Adventures of Wine Food Pairing

Wine Food Pairing is an adventure, not an exact science. It is important that you do not take yourself too seriously, but to experiment and enjoy the wonderful tastes and textures of wines that are available to us today!

I have enjoyed wine food pairing since I was a youngster up in the Pacific Northwest where my parents made wine from berries that we picked. They teamed up with a neighbor, recently transplanted from Austria, and came up with some delightful combinations of flavors!

With any wine food pairing, personal taste comes into play. Everyone has different body chemistry. This plays a big role in what tastes good to us. In addition, flavors that we grow up "loving" enter into the combination. When we grow up loving a wine, our palate makes exceptions to the normal rule of wine food pairing. I simply MUST drink inexpensive Chianti while eating pepperoni pizza! All of my friends at the table enjoy a cold pitcher of beer, but old habits die hard for me! The entire meal tastes even better if the table has a lighted candle placed in an old wine bottle, get the picture?

Even though sometimes I use my "heart" instead of my head in wine food pairing, I do have some general guidelines I follow when I entertain:

If I start with an appetizer of crudités I might pair with a Chardonnay or a Beaujolais

I usually pair red meat with a wine that has a stronger taste, such as a Cabernet Sauvignon

Dishes rich in fat content I pair with a wine with a higher acidity

Food rich in protein work well with tannic wines. They combine well and decrease the tannin taste. If you were to drink this same wine with a seafood dish you might notice a strong metallic taste or bitterness with salty food.

For desserts, I go with a sweeter wine. Hot chocolate soufflé with a California Cabernet Sauvignon is simply to die for.YUM!

Ice Wine is something that I enjoy with most cakes or pies.

My European friends really taught me the delightful taste of cheese as a dessert and of course paired with right wine it is even better!

Cheese plates really run the gamut depending on the flavor and texture of the cheese being offered. I serve Champagne with a Brie or Camembert, but on the other hand I might go with a Cabernet Sauvignon if I serve the Camembert with a Sharp Cheddar and a "stinky" Blue.
The bottom line in any wine food pairing is that not everyone will enjoy your exact tastes, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't go forward. Never let anxiety rule pairing choices.

Wine Food Pairing with a Wine Sorbet

We are in the dog days of summer and wine food pairing is asking the question ... What can we do that will be tasty and yet refreshing?

Have you considered a wine sorbet? I love the sorbets that you can easily make with fruit, fresh or frozen, a good water source and a little simple syrup and your ice cream maker. What if you add a nice wine to the mix, either white or red and a bit of simple syrup. You know, sugar that has already been dissolved in water and good spring water. Toss all this into the ice cream maker, follow the instructions on the ice cream maker and in just a bit you will have a refreshing sorbet to cool your palate!

What a refreshing afternoon treat or a cooling dessert after your evening BBQ. Wine food pairing experiments in the summer. Let's cool down. CHEERS!

Wine Food Pairing - a Spa-licious Afternoon!

It is a steamy hot summer afternoon and what should a girl do when she thinks about enjoying wine food pairing? How about hopping into the hot tub ...now a non heated tub this time of year and enjoying cool water along with the great backyard view?

I am fortunate because I have a wonderful backyard looking out over Snook Bay right next to the Gulf of Mexico. Our now "cool" tub sits on the screened lanai protected from the brutal Florida buggies... YEAH! OK, enough of the view and on to the drink and eats!

I decided to do cocktail hour in the pool with a freshly made spinach dip. You know the kind you put together with water chestnuts, thawed frozen spinach, sour cream and powdered ranch dressing mix. Hey, I'm not big on cooking in this heat, so this "no cook" dip was just the ticket! I placed multi grain crackers into a basket lined with a cloth napkin and the "eats" were good to go!

For the beverage of choice, well, I decided on chilled champagne, actually sparkling wine. My very fave is Freixenet and the ice bucket worked great in the tub along with the food. You will have to imagine everything floating around in my blow up ring. It works just fine.

Sometimes when it comes to wine food pairing, you have to use your imagination! CHEERS!