FOOD & DRINK
The perfect match
ONBOARD’s wine guru Brad Mitton runs us through the common sense approach to food and wine matching
FOOD AND WINE Food and wine go well together. The right food enhances the flavours in the wine and wine is the perfect complement for food because of its wide range of flavours, discrete levels of alcohol and its stimulating acid touch. It is difficult to plan a serious meal without thinking of the wine.
WHICH WINES GO WITH WHICH FOOD? The best way to figure out what wines go with what foods is to take the same approach that you take when planning a sit-down dinner. For instance, dinner courses typically include a light appetiser, followed by a fresh salad, then a filling main course and, finally, a rich dessert. Your wine choice should follow the same progression that dinner courses have - light to dark. The more intense the flavour of the food, the more intense the wine should be to balance out the meal. Since there is no wine and food pairing set in stone, evaluate each course separately and decide which wine you think would complement each portion of your meal.
dressing like a Ranch or a Thousand Island. Sauvignon Blanc tilts more to the acidic side of the white wines, so a better match would be a fresh Greek-style salad; one with a little bite in the dressing. For the creamy salad dressings, go for the Chardonnay.
“Since there is no wine and food pairing set in stone, evaluate each course separately and decide which wine you think would complement each course.”
APPETISER Generally, a meal starts with a light and delicate appetiser. Since this first course is usually designed to get the palate perked up, a lighter wine with a crisp, somewhat dry flavour would go extremely well. As an example, consider the light brunch, where champagne is a perfect choice. A white wine, such as Sauvignon Blanc, will do well as the citrus flavours usually complement most appetisers.
SALAD Let’s assume that most salads served as a dinner course start with a bed of mixed greens. If that’s the case, then it is normally wise to consider the type of dressing on the salad to determine the wine pairing. Keeping in mind that the wine type should match the food, you would not pair a Sauvignon Blanc with a creamy
MAIN COURSE Much like the salad, a creamy dish should have a creamy wine while an acidic dish should take the other end of the spectrum. Take most meat dishes for example, like beef or lamb. Since these meats are more of a fatty and flavourful dish, they pair well with big-flavoured wines such as the Cabernets. Pasta dishes with creamy sauce are perfect for the Chardonnay- like wines. Pinot Noir is often eaten with game, however is excellent with salmon. If there are any tendencies in wine pairing, it usually involves fish.
More often than not, fish is served with a crisp white wine because of the way the dish is prepared. Many fish dishes use some sort of citrus in the cooking
process, so it is only natural to have a lighter wine to help accentuate the flavours in the dish. For heavier fish, go with the Chardonnay.
DESSERT
Dessert is, without a doubt, the decadent portion of the meal. Typically, dessert time is the time to splurge on rich and creamy chocolates, and maybe sweet red strawberries. Since these flavours are so rich and deep, you would naturally want to pair them with rich and deep red wines, such as a Cabernet. Sipping on a strong red wine helps to balance out the richness of the dessert without masking any of the flavours of the dish.
With over 25 years of professional experience in the wine industry, Brad Mitton is the founder and owner of Mitton International Wines
www.mittonwines.com
ONBOARD | SUMMER 2022 | 89
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