Food and Wine pairing - the Basics.

My love of cooking is what got me into wine in the first place. I usually will not drink wine on its own. Matching the right wine with the right food will take your dinning experience to the next level.

Wine pairing isn't hard. It is exactly the same as knowing that a baked potato is a good match for steak. Would you put a scoop of vanilla ice cream with that same steak? No, of course you wouldn't. This is because you tried ice cream, potatoes and steak many times and know how they taste and what they do and don't work with.

So the reason wine pairing seems hard to most people is lack of exposure to wine. Once you become familiar with the different types of wines out there and try them with more and more foods it will become much easier.

Here is how I started learning how to pair - My wife, Kathy and I would get together with another couple every Saturday night for dinner. We alternate between the two houses each Saturday. I would cook/make three courses - Soup, Salad/Appetizer and main course.

Hit the Internet (Google is your best friend when it comes to wine pairing) and do a search on what wines go with each course. I guaranty whatever you are making; someone, somewhere on the Internet has made something close to it and has a wine they are recommending with it. Now you should have a list of three wines. The exact brand isn't important, what is important is type of grape. Buy those three wines.

Once you sit down for dinner, pour out all three wines so there will be twelve glasses total on the table. Tell everyone which wine is supposed to go with each course, but make sure you try all three types with every course.

Here is an example menu -

Curried Chicken Soup + Semi-sweet Riesling

Smoked Salmon with Bagel Crisps, Cream Cheese, Lemons and Capers + Chardonnay

BBQ Beef Tenderloin with Mashed Potatoes and Green Beans + Cabernet Sauvignon

When you have the Riesling with the Curried Chicken it will be a nice match, hopefully one of the other two wines should be really nasty with Curried Chicken. Sort of like the flavor you get with toothpaste after drinking a big glass of orange juice. You will start to wonder if one or both of the other wines is off or has something wrong with it. This is what you are looking for. You will be amazed at how good the Chardonnay will be with the Smoked Salmon and the Cabernet will be with the Tenderloin. I'm also willing to bet you will be very disappointed with how the Riesling does with the Tenderloin.

The whole key to food pairing is exposure to as many types of wines and foods as possible.

Another option to get more exposure to wine is to form a Wine Club with a group of friends. Say four to six couples and each couple brings a bottle of wine and a small snack to go with it.

Every few months or so we expand Saturday night out to another two couples. Every couple is responsible for bringing one course of the meal and a wine to go with it. This is awesome as for the price of one bottle of wine and one course, you get exposure to three other wines and three other foods.

Lastly, keep your eyes open for Wine events happening in your area - wine stores doing tastings, wineries in your area doing tastings, charities doing a wine tasting as a fund raiser.

One thing you will want to purchase is a small notebook. Nothing too large, something that can fit in your pocket, so when you try a wine that you really like you can write it down! Can't count the number of times I have had a great wine and didn't write it down and then a few months later think about that night and can't recall the wine for the life of me.

Cheers,

Mark