While following the old adage about serving white wines with fish and red wines with meat will work reasonably well, it’s possible to take your wine-pairing skills to the next level by learning a few tricks of the trade.
Sommeliers almost always match wines to the strongest flavors on the plate, which are rarely the main ingredient. More often, these flavors come from sauces, seasonings or cooking methods. From that point, sommeliers apply a “like with like” strategy that is highly effective for identifying harmonious combinations.
Just as we instinctively partner lighter fare like sushi or salads with lighter wines, and richer dishes like roasts and stews with richer wines, the same principle holds true for other dimensions of wine’s sensory experience beyond weight, such as sweetness, acidity, earthiness or even oakiness.
The most obvious example is how we partner sweet dessert wines with sugary desserts, but it is also standard practice to pair the most acidic wines with the most acidic foods, and the oakiest wines with those foods that have been browned in the cooking process in a way that echoes this quality.
The aromatic resemblance between browned foods and barrel-aged or barrel-fermented wine provides them with a natural affinity. Browned foods feature the flavors of caramelization and Maillard reactions.
The distinctive flavor that new oak imparts to wine has a strong resemblance because it also results from the application of heat. Foods that are raw or cooked without browning often pair best with wines that are young, unoaked and fresh. Foods that are browned in cooking — roasted or grilled, baked or fried, seared or sautéed — are typically better partners for oakier wines.
Marnie Old is one of the country’s leading wine educators. Formerly the director of wine studies for Manhattan’s French Culinary Institute, she is best known for her visually engaging books published by DK such as Wine: A Tasting Course and her popular Wine Simplified series of wine tutorials on YouTube. Marnie currently serves as director of vinlightenment for Boisset Collection.
