If the intensity of the dish isn’t obvious at first, focus on the power of each flavor component (acidity, fat, sweetness, etc.).
WINE: Is the light or bold wine? Here are some examples:
- Sauvignon Blanc is light-bodied, but has higher acidity
- Chardonnay is more full-bodied, but generally not too acidic
- Pinot Noir is lighter bodied (for a red wine) and does not have too much tannin (bitterness).
- Cabernet Sauvignon is more bodied and has high tannin (more bitterness)
Need more examples? 8 Common Wines and Their Flavor Profiles
Find Contrasting or Congruent Pairings
Now that you’ve identified all of the basic flavor components in your dish, you can start playing around with pairing options. The simple example of baked macaroni will offer several possible pairings:
COMPLEMENTARY PAIRING: A white wine with a lot of acidity will complement the fat in the macaroni. So, for example, a traditional macaroni and cheese recipe with a creamy béchamel sauce paired with spicy white wine such as Pinot Grigio, Assyrtiko, or Sauvignon Blanc would create a Complementary Pairing.
SUITABLE PAIRING: A white wine with creaminess will add creaminess to the dish. So, for example, a traditional macaroni and cheese recipe with a creamy béchamel sauce paired with a creamy white wine like Viognier or Chardonnay would create a consistent pairing.
Get Creative
Once you create a balance with the main flavor components in both the wine and the dish, you can get creative by blending the more subtle flavors. Here are some examples using variants of mac and cheese:
BOLD RED WINE: The ideology behind this pairing is that the high bitterness (tannin) will be balanced by salt and the fat in the macaroni. This balance will leave you with the remaining subtle flavors to pair with the cheese and wine. So, for example, if your baked macaroni has smoky gouda, you might choose a Shiraz that also has smoky flavor (at the end).The smoky flavors combine to create a Congruent Pairing while the tannin of the wine creates a Complementary Pairing with the fat of the dish.
SWEET WHITE WINE: The ideology behind this pairing it is to highlight the sweet and salty flavors with a pairing. For example, a ham macaroni and cheese would pair well with a spicy white wine with a bit of sweetness like Riesling. The acidity would create a Complementary Pairing to the fat and the sweetness would act as a Congruent Pairing with the ham.
Have you made an amazing food and wine pairing? Let’s hear it! Leave a message in the comments below. Also, if there is a food that has you stumped, please let us know as well so we can help you 🙂
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