The main rule to remember about pairing wine with food is that there are no rules: you should drink the wines you like with the foods you like. That being said, there are some basic guidelines that can help you maximise your enjoyment of wine-food pairing.

Match the weight & texture of the food to the weight & texture of the wine Example: A light-bodied fish like sole works best with a light-bodied white wine like pinot grigio, while a heavier-bodied fish like salmon calls for a richer, fuller-bodied white like chardonnay.

Balance the intensity of flavours in the food and wine Example: A mildly flavored food like roast turkey pairs well with light-bodied white and red wines like sauvignon blanc and Beaujolais.


The five basic tastes are sweet, sour, salt, bitter and umami (the recently discovered fifth taste found in savory foods like mushrooms, tomatoes, soy sauce, and aged cheeses and meats). Salty and sour tastes in food make wines taste milder (fruitier and less acidic), while sweet and savory (umami) tastes make wines taste stronger (drier and more astringent).

Example: A simple cut of beef tames the tannins and brings out the fruit of a young cabernet sauvignon, but chocolate (which some people enjoy with cabernet) will accentuate its tannins and diminish its fruit. Seasonings, such as salt, lemon, vinegar, and mustard, can be used to achieve balance in food-wine pairings, either to make the wine taste milder (salt, lemon, vinegar) or stronger (sugar or umami ingredients).


Flavors are combinations of tastes and aromas, and there are an infinite number of them. You can fine-tune food and wine pairings by matching flavors in the food and the wine.

Example: Roast duck in a plum sauce is well-served by red wines, like barbera or syrah, with pronounced black plum flavors while grilled steak in a pepper sauce will go beautifully with a peppery zinfandel.


Sometimes, the best choice is to counterpoint flavors rather than matching them. Example: Pairing a spicy dish like Jamaican Jerk Chicken with a high-alcohol red wine may seem logical, but, in fact, the heat in the dish will ignite the alcohol in the wine to produce an unpleasantly hot, harsh impression. A better choice is a low-alcohol, fruity wine like riesling or gewürztraminer, which will both frame and tame the spicy flavors of the dish.


In most establishments, the whites comes at "refrigerator" temperature and the reds at room temperature. If you plan to drink Chardonnays out of the refrigerator and into the ice bucket, you would be best served by ordering the cheapest bottle available because at 35 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit even an expert would be hard pressed to tell the difference between a $7 bottle and a $35 bottle.

When a wine is over chilled, good and bad flavors are disguised. Consider how you eat ice cream: it warms in your mouth for maximum flavor before swallowing. The same chemical principles apply to wine. For crispier white wines, such as Sauvignon Blancs, drinking a bit colder than Chardonnay is preferred, but still not so cold you cannot distinguish the taste.


You don't need a fancy wine cellar to store wine. The basic requirements are a cool, dry, dark space (closet, crawl space, compartment under a stairway, or portion of a garage or basement) that’s shielded from direct sunlight and vibration and maintains a steady temperature (55 to 65 degrees Farenheit is ideal).

If you plan on becoming a serious wine collector, including wines requiring long-term aging, you may want to invest in a fully outfitted wine cellar. A variety of companies offer the building blocks of cellars, such as wine racks, refrigeration units, humidifiers, etc.


You can consume wine out of any glass, cup, or tumbler - or a mug, for that matter. But there are reasons why wine glasses are preferred: the design of the glass helps you see, smell, and taste the wine best.

Wine glasses vary in size, shape and design, but good ones will be clear and unadorned (so you can view the color and clarity of the wine), not too thick (so the glass doesn't obstruct your contact with the wine), and with a stem long enough so you can hold the glass without handling the bowl (which raises the temperature of the liquid). Most good wine glasses are tulip-shaped (they narrow toward the rim of the glass) to channel the aroma and flavor essences of the wine into the nerve receptors at the rear of your nasal cavity when you sniff the wine. As a rule, the bowls of red wine glasses are larger and wider than those for whites.

Most table wines are served in moderately-sized (8-10 oz.) glasses, while dessert wines fare better in smaller (6 oz.) glasses, and sparkling wines require a taller, more slender glass known as a champagne flute, which keeps the bubbles from dissipating. You can buy quality glasses in each of these basic categories for about $5 each.

For true connoisseurs willing to spend more, there are glasses specifically designed to highlight the attributes of different wine types. The most famous producer of such glassware is Georg Riedel, an Austrian whose collections of crystal stemware are favored by restaurateurs and professional wine tasters throughout the world.

Whatever glassware you choose, keep enough glasses on hand to accommodate dinner parties and other social occasions. When pouring, don't fill the glass more than half-full, so the taster can swirl the wine in the bowl to release its aromas, without spilling. Clean glasses by hand-washing them in lukewarm water with a small amount of soap. (Be sure to rinse well!) And don't leave glasses in a dish drainer - they'll wind up broken. Store clean glasses upright on a well ventilated shelf, or better yet, hang them upside down from a wooden glass rack.


Exposure to air causes wine to age. If you don't finish a bottle of wine, cork it up tightly to preserve what's left. The less wine left in the bottle, the more air, and the faster the wine will oxidize and lose its freshness.

Unfinished white wines, tightly corked and refrigerated, should maintain their character for up to four days, while reds will begin to degrade after 48 hours. (You can extend this slightly by refrigerating reds too, but then you have to warm them to room temperature before serving.)

There are various ways to extend the life of a wine after it’s opened, most of which involve purging the bottle of oxygen. Two inexpensive devices are the Vacu-Vin®, which pumps air from the bottle and seals it with a rubber gasket and Private Preserve®, a canister of nitrogen you spray into the bottle to displace the oxygen. Both will add a few days to the wine’s life.


source: drinkwine.com