Sign Up for the Free Wine Course now and get your Wine Training Certificate:
www.thewaitersacademy.com/cou...
Get your dream job at the new www.waitersnetwork.com/,
create your Profile, stay in the Know with our Blog and be part of the big change in the Hospitality! There is no better way to show your knowledge about food and wine than pairing the perfect bottle of wine with the food on the table!
Nothing enhances the dining experience more than a great wine that matches perfectly with the food! Nothing makes your guests happier!
What does pairing food and wine mean?
You have to choose a wine which characteristics will match perfectly or contrast perfectly with the components of the dish and create a perfect balance for a great dining experience.
That in itself means you have to have a vast knowledge about wine and food.
Now, let’s take a look at which characteristics of the wine and which components of the food we need to pay attention to.
Let’s be honest: a wine has many different characteristics and a dish has a lot of components and we cannot match all of those perfectly! Which are the important ones?
Food characteristics
If you ask Gordon Ramsey he will tell you that the food has more than 20 different tastes (characteristics) but fortunately for the wine pairing we need to focus only on 6 of them!
Salt, Acid, Sweet, Bitter, Fat and Spicy
Wine characteristics
when it comes to wine the things are getting even easier. We have to focus on 3 main characteristics when we try to pair the wine with the food:
Acidity, Sweetness, Bitterness (Tannin)
Knowing the basics characteristics of the main types of wine will help you a lot with matching the right food and wine.
In general, Red Wine has more tannin and therefore Bitterness.
red wine characteristics for food and wine pairing
White and Rose Wines contain more Acidity and the Sweet Wines have more sugar (sweetness).
White wine characteristics for food and wine pairing
Now all you need to know is what components of the food define the taste of the dish and then the different types of pairing to start matching food and wine perfectly, right? …hm, not so fast 😊
Unfortunately, with the food, it is not so easy. We have to identify the dominant tastes since they could be more than one. For example, a dish with red meat and a lot of sauce will have two dominant tastes. One from the meat and one from the sauce! In this case, it is better to match the wine with the taste of the sauce than with the taste of the meat.
Here are some basic pairing food and wine techniques:
Red wine pairs better with red meat
White wine pairs better with white meat or fish
The intensity of the wine should equal the intensity of the meal
The wine should have more acidity than the food
The wine should have more sweetness than the food
Fat food pairs best with heavy tannin wines
The sauce of the meal defies the flavor of the meal better than the meat in it. Match the wine with the characteristics of the sauce
Better pair red wines with food with similar characteristics (taste) - congruent pairing
Better pair white wines with food with contrasting characteristics (taste) - contrasting (complimentary) pairing.
If you have a meal with sauce Bechamel you can create complementary (contrasting) pairing with a Sauvignon Blanc. The food is creamy and fatty and the wine is high on acidity. You can also create a congruent pairing with nice creamy, low acidity Chardonnay. Both the food and wine have similar characteristics! So, if you have a guest who hesitates between the two wines, you can point to him/her that they both will create a fine pairing but it is recommended for white wine to create complementary pairing and that’s why you will advise the guest to chose the Sauvignon Blanc! And you will score a big point 😊
There are some basic matching tactics:
Bitterness matches well with Saltiness, Fattiness, and Sweetness
Acidity matches well with Sweetness, Fattiness, Saltiness, Acidity
Sweetness matches well with all other tastes
Before you start pairing food and wine you have to learn the taste every component brings to a certain meal and to identify the intensity of the meal as a whole.
Example: A simple green salad with Italian balsamic vinaigrette will have the bitter taste from the green and the acid from the vinaigrette as the primary taste will be acidity. The balsamic vinaigrette has more intensity than the bitterness in the greens.
You will have to learn and be able to identify the characteristics of the wine. Here are some basic characteristics of the most popular wines you can use to pair wine with food: