When it comes to wine pairings, it’s important to understand the wine you’re serving and the flavors of the food you’re serving with it. A wine pairing can make or break a dining experience.
Here’s what you should ideally avoid when deciding on wine pairings.
Pairing Spicy Food with Wine with High Alcohol Content
It’s common knowledge that spicy foods and wine pairings are a challenging endeavor. Most wines do not taste great with spicy food and end up ruining the whole meal. But the only way the situation could worsen is if the wine in question has high-alcohol content.
The strong alcoholic characteristics will clash with the spices in the food, confusing your palate—you won’t be able to enjoy the food or the wine. Instead, try a low-alcohol white wine with spicy food. If it’s chilled, it’ll help you bear the spices.
Not Matching Wine Intensity with The Intensity of The Food Flavors
This is a common pairing mistake people make, and it’s the easiest to avoid. As a general rule of thumb, you should always pair stronger wines with stronger flavors and lighter wines with more delicate food options. For instance, if you have fish as the main course, it wouldn’t make sense to serve it with cabernet sauvignon; sauvignon blanc might pair better.
The strongest wines should be paired with heartier meals like smoked meat, BBQ’d food, strong cheeses, and so on.
Not Picking Wine That’s Sweeter Than Your Dessert
Desserts and wines have a chemistry similar to apple and cinnamon, i.e., irresistible and intoxicatingly good. But not all wines will offer the same effect when paired with your favorite dessert.
This is another common mistake people make when pairing wine. Assuming that the sweetness of the desserts needs to be countered somehow, they pick a less sweet wine. What’s better, though, is to find a wine with a higher sugar content than the dessert—this will help create a more balanced taste overall.
Believing That You Can Only Pair One Specific Wine with A Dish
We’ll be the first to admit that the wine world and culture can occasionally be a bit rigid. There are too many dos and don’ts and rights and wrongs. As a result of these wine rules, you may end up thinking there’s only one right wine for any given dish.
This isn’t necessarily true. Most dishes can be paired with several different wines and offer various amazing experiences. For example, Cabernet Sauvignon is great with steak, but Tannat, Merlot, and Malbec aren’t too bad either. At the end of the day, it’s all a matter of personal preferences.
Not Going with Your Instincts
Speaking of personal preferences, it would be a dire mistake not to go with your instincts when it comes to wine pairings. Experts have a lot of opinions regarding wine pairings, but that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to have opinions of your own.
There’s always room for more combinations and a bit of eccentricity when it comes to wine and food—feel free to follow your instincts and discover new pairings!
Also, if you’d like to try some new wines, you can order some at Augusta Vin. We’re a Texas Winery offering red and white wines in Texas, along with other amazing experiences for wine lovers.
