Wine and Food Pairing

People can get peculiar about matching their food and beverages of choice.

I once knew a person who partook of a Diet Coke and pistachio ice cream on a Summer’s afternoon whenever the occasion arose. Not something I ever got used to. But, if you want to drink Diet Coke with pistachio ice cream that’s fine with me—you’ll taste a lot of sugar and a lot of carbonation.

That’s a food and beverage pairing. Not one I’d recommend, but it’s a pairing. She was very happy. I was just fascinated that anybody would do that.

But, it illustrates a point: food pairings with any drink, including wine, are highly personal and often eccentric. There are lots of charts and rules (some of them below) but in the end, what you like is what you like.

And, what you like is not always the same. It changes with your body chemistry, the setting, your age and your awareness of your own senses. Not to mention what else you are ingesting. What you loved 10 years ago may not taste very good to you today.

People “lose a taste for” things as they become older, or more aware, or go on medications—anything that changes your body and your ability to notice specific flavors or smells.

Your body replaces all of your cells every 7-10 years. Some parts are replaced much faster than that. You are literally not tasting with the same body you tasted with 7 years before.

You become less, or more aware of taste, smells and texture over time as well. Food and wine pairings only work insofar as you are able to identify tastes, aromas, and textures, especially the unique elements of the specific wine and food you are pairing.

When your body (or situation) change, your ability to identify what’s in front of you changes as well. Practically, that means what you taste today may not be what you taste tomorrow.

I have seen people cook steaks on a car engine while driving the car. Really, I have. I have seen folks cook bacon on an AR-15. I myself did not partake, but I’m sure it was lovely.

I would like to say that I’d just as soon you not be drinking anything stronger than spring water if you’re driving down to the local firing range with your long guns to make breakfast.

That sort of cooking doesn’t lend itself to nuance. You don’t need a trained palate for that. But, if it’s a sweet little grilled Chilean Sea Bass with a special reserve Muscadet, you might want to work on your sensual awareness first.

The thing is, if you can’t taste or smell or feel it, then it’s not there for you. If it’s not there, then you can’t pair it with anything.

So, awareness of your own senses is the most basic skill of food and wine pairing.

Building a Pairing

Wine and food have the same elements to pair with each other. Flavors, smells, colors, textures and in some circumstances, sound (music primarily). It’s because you are using the same brain. Your brain doesn’t change.

What you’re pairing are your own five senses.

Here’s a quick way to check what works for you. What do you like eating together now? You can start with a hot dog, vegan or otherwise.

Some people like sauerkraut on their hot dogs, some pickle relish, others mayonnaise or ketchup or just plain on a bun. It’s a hot dog wonderland is what it is.

I doubt a lot of you will be downing an ice cold Assyrtiko from Santorini with your grilled hot dog over the holidays, but just think of how different the wines would be that match those different dogs.

If you have a wine that has aromas of cherry, ask yourself, “what would I eat with cherries?”

Probably not hot dogs.

Some of you will say dark chocolate —for you a cabernet works fine with chocolate, or maybe something lighter, like a Beaujolais Village. But, if you say vanilla ice cream, a Gewurztraminer might work with that, or even the rich (orange) Hungarian wine, Tokaji Aszu—one of the world’s oldest sweet wines— which as it happens is rich and creamy like the ice cream.

You also have the same elements of any other art, background and foreground for instance. The tastes of things show up against a basic background taste. They also taste different in different contexts—like different wines. Or, different spices.

Things I learned in Kindergarten: what happens when you watercolor red stripes over a yellow background? I’m guessing your stripes are going to turn out orange. The two colors in isolation are nothing like the same two colors in combination.

Mix two different things together and you get a third thing.

So, mix some stuff you like together and stand back. See how they change each other. None of the elements in wine or food either one in isolation will taste like they do when you combine them.

Putting it all together

We used to do a tasting where we would work with a top chef who prepared four tiny portions of his or her different specialties presented on one plate---maybe 1.5 inches square or so for each. It would run basically appetizer, main dish, dessert, and surprise me.

With each course of four portions on the plate, we would serve one wine. Participants would taste that wine with the four different portions in front of them on that plate. They differed as radically as we could make them differ.

Usually a traditional combination, an unusual but attention getting combination, and an opposite (bad) combination and a chef’s choice that could be whatever he/she wanted to do.

Really quickly you see why it doesn’t work to drink a big, alcoholic, heavy red wine with lots of tannin when you are downing oysters. Or, a light delicate white wine with beef ribs in rum Worcester barbecue sauce. You experience it for yourself so you know, not because I told you so, but from your own experience.

But, every now and then a rule won’t hurt. Here’s one now: the only universally accepted wine with eggs is champagne.

Practicing at Home

You can do a version of that tasting at home by taking two or three things you’re having for dinner and separating them so you can taste each separately with the same wine. You can also reverse that, and taste one food with several wines. Keeping notes is helpful to jog your memory later. Then, put the whole dinner together and proceed as normal.

There are also good charts and info about pairing at www.winefolly.com. I don’t agree with everything anyone says, including them, but Wine Folly is a great traditional starting place with nontraditional charts and graphs like the one below.

You can get their explanation of food and wine pairing here:

Click here for the chart

The Wrap Up

I learned food and wine combining the hard way—by eating and drinking a lot. I ate and drank all over the world at somebody else’s expense which helped a lot. Including some places that had some unusual ideas about what goes with what. Frogs, grasshoppers and ants provide special challenges.

I’m pretty sure I could never could get behind a hot dog loaded up with Pistachio ice cream and Sauerkraut, but somewhere, somebody would. It is not my place to judge. It is my place to eat and drink.

Don’t overlook talking to the chef when you’re out at your favorite restaurant. Ask them about the tastes, smells and texture of what you just had or are about to have.

They like to talk about their food, especially to customers, as long as the restaurant is slow enough for them to take time to do it.

In the end, if nothing else works here’s a starter rule: Red with meat, White with fish, Champagne with everything else.

If you want to know more about flavors in cooking: