Food and wine pairing, as a conscious act, is something relatively new in society. Food and wine pairing refers to the effort, and in fact the refined skill, in matching foods and wines and wine brands in a way that results in a pleasurable dining experience.

The whole idea of food and wine pairing is somewhat amusing if you

remember that wine was at one time was not considered something special like it is today. In older, classic societies wine was just what people drank. Nobody knows how it would compare to today’s wines. Certainly some of it was better than others.

But still……. It’s what people drank before there were such commercial beverages as Coke, iced-tea, energy drinks and homogenized milk.

The pairing of wine with food probably is something new because people in these older cultures didn’t have the variety of diet that many people have today. They didn’t have the luxury or option of choosing one wine or one food over another.

But we do so………. Here we are.

Today’s idea of wine and food pairing focuses on one particular aspect of foods and wines….. The ‘weight’. This ‘weight’ factor is further divided into ‘texture’ and ‘flavor’. Certain foods and certain wines are considered to be either light or heavy in weight. There’s a ‘medium’ in there somewhere too.

‘Matching’ prescribes that light wines go with light foods and heavy wines go with heavy foods. Pretty simple really. However the reality of the matter is that there’s a substantial degree of subjectivity involved in one’s preference for one wine brand over other wine brands.

What might be considered ‘a perfect match’ by one taster might not be considered so by another. But at least it makes jobs for some people in very fancy restaurants.

Here are some examples of these food and wine characteristics as commonly accepted:

Cabernet Sauvignon is generally considered to be a heavy or robust wine. As such, one would generally not take it with something like quiche which is generally considered a ‘light’ food. Similarly a food dish as heavy and robust as stew could not be properly served with a light bodied wine like Pinot Grigio.

Connoisseurs of this subject also like to discuss such things as the acid, alcohol, tannin and sugar concentrations in wine and how they relate enhance, or not, certain types of foods.

One of the most common occasions when people get together to practice their wine pairing and wine tasting skills is in cheese and wine tastings. And sometimes they’ll just forget the cheese and go for the wine tasting. Cheese is for mice anyway, right? 🙂

It’s an interesting subject if you’ve got the time and money. But the bottom line as always is personal preference. There are actually wine paring clubs where people get together for wine tastings and to discuss the finer points of their preferences and opinions.