Great wine & food

The older I get, the more I appreciate good food and wine, especially when shared with great friends. I love to go to wine tastings and learn all about food & wine pairings. It’s amazing what a difference the right pairing can make in your dinner.

Recently, my husband and I attended a wine and food pairing class at III Forks. It was taught by two well-known sommeliers who gave us some great tips for selecting the right wine for certain foods–everything from lobster to popcorn!

Here are a few of the tips we learned from Devon Broglie, Sommelier at Whole Foods, and Craig Collins, wine rep for Prestige Wines.

• Weight needs weight; intense needs intense
• Salty foods need high acidity wines
• Fish loves high acid and hates high tannin
• Spicy foods need a sweeter wine
• Fatty foods like steaks need high tannin wines
• Pair oaky wines with fatty foods
• High alcohol accentuates the flavor of foods; don’t over-do the alcohol content when pairing with heavier, bolder foods
• Pair fatty fish with high-acid whites
• Do not pair fish with high-tannin wines; they bring out the bitterness in the fish oil
• When in doubt and you want a red, choose a Pinot Noir
• Dessert wine should always be sweeter than the dessert itself
• Good idea to match food & wine regions
• Sparkling wine is as versatile as Pinot Noir
• If your entree has a sauce, pair to the flavors of the sauce

Classic pairings:

• Steak & Cabernet
• Beef & Malbec
• BBQ & Rose’ or Zinfindel
• Goat Cheese & Sauvignon Blanc
• Thai or Cajun & Reisling
• Sushi & Saki, Barbera, Pinot Noir or Italian Whites
• Duck & Pinot Noir
• Potatoes & Pinot Noir, especially fries!
• Lobster & Chardonnay
• Popcorn & Chardonnay

Regarding decanting:

• The bigger & younger the wine, the earlier you want to decant it
• Old wines might disintegrate with too much time & air, so don’t decant
• Narrow wine decanters are used to get the sediment out
• Wide decanters get more oxygen to the wine and are better for young, big wines

There are more sulfites in a glass of OJ or a salad than in a glass of wine. So if you don’t get a headache from drinking OJ, you likely won’t get one from drinking wine.

Choose Pinot Noirs from New Zealand.

Warwick Estates in Stellenbosch, South Africa produces some of the best Sauvignon Blanc.

Here are a couple of good websites for answers to your wine questions.

http://www.wineanswers.com/default.aspx

http://www.drinkwine.com/index.html

Enjoy!