THE SIX COMMON FOOD AND WINE PAIRING MISTAKES TO AVOID

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "THE SIX COMMON FOOD AND WINE PAIRING MISTAKES TO AVOID"

Stephanie Barker
7 years ago
Views:

1 THE SIX COMMON FOOD AND WINE PAIRING MISTAKES TO AVOID

2 M any people spend a lot of time analyzing, writing and talking about the best food and wine pairings. And there are professionals who make it their life work to study these flavor explosions. For example, at an upscale ski resort Deer Valley Resort in Park City, Utah the head of food and beverage and the executive chefs work for hours on each pairing they suggest to their guests. Each chef prepares a dish, the team takes small bites, and pairs them with wines. The chef goes back to the kitchen and makes the entire dish again, this time with or without a certain spice or herb, more wine is brought to the table and the process starts again, over and over, until the match is perfected. At this level of pairings, one may need to be a master of taste to really appreciate the nuances. But all of us can recognize really bad pairings: a cookie and lemonade, or light beer with marinara, or a tuna sandwich with hot chocolate. So you can choose to cross your fingers and hope that what you have put together will work, or you can become informed and avoid some very common mistakes. Knowing these will put you way ahead in the food and wine pairing game. Six Mistaken Matchups #1 Choosing a highly acidic wine to go with a sweet dessert. #2 Choosing a heavy, rich wine with a delicate dish. Or vice versa. #3 Serving a high alcohol wine with spicy foods. #4 Getting stuck on one type of wine and serving it with all your food. #5 Pairing your best, most prized, hardest to cook meal with your best, most prized bottle of wine. #6 Serving high iodine fish (cod, haddock, mackerel, shellfish) with high iron red wines.

3 #1 Choosing a highly acidic wine to go with a sweet dessert... Same as taking a sip of lemonade after a bite of chocolate chip cookie, tart wine after a sweet can be awful. Been to many wedding receptions? A bite of cake, then lift your flute to the happy couple ouch! Hard to get behind the toast when you mouth is puckered up. The fix for this Always choose a wine that is slightly sweeter than the dessert.

4 #2 Choosing a heavy, rich wine to pair with a delicate dish... Or vice versa... When you consider your meal, think about... * The center-of-the-plate item * The way it is cooked * The sauce on it In my head, I place the center-of-the-plate on a scale from between 1 and 10. Lean fin fish Grains Chicken Crustacean Salmon Pork Duck Lamb Beef Sausages Game Now consider how the above is prepared from least amount of flavor (poaching) to lots of flavor added (smoking)... and bump up the number of the center-of-the-plate a little or a lot, per below. Poaching... Broiling... Searing.... Roasting.... Grilling... Smoking Then consider the sauce, if there is one, and bump up the number again a little (for salsa) or a lot (for heavy cheese sauces.) Salsas, pesto Butter sauces (beurre blanc) Emulsified sauces (aioli, hollandaise) Brown sauces (mushroom gravy) Cheese sauces Then I just do quick scale-making in my head Poached halibut = 1, with a butter sauce = 3. Or pork = 6, roasted = 7. Or sausage = 9, smoked = 10. Take that final number and place it on the scale below. In order to best match the meal, choose wines that are within a couple numbers of it. Pinot Grigio Reisling Chenin Blanc Sauvignon Blanc Oaked Chardonnay Beaujolais Sangiovese Pinot Noir Merlot Cabernet Sauvignon Syrah Nebbiolo The fix for problems Avoid pairings that are at opposite ends of the graph.

5 Serving a high alcohol wine with spicy foods... #3 Spicy, or hot, foods are often made from chiles containing capsaicin, which when it comes in contact with mucous membranes in humans, (and all mammals, in fact,) causes a burning feeling where it touches. High alcohol wines often impart a hot, or burning sensation themselves. The two together is a major fire in your mouth. The fix for this drink a very cold, low-alcohol, off-dry or slightly sweet wine with the spicy food. The sugar will help coat the mouth to minimize the burn. Or choose a cold, sparkling wine (or, dare we say it beer!) to refresh the mouth.

6 #4 Getting stuck on one type of wine and serving it with all your food... This especially happens to beginners because as you start learning about wines, you ll find a wine you actually like and are confident buying, so you drink it, and only it, all the time. Other wines begin to taste off. So you pair everything you eat with that one wine. But no matter what wine you re in love with, it will not enhance all the foods you eat and it will definitely taste awful with some of them. Don t subject your guests or yourself to your current, limited view of the wine world. The fix for this Ask questions. Branch out. Experiment. A good way to move away from YOUR signature wine is to ask at your liquor store for a wine that is close, but not quite the same. For example, you love California Chardonnay. You ask your liquor store employee to recommend a different white that is oaked. You may find a Greco from Italy or a Viognier from Australia. Cool!

7 #5 Pairing your best, most prized, hardest to cook meal with your best, most prized bottle of wine... You have been slaving over a hot stove, working on a beautiful dish for your guests. You have everything perfect. The guests arrive, they are seated at the table and you present the wine, something special and the guests ooh and aah. The food is presented and the guests ooh and aah. The meal ensues with guests trying to make both the food and the wine center of the meal, often creating a challenging dining experience, especially for the cook! The fix for this Only one, the food or the wine, should be the star. Choose and allow it to shine.

8 #6 Serving high iodine fish with high iron red wines The iron ( and the tannin, as well) react with the iodine in the fish and make the fish taste fishier and the wine taste metallic. High iodine fish are typically, but not limited to, cod, haddock, mackerel, and shell fish. The amount of iron in the wine is affected by how much the grapes absorb from the soil, as well as how the grapes are harvested and processed. The resulting amount of iron in the wine differs from varietal to varietal, location to location and even from plant to plant. Hence, since the outcome is so undesirable, it is safest to avoid pairing iodine-rich fish with potentially iron rich red wines. The fix for this Stick to whites with high iodine fish unless you have tried the pairing before and like it.

9 Other than these six common mistakes, ( contrary to what your mom taught you, ) play with your food and wine, experiment, enjoy and be relatively certain that you will not be offending your taste buds anytime soon! Want more? A special offer for you Join our FREE Food & Wine Study Sessions Half-hour ish, online classes minutes interesting content 5 minutes Q&A for your questions 5 minutes previewing the following week s topic Click here to sign up! Or go to our website Kirsten Fox is, not only Headmistress of Fox School of Wine in Park City, Utah, but also Founder and CEO of Culinary Wine Institute, an award-winning, online wine sales training and certification system for the restaurant industry. She is a published author, a Certified Specialist of Wine by the Society of Wine Educators and a Sommelier. Questions or comments? missfox@foxschoolofwine.com or WINE

WINE & FOOD PAIRING Tasting Grid

WINE & FOOD PAIRING Tasting Grid Tasting Grid Affect on wine: +, -, ~ Tasting Instructions 1. Taste the. a. Circle the important components (,,,, ) for the wine. b. Circle the body for the wine. c. Then fill in the wine s flavors. d.