How to match food with wine, or choosing wine for specific dishes. As you know wine comes
in all sorts of styles, sweet wines, roses, red white wine, champagne, and then you've
got fortified wines Port. Now the classic guidelines are red wines with meats dishes,
and white wines with fish dishes. And there are variations to this because some meats
would take a white wine. For example a nice Chardonnay would go with veal and a nice Beaujolais
would go with a very strong tasting fish like tuna. So you can make some variations there.
Here I've got a small selection of some wines and I may suggest some dishes that might go
with them. Sauterne can be used as a dessert wine or it can be used within the starter
with something like foie gras which you can pan fry, so that would make a contrast between
saltiness of the foie gras and the sweetness of the Sauterne. With desserts, they will
go with - I tend to go for classic desserts like apple pies, tarts, anything with a lighter
flavor, with reflects the flavors in Sauterne which could be lime, lemon, up to apricot's
richer flavors. Roses are excellent with seafoods and salads, any sort of Mediterranean salads
can work with Rose, and also sea fish, seafoods like shellfish work beautiful with a nice,
crisp Rose. Here you could, for a white wine, if it's a Chardonnay you could use it with
chicken, you can use it with fish. You can also use it with salads, some light, extremely
light Chardonnays can work with salads. Some really rich Chardonnays can work with gamy
foods, maybe chicken, maybe turkey as well. So you can use that for that. Red wine, a
good Bordeaux would go with lamb, would go with beef. Rhone wines as well, lamb, beef,
red, these particular styles of red wines are better with red meats, and to avoid light
meats, which you can get in veal and you can get in chicken and turkey. With champagne,
you can match it to almost any style of food. It refreshes the palette, more than matches
the food exactly so you can use it with a curry, or the classic one where it does match
the food well, you can use this with fresh oysters. Works with salads, works with beef
burgers, works with some meats dishes. But if you get a rich classical French, English,
German style meats dish, maybe a red wine will be better. But this is very, very versatile.
Port, is a classic match with Stilton, so you can use Port with desserts, you can use
it with cheeses. The counterpoints, Ports come out sweet, so it's a sweet and sour,
sweet and salty match. But it's a lovely rich wine to have. That's how you'd match some
of these wines. And what I'd say about matching food with wine is that you want to match the
body of the wine to the richness of the food. A light-bodied wine will work better with
light, delicately flavored foods. A richer bodied wine will match rich foods, game, beef
stews, so that's a general guide on weight. When it comes to a acidity you want crisp
acidity with things that are lightly flavored again, seafood, natural flavors. When you've
got sauces, you want to match the wine that has the same weight or the same intensity
as a sauce, so with a white Chardonnay, a clean crisp Chablis may not go with a creamy
dish, so you'd go for Mercel, that will go with a creamy chicken dish. Similarly with
red wines, the body, if you take a Beaujolais, you really want - which is a light-bodied
red wine, you'd like to match with something that's more delicate or lighter, and hence
you can use it with fish, but you can't really use it with a rich roast. For a rich roast
you want something like a good Malbec and good Bordeaux, a good Borello, which are big
and rich wines. So match your wines according to weight and according to body with the foods
you have got. The richer the food, the richer the wine, the lighter the food, the lighter
the wine, and the cleaner the flavors. That's how you match some wines with some of the
foods, it's a big field so go out and explore, don't be afraid to experiment.