Food and wine matching

Food Network in Canada have a fantastic food and wine pairing tool on their website. It’s a great idea for those that are new to matching wine with food. http://www.foodtv.ca/foodwine/

Matching a wine to your dish can really enhance its flavours and is definitely worth experimenting with.Below are some tips on food and wine matching.

1. When you’re serving more than one wine at a meal, it’s customary to serve lighter wines before full-bodied ones. Dry wines should be served before sweet wines unless a sweet flavoured dish is served early in the meal. In that case match the sweet dish with a similarly sweet wine. Lower alcohol wines should be served before higher alcohol wines.

2. Balance flavour intensity. Pair light-bodied wines with lighter food and fuller-bodied wines with heartier, more flavourful, richer and fattier dishes.

3. Consider how the food is prepared. Delicately flavoured foods — poached or steamed — pair best with delicate wines. It’s easier to pair wines with more flavourfully prepared food — braised, grilled, roasted or sautéed. Pair the wine with the sauce, seasoning or dominant flavour of the dish.

4. Match flavours. An earthy Pinot Noir goes well with mushroom soup and the grapefruit/citrus taste of Sauvignon Blancs goes with fish for the same reasons that lemon does.

5. Consider pairing opposites. Very hot or spicy foods — some Thai dishes, or hot curries for example — often work best with sweet desert wines. Opposing flavours can play off each other, creating new flavour sensations and cleansing the palate.

6. Pair wine and cheese. In some European countries the best wine is reserved for the cheese course. Red wines go well with mild to sharp cheese. Pungent and intensely flavoured cheese is better with a sweeter wine. Goat Cheeses pair well with dry white wine, while milder cheeses pair best with fruiter red wine. Soft cheese like Camembert and Brie, if not over ripe, pair well with just about any red wine.

7. Adjust food flavour to better pair with the wine. Sweetness in a dish will increase the awareness of bitterness and astringency in wine, making it appear drier, stronger and less fruity. High amounts of acidity in food will decrease awareness of sourness in wine and making it taste richer and mellower — sweet wine will taste sweeter. Bitter flavours in food increase the perception of bitter, tannic elements in wine. Sourness and salt in food suppress bitter taste in wine. Salt in food can tone down the bitterness and astringency of wine and may make sweet wines taste sweeter.

My favourite wines are listed below. They do have a Tasmanian bias.:

Leeuwin Estate Sauvigon Blanc Semillon – this is my all time favourite. Clean, crisp and easy to drink
Cape Mentelle Sauvigon Blanc Semillon
Pipers Brook Pinot Noir – this is a superb wine and not heavy at all.
Grant Burge Barossa Vines Shiraz
Arras Sparkling Pinot Chardonnay

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