Balancing Food & Wine Tastes to Create a Great Pairing - Part 1
A few years ago, I was asked to create an interactive class in food and wine pairing that would teach experienced wines sales people the basics of pairing.
The challenge was for me to understand what I had been doing for so many years and to understand the basics well enough to teach others. The outcome was the balancing chart, which you can download here.
Here is the start of what I consider the 3 Steps of Food & Wine Pairing...
Let's start with the end game:
The goal of wine and food pairing is for you to like the combination of the food and wine in front of you... end of sentence. Nothing else matters.
It starts with the wine since that is the one part of the food & wine equation you cannot change. I'm not giving you permission to add anything to the wine. No spritzers or wine coolers in this particular conversation. We'll save that for another time.
That means that the only thing you can do is "play with your food" by adjusting how it tastes with anything you have in your refrigerator or your cupboard: salt, spice, heat, fruit, chutneys, etc...
Remember in food and wine pairing, it is all about "perception"...
By having food and wine together, we change the way the wine tastes but we are not actually changing the wine. We are simply changing the way you perceive the wine because the food you have just eaten is still on your palate when you drink the wine.
If you were to wait 15 minutes between bites and sips of wine, it might not matter at all. (I have never really timed it but there must be a certain time when the taste of what you have eaten is no longer on your palate. Has anyone ever tried this? If not, we'll have to try this some time soon...)
Since I pair food and wine for more than just myself and friends, I have to look at a broader definition. My goal is to highlight what I find most appealing in a wine and to minimize any aspects of the wine I like least. If I like the wine as is, then my goal is for the wine with food to resemble the way tasted on its' own. The way the winemaker meant it to be.
The right food can bring out the fruit, the tartness, the body of the wine and many other features. You can really make a wine "sing" with the right pairings.
I recommend when you drink wine with a meal or even a snack that you pay attention to what they do to each other. Truly "play with your food" and see what happens!
The more you do it the better you get at it. Just like most other things in life.
The bottom line is that the final opinion in food and wine pairing is yours.
No matter what the "experts" say, only you know what you like and that is all that counts when the glass and the plate are in front of you. Therefore, you are the final expert.
Steps of Food & Wine Pairing
Step 1
Matching the "weight" of the wine to that of the food
The relative weight of a wine means: Is the wine light or heavy when you drink it? On the far extremes, Cabernet Sauvignon is a big or heavy red wine. Sauvignon Blanc is a light white wine.
There are many wines in the middle. In general, white wines are lighter than red wines. That is not always the case, but we'll save that for another blog.
What makes a wine heavy are tannins, sweetness, alcohol, barrel aging, and intensity of fruit. Pretty much what ever makes a wine "linger" on your palate is what makes it heavy.
What makes a food heavy is richness (fat), umami (another topic for the future), and the style of cooking (grilled foods are heavier than poached).
So, we balance food and wine by choosing items that are similar in weight. Lighter red wines with salmon or chicken. Heavier red wines with stews. These are just a couple of examples.
Step 2
Flavor bridges, connections and affinities
On the simplest level, if a wine has the flavor of cherry in it, there is a good chance a food dish with cherry will pair well with it. I call this a bridge from food to wine.
The next level is what I call a connection. If wine has pear flavor (like many Chardonnays) you can guess that since ginger pairs with pears (sorry, couldn't help it!), you could guess that your wine would also pair well with ginger.
Then there are affinities... These are combinations that we know from experience work well. One good example is corn and Chardonnay. We list some better known affiinities in Pair It!
Now you have what will probably be a good pairing. But to make a good pairing great, you need Step 3.
And here is where the fun begins...
My next blog will discuss Step 3: Balancing tastes to make good pairings great
I'll discuss the definition of "tastes" and how to use them.
To this end, I developed the "Balancing Chart for Food & Wine", which is the basis of Step 3.
You can find more pairing information and advice on the Pair It! and Great Pairings websites.
Until then...
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