Finding the perfect red wine partner for your perfectly-prepared meal may seem like a challenging prospect, but with a little know-how, pairing red wine with food can be both easy and enjoyable. While some people take the subject of food and wine ‘pairing’ extremely seriously, it’s important not to be intimidated, and to have a little fun with your experiments. Begin by paying heed to a few simple rules, and you’ll soon find that finding the right red wine match for your food becomes almost instinctive.
Bear in mind that there is no one single wine that should be enjoyed with a particular dish. There may be dozens of red wine varieties that would complement your meal very well, so be sure to choose one that appeals both to your personal taste and to your budget. Remember also that red wine should never compete with or detract from the food that you are serving. A well-matched red wine will bring out the flavours and textures of a meal, rather than overwhelming them. One good tip for beginners is to serve dishes from any given country or region with a wine from the same place, as the wines will have been developed to complement local dishes. For example, a Spanish Rioja makes a very nice companion to a paella.
When serving heavy dishes such as pasta with a rich sauce, it’s wise to keep the red wine fairly light. A light Pinot Noir, for instance, goes well with carb-heavy pasta dishes. Pairing red wine with meat is a famously safe bet, but it isn’t as simple as pairing any old red with any meat. Think about the depth of the flavour of the meat in question, and select your wine accordingly. A peppery wine like Shiraz, for instance, makes a good bedfellow for strongly-flavoured meats like lamb or even venison. Lamb is strong in flavour, and many people opt to pair it with a bold Bordeaux. This is far from a fool-proof combination, however, as not all lamb cuts and lamb dishes work well with Bordeux or, indeed, Cabernets. If you do want to pair lamb with these wines, serve simple dishes such as rack of lamb or loin chops – both work wonderfully well. Other, more heavily-seasoned lamb dishes call for rather more complex red wines. Lamb chops or leg of lamb seasoned with rustic flavours such as rosemary, garlic, thyme and cayenne, for example, call for a similarly aromatic, spicy wine. This is another example of wines from the same region working particularly well with the food – try a Provencal red wine, such as Bandol, to complement the southern French seasonings. If you’re planning to serve a hearty steak, be aware that you’ll need an equally robust wine to do it justice. California Cabernets and Bordeaux are good options, as the protein and fat of the steak will soften the strong tannic taste and bring out more complex flavours.
A good rule of thumb is to serve your driest red wines at the start of the meal, and save sweet ‘dessert wine’ for – yes, you guessed it – dessert. If you’re serving a cheese board to round off your meal, you’ll want to make sure your wine is a good match. Cheese and wine get on famously well together, but of course not all wines are good with all cheeses. For a safe bet, you might want to choose Romano or Parmigiano cheeses, as they combine well with almost all types of wine. Soft cheeses like Brie and Camembert work well with a good bottle of Burgundy or Cabernet, while strong, smelly cheeses need a strong (but not smelly) wine to match them. A French Bordeaux is a good choice, as is a California Cabernet. If you’re going for a blue-veined cheese, a nice port can be a good option. A particularly good example of this is Stilton, the blue-veined English cheese, and port. The rich texture and strong, salty flavour works well with the sweet fortified wine, and Stilton with port is now regarded as a classic, foolproof food and wine pairing. Serve in a cosy room on a chilly evening and your guests are guaranteed to be most satisfied.
Another classic pairing is chocolate and sweet dessert wine. Loved by some wine and food critics and loathed by others; a good quality, high-cocoa content chocolate served with port is fairly common practice. Some critics argue that the strong, rich flavours of chocolate are too much for any wine and best enjoyed alone or with coffee – but why not let your guests decide for themselves?
