The Bertrand family
Food and wine pairings: how to successfully match flavours?
From the bottle, to choose the right one. That is the secret to achieving the best food and wine pairings. But how do you know which flavours to match? Here are a few simple tips to apply in order to elevate pairings, from the glass to the plate.
The basics
To begin, let us go back to basics: a good food and wine pairing elevates both the dish and the wine in question. The idea is to create the perfect balance, without one overpowering the other.
Three factors are to be taken into account:
- Aroma: to achieve balance, aromas must be concordant. It is not necessarily about matching the same flavours but similar characteristics.
- Texture: because we seek harmony of the senses, a successful pairing reveals itself notably through the mouthfeel.
- Intensity: playing on contrasts is one thing, but subtlety is still required to avoid a misstep.
The golden rules
For a good food and wine pairing, its golden rules.
The colour
While the concept is rather surprising, it works very well! Pairing a dish and a wine of the same colour quite literally works wonders, such as the duo of beef stew/red wine or cheese/white wine.
The region
It is called the regional pairing. For an explosive pairing, nothing beats a local speciality matched with a local wine. For example: sea bass ceviche and Gris blanc.
Finesse
Finesse here implies the delicacy of a dish. For elegant dishes, a refined wine is therefore preferred. For example: asparagus velouté and Domaine de l'Estagnère Orange.
The body
Autrement dit: light dish, light wine, and full-bodied dish, full-bodied wine. To bring out a meat such as Cathar country lamb, Cigalus rouge is the perfect match!
The hierarchy
If you need to serve several wines, move up in quality as the meal progresses, starting from the lightest to the most complex. Ideally, serve the best wine with the main course.
What to remember
While some pairings seem obvious, the notion of matching is actually quite complex. Each wine is characterised by its origin and maturity, while a dish can have very different nuances depending on how it is prepared.
In fact, there are always exceptions, just as there are a whole host of possibilities depending on tastes and preferences.
So, if there is one rule to remember, it is this: treat yourself above all.
Our other blog articles to become an expert :
How to taste a wine: the steps to follow
Choosing a good wine in 5 steps
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