by Tim Free
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There are several philosophies of choosing wines that pair well with specific foods. I can actually think of 4:
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1. Your favorite wine with everything (not really food and wine pairing)

2. Wines and foods of the same provenance (Tuscan wine with Tuscan food, etc)

3. Contrast pairings (a good example is Stilton cheese with Port)
4. Complement pairings (a good example is Chianti with pastas dressed in tomato sauce)
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The last one is my favorite, because I've figured out how it works, and it can be successful in a very high percentage of cases. Of course, there ARE foods that don't pair well with ANY wine. Through experience, I've learned to recognize most of these, as well.

So, since I believe that complement pairings are the most foolproof, let's see how they work. Knowing a thing is not necessarily the same as being able to teach that thing to others; so I'm attempting to analyze what my mind does when confronted with a food that needs a wine. I'll start by trying to explain something that most of us don't usually think about: that quality of 'intensity' of the food and the wine. Learn this, along with 2 other more 'basic' attributes of food and wine, and you can have successful pairings with wine in the vast majority of opportunities. For wines this characteristic is the integration of body (related to alcohol content, but there are other factors) and flavorful-ness. [Intensity = Body + Flavorful-ness] When you read about food and wine attributes, different authors give these characteristics different names. In their book What to Drink with What You Eat, authors Dornenburg and Page call flavorful-ness 'volume'. Body is sort of like the difference in the weight on your tongue between skim milk and 2% milk. Once you understand the term intensity, you may still have only a theoretical concept in your mind because (unless you already know a lot about wines), you can't look at a wine label and predict the wine's body or flavorfulness. That's why we're publishing the list that you'll see below. So, the next thing you have to cope with is the intensity of food. Consider a chicken breast: it would have a pretty low intensity if you poached it in water, a bit more if you poached it in seasoned chicken broth, but a whole lot more if it were grilled (which introduces carmelization, and maybe smoky flavors) and then topped with a black olive paste. As you get familiar with the concept, and apply it to things that you're eating, you will become more comfortable with this aspect of the process of food-wine pairing. If you can categorize things that you eat relative to their intensity, then you can use the chart below to start making better food and wine pairings, and to experiment with a few wines that you might have been afraid to try previously. Simply try to match the intensities of whatever food you're having with a wine. Give it a shot!

Next we'll continue by discussing one more of the critical food and wine pairing elements: sweetness.
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(Significant variation occurs in almost all wine types)

Note that a full-intensity white wine is about the equivalent for food-pairing of a light-intensity red wine
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WHITE WINES.......................................................... RED WINES

Wine type/grape ...Mostly comes from ......................Wine type/grape ...Mostly comes from

Light Intensity ...............................................................Light Intensity

Frascati ...............(Italy) ...............................................Barbera .................(Italy)

Orvieto .................(Italy) ...............................................Bardolino ..............(Italy)

Pinot Grigio ..........(Italy) ...............................................Beaujolais .............(France)

Rueda (Verdejo) ....(Spain) .............................................Burgundy (Red) .....(France)

Soave ..................(Italy) ...............................................Campo de Borja ......(Spain)

Tocai ...................(Italy) ...............................................Pinot Noir ...............(USA)

Seyval Blanc ........(USA) ..............................................Valpolicella .............(Italy)

Sylvaner ..............(Germany, France) ............................Baco Noir ...............(USA)

Trebbiano .............(Italy) ..............................................Grignolino ................(Italy)

Txacoli .................(Spain)

Vinho Verde .........(Portugal)
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Medium Intensity...........................................................Medium Intensity

Albariño ..............(Spain) ...............................................Cabernet Franc ........(France, USA)

Bordeaux Blanc ...(France) .............................................Chianti .....................(Italy)

Pinot Blanc/Bianco (France, Italy) ..................................Cotes du Rhone .........(France)

Riesling (Germany, Fr, USA) ..........................................Dao .........................(Portugal)

Sauvignon Blanc (France, USA) .....................................Dolcetto ....................(Italy)

Vouvray ..............(France) .............................................Rioja .........................(Spain)
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Full Intensity.................................................................Full Intensity

Chardonnay (USA, France: White Burgundy) ...................Amarone ...................(Italy)

