Wine is a much bigger subject than most people think. I have worked my way up the catering industry and have been a wine merchant and sommelier for a long time and even I give myself a score of 3 out of 10 when it comes to knowledge of wines. Trust me my friends, there is always a lot to learn. I do not call myself an expert on wine but I sure know a thing or two. This hub will give you a little advice and tips on how to pair food and wine to perfectly complement each other. Trust me, a good pairing is heavenly.

Pairing wine and food is not rocket science. It just involves identifying the characters present in the food and knowing a few golden rules when it comes to selecting the perfect wine to complement the food or vice versa. A lot of myths have been circulated by self proclaimed ‘wine experts' that suggest something along the lines of "a '96 Corton Grancery, Louis Latour is the perfect match for this Beef steak with Lancashire potatoes". There is no such thing as only one wine that is ideal for one dish. If you follow the golden rules that I will outline below, you will find that the vast majority of pairings that you will be able to come up with will not affect each other and coexist peacefully. A good percentage of the wine and food pairings will actually accentuate each others flavors and make the wine and the food taste better. Remember that the opposite is also true. Use these golden rules as a guideline.

Never let the food overpower your star wine

If you got a very old vintage that you would like to show off to your friends and family, always serve these with a very simple dish that does not have any strong flavours. This is because old vintage wines tend to be more subtle and delicate in flavor. This lets your vintage to be the star of the show without being overpowered by a complex dish.

If the food is fatty, serve with a high tannin wine

A wine with a high tannin content is perfect to match with fatty foods because tannins cut through the viscosity of fats.

Do not be afraid of acidity

High acidity of wine sometimes tend put people off trying them thinking that these are bad for them. The fact of the matter is that a high acid wine such as a beautiful Sauvignon Blanc is the best to complement rich, creamy or cheesy sauces. These high acid wines are also the best to go with deep fried foods and fish dishes.

Never ever try to match strong to delicate

Following the first rule, don't try to match a spicy, complex dish to a delicate wine. The opposite is also true where you should never attempt to match a powerful, high alcohol or high tannin wine to a light, delicate dish.

Now that your aware of the golden rules of pairing wine to food. What is that I hear you ask? Do I put prominence on the grape, the vintage or the producer when selecting a wine?

Choosing the best wine to complement a dish boils down to two important things which you need to do your homework on before you go out and purchase a bottle (or two).

• Firstly, you need to identify the prominent flavours of the dish and ascertain whether these flavours are complemented by the those of the wine.

• Secondly, the richness of the dish corresponds directly with the weight of the wine.

So to answer the question, grape variety matters a lot as it confers flavor that is characterized by the wine. The second most important thing is the producer as some producers such as Tattinger make very light bodied champagnes while Bollinger make full bodied champagnes. The vintage of the wine in my opinion matters the least unless its from a region that very big variations in vintages such as Burgundy which may produce light wines one year(eg 2004) and heavy intense ones the previous year (eg 2003).

Now don't go and torture yourself trying to memorise cheat sheets about what wines go with what dishes and vice versa. The silver lining is that as I mentioned above, a vast majority of wines coexist with food peacefully. If you don't follow the golden rules mentioned above, you will cause a culinary distaster. Remember, pair flavor to flavor and weight to weight for example, a light citrus sauce on Halibut is marvelously complemented by a light bodied citrusy wine such as Sauvignon Blanc. Seems easy enough. But what if your not sure about the flavours in the dish for example a very complex dish with a lot of spices. In this scenario, at least try to match the richness of the food with the weight of the wine. If your facing a very rich, complex poultry dish, a heavy white wine is the best way to go.

My friends, if all else fails and your stumped, there is still hope. Try to identify which region of the world the dish comes from and match it with a wine that comes from that region. This is a foolproof method that will rarely go wrong. Why? I hear you ask.

This is just a bit of logic that's working here; if the wine and the food are from the same region and everyone has always eaten and drunk them together it is only natural for them to go well together. For example a Chianti Classico from Tuscany will cut through the fat and perfectly complement the traditional pork loin roasted with rosemary and garlic.

Now my friends, we come to a very important topic. What about Very spicy Indian or Asian cuisines?

This is a bit of a toughie. A general rule of thumb, if the food is too spicy, i.e. you start sweating or even crying, forget about having any wine with the meal and just open a cold can of beer or carton of orange juice. If you can manage the heat, light sweet whites from Germany such as Riesling or Gewurztraminer works gorgeously with spicy food. The acidity of the wine perfectly balances the richness of the oil and the light sweetness helps cut through the heat of the spiciness. Stay away from Red Wines as the tannins will clash with the spices.

Dry wines are a big no no as the sweetness of the deserts will completely kill the flavor. Also be wary of trying to pair extremely sweet deserts with extremely sweet wines such as Sherry with sticky toffee pudding. This will result in what I call a taste bud overload. Another important point to remember is that forget trying to pair wine with any cold deserts such as ice cream as the cold will definitely numb the taste buds.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this hub. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed making it. I hope you learned a thing or two. Cheers and to good health.

If your feeling particularly adventurous Check out my hub on liquid gold

Afthab