A Beginner’s Guide to Wine Pairings

Eight out of ten people don’t know how about proper wine etiquette. Understanding the right way to pair and preserve wine makes your drinking experience more enjoyable. It can also enhance the flavors of whatever food you are eating with it.

Wine preservation is just as important as correct wine pairing. At coravin, expert technology is used to ensure your wine always tastes like it has been freshly opened, regardless of age. This greatly enhances the flavors of your wine and avoids that awful “corked” taste.

To learn more about the best way to pair wine, consult the helpful list of tips below.

Tips For Pairing Wine

Before getting into which wines work best with which foods, it’s important you know the fundamentals of wine pairings. There are a few easy and simple steps you should always follow to ensure you understand what wines will most enhance the flavors of certain foods.

Know Your Taste Components

Wine generally has three flavor components. These are sweet, bitter, and acidic. The color of the wine can help you to discover the strength of each component within.

Red wines are typically more bitter than other wines. This is often the first taste that will hit you when you enjoy a sip of red wine. The acidity of red wines usually follows next. Red wines are generally not sweet, and you may only taste a very mild hint of sweetness depending on the red wine you try.

White wines tend to have an acidic taste that is obvious from the first note. Following this, white wines can be sweet or bitter and will generally have a mild combination of sweet and bitter flavors.

Finally, sweet wines are, as you might expect, sweet. They can also be acidic, but the acidity is usually quite mild. They have very mild notes of bitterness.

Acidity

A good rule of thumb is that your wine should be more acidic than the food you are pairing it with. Otherwise, your wine will lose its flavor when you pair it with more acidic food. This leads to a flat-tasting wine.

Food like fish tends to have high levels of acidity. This is especially true of rich seafood, such as salmon.

Flavor Intensity

Flavor intensity is important when choosing your wine. The intensity of wine should match that of food. Otherwise, one flavor will overthrow the other completely.

Consider the intensity of your food flavor when choosing the perfect wine to pair with it. If it’s a mild-tasting food, don’t undermine its flavor by choosing a very rich wine.

Wine Sweetness

In most cases of wine pairing, you should pick a wine that is sweeter than the food you are serving with it. If you pick a wine that is not as sweet as its paired food, it will taste too bitter.

This is an especially important point when considering the perfect dessert wine. Many desserts are intensely sweet, so it is very important to find a sweet wine to make a successful food/wine match.

Wine and Food Best Pairings

Certain foods are proven to match well with certain wines. These paring rules are followed to enhance the flavors of both the wine and the food. If done successfully, you should be able to taste every note of the wine, which should complement the food you have chosen.

Cabernet With Red Meat

Red meat tends to be rich and fatty. This makes a Cabernet wine pair perfectly with it. You’ll enjoy the rich and intense flavors of this dry, red wine with deliciously cooked red meat.

The tannins in the Cabernet complement the proteins of red meat and bring out their rich flavors. Tannins also help to soften fattier tissue in red meat, which allows more flavor to flow through the food.

Rosé With Cheese

A light rosé wine will pair excellently with an elegant cheese board. Rosé wines are light and fruity, which helps to enhance the flavors of even more blandly flavored cheeses like mozzarella.

Rosé wines are also great for cleansing the pallet. Because they have a crisp, fresh flavor, you’ll experience the intense flavors of your chosen cheeses between every sip of rosé wine.

Chardonnay With Fatty Fish

Meaty and fatty fishes are a great match with Chardonnay. This includes fish such as halibut or salmon.

Chardonnay is a crisp, dry wine that brings out the salty flavors in fish-based dishes. Because of its wonderfully light notes and base acidity, it enhances the rich, buttery flavors of fatty fish perfectly.

Riesling With Spice

Finding the right wine to accompany spicier dishes is tough. Spicy foods often overwhelm any drink they are served due to their intense flavors.

That’s what makes Riesling such a good match with spicy foods. Riesling offers a delicate note of sweetness that lightly offsets the overwhelming taste of spicier dishes. It is a refreshing contrast to the heat of spicy foods and will allow you to enjoy the flavors of both.

To keep whatever wine you choose well preserved, consider using the preservation products available at Coravin. They will keep your wines tasting fresh even if they’ve been sitting in your cupboards or wine cellar for longer than you’d care to admit.

Keep Wine Pairings Simple For the Best Taste Experience

Wine pairings don’t have to be complex if you follow the simple rules above. By sticking to these wine pairing basics, you will have a more flavourful experience regardless of the cost of the wine you choose.

The taste of wine will change depending on how it is preserved. That’s why Coravin’s expert technology should be used to keep your wine as fresh and rich as possible. The better the wine you serve tastes, the more pleasurable your wine tasting experience will be.

Find out more about the wonderful world of Coravin today. If you have any questions about wine pairings or just wine in general, speak to the expert customer service team. They know everything there is to know about wine and can get you started on the path to a great wine experience.