Picture this: You are preparing for a delicious meal at home or preparing yourself for a night out on the town. The food choice is perfect. Now all that’s left to choose is the perfect wine to pair with your meal.
How do you go about choosing the wine for your meal? That’s a great question and we are here to help you perfectly pair your food and wine. Check out these top five tips for food and wine pairing:
1. The color does not matter.
It’s easy to think that red wine goes better with red meat and white wine goes better with fish or cheese. The truth is that the color of your wine has no bearing on your pairing choices.
Instead, focus on the flavor and heaviness of the wine. For example, a bold-flavored Chardonnay can taste delicious with duck meat. The boldness of the flavor will be the deciding factor of whether or not the wine fits your dinner choice.
2. Understand the body of your choice of wine.
When you think about the flavor vs. the color of your wine, you will also notice the body of that wine. The rule of thumb is that lighter foods are best with lighter bodied wines and heavier foods are better with fuller bodied wines.
If you aren’t sure how to identify the body of your wine, remember the ABV percentage matters. Any wine over 13.5% ABV is considered a full-bodied wine. Because the body, color, and ABV all go together to create the body of the wine, you must take them into account when deciding what kind of body the wine has.
3. Spicy or salty food? Sparkling wine is a perfect choice!
Headed out for spicy Latin food or ready to chow down on some salty chips during a girls’ night out? Sparkling wine is the perfect choice for you! Foods that have bolder flavors such as spices or heavy salt content deserve a wine that will offset the flavors. Sparkling wine will provide the sweetness to give your tastebuds a refresher.
Looking for suggestions on what to pair with sparkling wine? French fries go well with a nice glass of Champagne, or a glass of Cava goes nicely with some spicy curry.
4. Acidic wines go well with a variety of foods.
Acidic wines are quite diverse in the food pairing world. In fact, acidic wines pair well with sweet foods and other acidic foods. If you are going to be enjoying sweet or fatty foods, you will want an acidic wine to offset the fattiness.
On the opposite spectrum, acidic wine pairs well with sweet foods. Acidic wines would go well with sweet desserts after dinner.
You will also find that acidic wines love acidic foods. Lemons and Sauvignon Blanc go very well together, giving you a fresh and exciting flavor explosion.
5. The texture really does matter.
The texture of your wine matters a great deal when it comes to finding the perfect food and wine pairing. Tannin in wine refers to the texture – it’s what makes the wine dry or not. When a wine is high in tannin, it is best to keep acidic foods (like lemons) away. This will cause the wine to taste even more bitter, which is something you definitely do not want to do.
Let’s recap the do’s and don’ts of finding the perfect food and wine pairing for your next meal at home or night out: