Food and wine Matching

Food and wine matching is seen as a very complicated art or as a simplistic red wine with red meat and white wine with fish.

If only it were that simple. When looking for some wine to go with a dish we are not always looking for a match in flavours, we may be looking to improve the flavours of a dish as we would use salt and pepper.We may also be helping the digestion of the food by tackling the fattiness or the acidity of the dish.(try a german riesling with duck)

As a whole we are looking for good combinations , and to do this we need to know and understand the flavours in the wine and the flavours on the plate.What is the main flavour on the plate, it probably will not be the meat of fish. it is more likely to be the sauce or the vegetables or potatoes.

If the Carrots had been cooking in orange juice or the The potatoes were cooked in cream and garlic they could be the powerful flavours on the plate.

One also has to take into account the order of the wines in a meal. There may be an aperitif then a wine with the starter main course cheese and dessert.And as with the meal they should follow and not be disjionted.they should build up to the most powerful then finish with a sweeter wine for the dessert.The aperitif wine is to wet the appetite and to get the saliva working in order to digest food.This can be a light alcohol wine such as a german kabinett which is easy to follow but a fino sherry with an alcohol content of 15% is a harder act to follow.

Wine that has been produced in one of the old world wine regions often goes with the food produced in that area as they have evolved hand in hand .so from the loire valley in France the Muscadet produced at the mouth of the river goes very well with the local seafood and the white wine from the village of Sancerre in the central vineyards well inland goes particular well with the local goats cheese and many bottles of Sancerre in fact have a picture of a goat on the label.