Gewurztraminer (France, USA) .......................................Bordeaux Rouge ........(France)

Hermitage Blanc (France) ..............................................Cabernet Sauvignon ....(USA, etc)

Sémillon (Australia, USA, France) ..................................Chateauneuf du Pape ..(France)

Viognier (USA, France) ..................................................Priorat/Priorato ...........(Spain)
.....................................................................................Ribera del Duero ..........(Spain)
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If you're with me so far, we can now move on to the second most important parameter, sweetness. Here again we need to look closely at both wines and food. "I only drink dry wines" is a common statement given by customers at Mid Valley. Many wines which are sold in our store and others and pretty dry. It's nice to know most people can sense sweetness in wines at levels between 0.5 and 1.0% residual sugar (this is the sugar left over after fermentation, it is almost never sweetness added to wine). Most red wines clock in at 0.2% or less residual sugar. They are quite dry. Many white wines, however, are made with about 0.5% or so residual sugar. This is quite different; but most of these are white wines we'd term as "dry". Also, it's important to remember that some types of wines (most of them white) are traditionally made with some significant residual sugar, say over 1.0%. This is so true of wines made from Riesling (from everywhere, but especially from Germany), that when they are not made in the semi-sweet styles, they are usually labeled "dry" or "trocken" to warn the consumer that the wine may not be what he or she expects when associated with the grape name 'Riesling'.

One thing about "Complement" pairings that is worth mentioning is "when you've analyzed the food, try to match its most important characteristics with the wine you choose". If you've made a chicken salad that contains seedless grapes, it's really going to taste better with a wine that has a little sweetness. The addition of fruit is one way of making a savory dish a bit sweet, but not the only way. Sauces can be sweetened with honey or sugar, etc. Likewise glazes, marinades, or salsas. I'm not advocating sweetening your foods, just warning you that you need to be on the lookout. This is especially true when you're eating food that someone else has made (like the chef at a restaurant) and YOU are responsible for picking the wine.

There are semi-sweet red wines, and of course there is the classic REALLY sweet red wine, Porto or Port. In northern parts of Italy, semi-sweet red wines are often served with simple luncheons that feature cured meats and sometimes cheeses. You might want to give one of these a try, it's not a complement pairing but it does work somehow (it's mostly a Contrast pairing).

Desserts offer an opportunity to explore a wide range of non-dry wines. Not all desserts are very sweet. In Europe, many people eat fruit for dessert. Berries (semi-sweet red wine) and melon (semi-sweet white wine) are good examples of simple desserts that pair well with the right wine. To see if you're getting the hang of this complement pairing concept, try analyzing the following recipe and deciding what type of wine you'd choose to pair with it.

Send us your answer, as general or as specific as you like. We would love to hear from you!

E-mail me at Tim@midvalleywine.com

Ingredients (2 servings)

Butter 1 Tbs …………………………………Pork chops, center cut 2 large

Salt to taste ………………………………….Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Peach halves 1 8-oz can* …………………….Brown sugar (or molasses) 1/8 cup

Cider vinegar 1/8 cup ………………………..Tomato sauce 1 4-oz can

Ground cinnamon 1 tsp ………………………Ground cloves 1/2 tsp

* You can also use (in season) fresh, firm-ripe peaches.

Method:

Heat pan, add butter, and heat until just starting to brown. Add pork chops, brown well, season with salt & pepper, and remove pan from heat. Open peaches and drain, reserving 1/8 cup of syrup (if using fresh peaches, you can use Goya peach nectar/juice instead of this syrup). Place peach halves on top of chops. In a bowl, combine peach syrup, tomato sauce, cider vinegar, brown sugar/molasses, and spices; return chops with peaches carefully to heat, and pour the sauce from the bowl over them. Cover the skillet and simmer for 15-45 minutes, depending on size of chops, until they are just cooked through. Do not overcook or they will be dry and tough. If chops are large, you can interrupt the cooking time to baste them with the sauce. Serve the chops topped with the peach halves and a bit of the sauce.

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Try not to serve a dry wine after a sweet wine (the dry wine will taste harsh or sour). If a non-dry wine must be served before a dry wine, an 'intermezzo' food course (served without wine) is a good idea. Examples: salad, non-sweet sorbets or granites, etc.

