Learn
Wine and food, simply
Four rules that cover most situations, and permission to ignore them.
The short answer
Match weight to weight, use acidity to cut richness, and be careful with tannin, chilli and sweetness. Colour is a rough shorthand for weight, which is why the old red-with-meat rule works often enough to survive.
Overview
Match weight to weight. Delicate food with light wine, rich food with fuller wine. This one rule handles most cases.
Match acidity to acidity. If the dish is acidic — tomato, lemon, vinegar — the wine needs acidity too, or it will taste flat.
The wine should be at least as sweet as the food. A dry wine after a sweet dessert tastes sour and thin.
Watch chilli. Alcohol and tannin both make chilli heat worse; sweetness makes it better. A low-alcohol off-dry white beats a big red with a hot curry, every time.
The old "red with meat, white with fish" rule is a rough approximation of the weight rule and fails often. Salmon with Pinot Noir is excellent; steak with a big white is not absurd.
And the honest caveat: a wine you enjoy with food you enjoy is a successful pairing, whatever any rule says.
Where you can see it
- Acidity against fat
- Sancerre with goat's cheese. The acidity resets your palate between mouthfuls.
- Sweetness against heat
- An off-dry Riesling with a spicy dish. Sugar takes the edge off chilli; high alcohol makes it worse.
What people get wrong
1 widely repeated claim this page corrects.
Go shallower or deeper
The beginner page and the chemistry page are both correct, and neither substitutes for the other.
Sources
Sources consulted
- WSET educational materials and the Systematic Approach to Tasting — Wine & Spirit Education Trust