A Quick & Easy Guide to Wine and Food Pairings
Do you find it hard to find the best wine to pair with your favorite food? Here’s a no-brainer wine pairing guide for quick wine and food pairings.
Intoduction
There’s no doubt wine has a place on the table. Wine makes any meal much more exciting! The right wine can make the food taste better, and it works the other way around as well.
Food and wine pairing is no hard science, though; there’s lots of room for experimentation. Having said that, there are some rules or guidelines for successful wine and food pairings. Here a wine pairing guide with some of the most popular types of food, of course, with recommendations from the intuitive PairME Wines catalogue.
How to Pair Wine with Salads?
Salads come in all colors, flavors and sizes, but they’re all light and, more often than not, healthy. Leafy greens, veggies, fresh cheese and even grilled chicken and tuna can be part of a tasty salad. The result is always a lovely light lunch and the perfect starter at dinner.
To pair wine with salads, you need a young, refreshing wine; make it white or rosé. These wines are acidic, so they can tackle even the tangiest of salad dressings. Remember, light food goes best with young, light-bodied wine.
Wine and food pairing to try:
PairME’s ‘The Wine for Summer Salads’ with kale, cranberry and goat cheese salad.
How to Pair Wine with Pizza?
There are many types of pizza, but they all have a few things in common, including a tangy tomato sauce. Tomatoes can be pleasantly sweet when ripe, but they’re also acidic, and that makes pizza and any other tomato-based dish compatible with red wine with high acidic levels — that’s precisely what Italian reds are.
A lovely red wine made with Sangiovese or Montepulciano truly shines when served with pizza, notably if topped with hearty and meaty toppings like sausages, black olives and mushrooms.
food and wine pairing to try:
PairME’s ‘The Wine for Pizza’ - Montepulciano d’Abruzzo with a veggie pizza topped with bell peppers, olives, roasted onions and mushrooms.
How to Pair Wine with Seafood?
Seafood and fish call for white wine, as the tannins in red wine can taste metallic when combined with oily fish. And just like all types of fish and seafood benefit from a splash of lemon juice, a refreshing white wine livens the seafood with its tangy taste and citrusy aromatics.
The most refreshing white wine in the French repertoire comes from the Loire Valley, and it’s made with the Melon de Bourgogne grapes. Sea-scented and crisp, this is best type of wine for fish and seafood.
food and wine pairing to try:
PairME’s ‘The Wine for Seafood’ with pan-fried garlic shrimp, mussels or scallops.
How to Pair Wine with Steak?
For the heartiest and boldest meals, like a thick, fatty steak, you must bring out the big guns, and that means robust red wine. Red wine has tannins, gritty particles that cause a drying sensation in your mouth. Tannins bind with fat and proteins in meat for a delightful experience.
Cabernet Sauvignon is the ultimate grape for red meat, especially when blended with the spicy and equally robust Syrah. There’s nothing like an inky red wine for a steak dinner.
food and wine pairing to try:
PairME’s ‘The Wine for Steak’ and a grilled rib-eye, sirloin or any other fatty steak.
What Are Your Favorite Pairings?
We hope you find the tips above helpful, and if you’re ever in a tight spot, pair the wines you love with your favorite food; that’s a happy pairing right there!
Food and wine pairings are much better when shared with friends and family, so call some friends over, order your favorite Pair Me Wines, put together a lovely dinner and have a wonderful time around the table. Wine is noble like that, and now you can pair it with your favorite food fast and easy!