Certain vegetables, notably asparagus and artichoke (and probably cardoon) contain a substance known as cynarin. This substance has the effect of making even water taste sweet, and it does the same thing to wine. This is not necessarily a problem if you are aware of the way people will probably respond. Serving these vegetables with fish and lemon juice will probably make an acidic/crisp dry wine taste too sweet to accompany the fish. But serving an omelet containing asparagus might make the sweet taste response a good one, depending on what else is in the omelets and which type of wine you are serving.

For desserts: Go sweeter with wine (if possible). Next we'll talk about why this is important.

The 3rd major wine and food pairing attribute is acidity. I like to think of these three attributes in terms of baseball: Intensity matching gets you "in the ballpark"; sweetness matching gets you to first base; and acidity matching gets you to 3rd base (maybe you stole second base?). Scoring a run involves putting all 3 together.

For starters, all wine is acidic. This is a result of the nature of grapes, and pretty much all fruit- they contain acid. Chemists have developed a convenient way of describing acidity, called pH. The pH range is 0 [very acidic] to 14 [very alkaline]; water, considered neutral, has a pH of 7. So, our typical wine has a pH in the range of 3-4. But if you get involved in tasting very may wines, you will soon find that some seem too 'flat' (lowish acid, or pH around 4) and some seem painfully acidic or sour (pH around 3). In between is the 'comfort range' of wine. Most things we eat also have acidic pH's; they contain acidity. Exceptions include things like baking powder. The trick is to learn how to recognize the more-acidic ingredients. No problem with vinegar or lemon juice, they're acidic, right? What about tomatoes? If these kinds of questions are making you think about what you eat, that's a good thing! If you're pairing a very mild fish (sole, for example) that is simply dressed with fresh lemon juice, you'd want a fairly acidic wine for optimal pairing. Let's review what I have written, and hopefully, what you've learned.

Food: sole (let's say it was poached) with a squirt of lemon juice before serving

Imagine closing your eyes and tasting a bite of this fish, and then trying to analyze it in terms of intensity, sweetness, and acidity.

Analysis: intensity: low (not strongly-flavored or heavy-textured); sweetness: low; acidity: (because of the lemon) high

What kind of wine do we need for a complement pairing?

Choosing from the chart given near the beginning of the article, a low-intensity wine

(remember: whites are lower than reds):

Frascati, Orvieto, Pinot Grigio, Rueda (Verdejo), Soave, Tocai/Friulano, Seyval Blanc, Sylvaner, Trebbiano, Txacoli, Vinho Verde (these are all white wines)

Fortunately, most of these are pretty available from a good wine store, and most are fairly dry (low sweetness), and most have acidities on the high side. So, for this particular exercise, there are lots of available choices. You might prefer one or the other, but almost all of them would pair nicely with the sole.

Last week I also said that for desserts, you should go sweeter with wine (if possible). Remember how sweet a particular dessert was the last time you had it? It almost always will have less acidity than any wine. Wines are made from grapes, a fruit that has naturally high acidity. A pecan pie, for example, won't have very much acidity. Acidity and sweetness act as counterbalances in food. The sweet wine that you may have tasted seemed very sweet COMPARED TO OTHER WINES. But put it in your mouth at the same time that you're chewing a bite of pecan pie, and the sweetness in the wine fades in comparison to that of the pie. All you're left tasting in the wine is its acidity. And that's not a good thing. Why is it worth the trouble to drink dessert wines? They are some of the most profound wines on earth. They are often made in tiny quantities from over-ripe, sometimes shriveled-up grapes. Harvesting is difficult, winemaking is difficult. But these wines are often spectacular.

One additional caution: there might be only one or two wines out there in a good store that can pair with the dessert that you are planning. This reduces your choices.

If you have food-wine pairing questions, I’d love to hear from you. Remember, however, that there ARE some foods that just don’t pair well with wine, any wine.

There are lots of other attributes of food and wine that can affect complement pairings. These are, however, less important than the ones that I’ve described, and practicing what I’ve written about here will get you on your way.

E-mail me at Tim@midvalleywine.com