Food and Wine
Generally people talk about different kinds of wines without any reference to any food item. But, wine is primarily used to wash down the food you are eating. Also wine tastes differently when taken with food, from wine drunk as an appetizer. This may be because the ingredients used to make the food changes the taste of the wine we are drinking.
Most people would like to select a wine, which would go with the food they would be eating for dinner. They would like to have such a match between the two so that they could enjoy the taste of both without any change in them.
One important point, which is to be kept in mind always, is that we should not match a strong food with delicate wine and vice versa. That will throw everything unbalanced about your experience about the dinner.
Many people think that wines containing higher amount of acids are not good for matching with food. But, these kinds of wine are best-suited go with deep fried foods, dishes made of fish or with rich creamy or cheesy sauce. Generally wines having sharp taste would go well with food having similar taste.
One good combination would be wine containing tannin and fatty food. Acidity of wines having tannin would cut through the fat. Another good pairing would be with fruity wine with highly seasoned food. One better pairing would be between wines containing lower alcohol and tannin with salty, spicy and smoky flavors.
While pairing wine with food for a dinner party, in case older vintage wine is to be used, it is better that the dish selected should be simple. This will enable the wine to display all its qualities and attract all the attention during dinner.
In case of European or Continental food, matching wine with food is quite simple. White wines are to be matched with white meat like fish and chicken, while red wine is to be matched with red meat (lamb or beef).
It becomes a big challenge to choose proper wine when one is going for South Asian i.e. Indian or Oriental food. This is because these foods are prepared using various spices and cooking oils and the cooking style is different from the Western cuisine.
These foods also have different difference depending on the region it is coming from. Tandoori food of North India would differ substantially from Cantonese food. But, for all these types of foods low alcohol and a little sweeter white wine should be the best choice. These wines would complement well with these spicy eastern food.
This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 11:42 am and is filed under Wines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.