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Which wine goes with which food?
There are certain aspects to consider when choosing the right wine for a dish. In restaurants, this task is often carried out by sommeliers who, as wine experts in the catering trade, know about the flavour interactions between wine and food. The same principles also apply if you are cooking at home and want to drink a wine with your meal.
When combining food and matching (corresponding) wines, the aim is to create a harmonious and lasting enjoyment experience. You can either focus on harmony (matching or complementing the flavour components) or on tension - after all, this is also the approach you take in cooking when you play with flavours, textures and temperatures in individual dishes.
In this context, the type of preparation, the fullness and richness as well as the flavour characteristics and intensity of the dish are important for the wine selection. Wine and food should be equal partners: The wine should harmonise in taste with the dish and emphasise the flavours, but must not mask them. The sensory characteristics of the food and wine must therefore be harmonised in such a way that they complement each other in a meaningful way. Positive reinforcements are desirable, but negative reinforcements should be avoided.
With a multi-course menu, it is also important to ensure that the intensity of the food sequence increases. The strongest component in a dish or course is decisive for the choice of wine. This is the most prominent in sensory terms and the wine must either harmonise with it or create a positive tension.
The following interactions between wine and food must be taken into account:
- Sweetness in the wine enhances the flavours of the food and weakens acidity, pungency and bitterness in the dish.
- Acidity in wine emphasises the pungency and spiciness of the dish, strengthens the acidity and can weaken the sweetness of the dish. It also makes fat easier to digest.
- A high alcohol content in the wine emphasises both the sweetness and the spiciness of the dish. It can reduce sharpness and makes fat easier to digest. A low alcohol content makes the acidity of the dish more pronounced.
- Salt intensifies the flavours and bitter substances as well as the sweetness - both in the food and in the wine.
- Bitter substances in the wine (in the form of tannins) reduce the sweetness in the dish and help with fat digestion.
- Roasted substances (whether in the food through searing or in the wine through ageing in wooden barrels) harmonise the sweetness and moderate the acidity.
- Carbon dioxide (in semi-sparkling or sparkling wine) dampens the sweetness of the food; at the same time, sparkling wines often appear sweeter than they actually are when paired with food.
In this section you will find a variety of suggestions for matching wines to specific dishes. They are listed in the menu bar on the right - a simple click leads to the desired answer.
The topic is far too complex to present the corresponding recommendations in tabular form. However, further basic correlations (meat/fish etc.) and tips can be found in the following article:
What do you need to consider when pairing wine and food?