The basics of pairing wine with food to make you a better cook

Many people are confused and intimidated when it comes to wine. Unfortunately, wine experts have taken a lot of the fun out of enjoying wine and have created this atmosphere. The reality is that wine isn’t just for the upper crust to enjoy, anybody can and should be able to get wine they like and enjoy without the pretension surrounding it.

One of the best ways to get the most out of your wine is to pair it with the right foods. This isn’t as complicated as it may seem. And always remember that the best way to pair wine with food is to simply drink the wine that you enjoy the most whether it follows pairing rules or not.

In this post, we’ll go over some of the basics to remember when it comes to pairing wine with food. However, we repeat, you should feel free to break any of these rules.

Acid is important

The general idea is that you pair red with meat and white with fish or chicken but it does go beyond that. The real thing to consider is the acid of the wine and not so much the colour. You can enjoy a white with meat if you follow a certain guideline.

The basic gist of it is that the acid in the wine should be higher than the food. The classic steak and wine pairing, for instance, works best if you choose a wine that’s going to cut through the richness of a fatty sirloin. Instead of trying to find the biggest and boldest red to go with it, look for something whose acid is going to work well with the meat and whatever sauce you pair with it.

Contrasts work too

Wines can be fruity and sweet as well as being acidic. So, pair a sweet wine with something that’s salty, for instance. Think about what makes Thai food so interesting and you get the idea. Thai food very often uses salty, sour, and sweet in the same dish. You can achieve the same result by pairing your wines in a contrasting fashion with your food.

Let’s take a basic salad as an example. The greens may be a little sweet but the dressing is acidic and salty. Sweet wine like a Riesling is a good way to go so you aren’t overwhelmed with acidity.

Match like with like

There are times when you’ll want to match congruent factors. For instance, if you’re eating a creamy pasta dish with rich flavours you can go with a creamy wine to match. If you don’t like acidic wines, then this will still work well in your favour. For instance, a full-bodied and creamy Chardonnay will go well with a fettuccine Alfredo.

A lobster dish with a butter sauce can also handle the creaminess of a Chardonnay. It more depends on your tastes than with a hard and fast rule about using the acid in the wine to cut through the richness of a dish.

[disclosure*]

Win a personalised bottle of Champagne

This month, we’re pleased to be linking up with Say It With Champers to offer one of our readers a personalised bottle of champagne.

Say it with Champers can provide bespoke bottles of champagne (or mini prosecco) for every occasion. And wouldn’t winning a bottle at the end of this month really hit the spot in the run up to Christmas?!

After the way 2020 has unfolded – we’d all happily lift a glass of fizz on New Year’s Eve to see this unprecedented year out!

Perhaps you, or someone you know, is getting married next year – a personalised bottle of champagne would be a welcome and fitting wedding gift.

If you’re vegan, Say It With Champers has a suitable bottle full of sparkles for you. The brut Neveux-Rousseau produced in Jonquery is available exclusively from the company.

To be in with a shot at winning a personalised bottle of bubbly, comment below saying what you’ve recently celebrated… or hope to celebrate in the near future. It’s as simple as that!

Just UK-based entrants allowed this month and, for obvious reasons, the competition is only open to adults aged 18 and over. Good luck and cheers!

Personalised bottle of Champagne from Say It With Champers

Elderflower champagne

One of the things that I look forward to every summer is going foraging for wild fruit and flowers; blackberries, wild raspberries – it’s food for free! Right now – mid-June – we’re coming to the end of the elderflower season. I’m making something that I’ve only made once before… elderflower champagne.

Because we’ve been living in rural Wales for less than a year, we’ve not yet got to know all the best local foraging spots. We set out on a walk last week to go in search of elder shrubs. It took us about half an hour to come across the first one… but where there’s one, there are always more! It’s always best to not completely strip a shrub of its flowers, take a few sprigs from a number of them – leave some behind for the insects and to allow the flowers to develop into elderberries for the birds… and to use in elderberry recipes!

Once you have your flowers, all you need is a few lemons, white sugar and yeast. Wine and champagne yeast as easy to get hold of online or at some hardware stores. Wine yeast differs from the type that you use to make bread in that it can withstand higher levels of alcohol.

Some other recipes I looked at recommend adding yeast nutrient which nourishes the yeast and aids in the fermentation process.

The recipe makes 8 litres of champagne, so you’ll need a large pan or bucket that can hold that amount of liquid – I used my jam-making pan (that was just about big enough) but a spotlessly clean plastic bucket would be a good option too. You’ll also need enough sterilised bottles to store it all.

Although the recipe I used recommends using 2-litre plastic bottles (for safety reasons), I used glass bottles with swing-top corks. There’s a danger of bottles exploding if excess carbon dioxide builds up, so I carefully released the gas every day during the fermentation process.

Serve it ice-cold – this also helps to avoid the contents frothing over on opening the bottle. A lovely, floral alternative to sparkling wine or spritzer.

Click here or on the image below to save this elderflower champagne recipe to Pinterest

Elderflower champagne

Great British Chefs

Print recipe Pin recipe

Course Drinks

Cuisine British

Ingredients

15 sprigs fresh elderflowers
2 litres boiling water
6 litres water
1 kg sugar
3 lemons peel sliced off in strips
5 g white wine or champagne yeast

Instructions

Clean the elderflower heads, removing any dead flowers, cobwebs and insects
Dissolve the sugar in 2 litres of boiling water, then cover and set aside until cool
Once the sugar syrup has cooled to room temperature, pour it into a large, clean 10 litre container. Add the rest of the water, the lemon peel, the juice from 1 of the lemons, the elderflowers and the champagne yeast. Give the mixture a good stir, cover with a muslin cloth and leave to ferment at room temperature for 3-4 days. Give it a little stir every day – you'll notice it starting to fizz and bubble as the fermentation process begins
For this next stage, you'll need 4 - 2-litre plastic screw top bottles and a funnel. It's recommended to use plastic bottles as the fermentation process produces carbon dioxide, which is what makes your 'champagne' sparkling but can also make bottles explode. The plastic bottles (as opposed to glass ones) have a little give so can expand a little, plus the screw-top lid isn't as airtight as a cork
Pass the champagne through a muslin cloth, then decant into the bottles using a funnel. Tightly screw on the lids. The second stage of fermentation occurs in the sealed bottles and is what gives your champagne its fizz; carbon dioxide builds up and has nowhere to go, so it lies in wait for when the bottle is opened, causing that rush of bubbles. As mentioned, this can cause bottles to explode, so even though using plastic bottles minimises the risk, it's still safe to store them in a cool dry place like an outdoor shed or garage. Placing something over the bottles such as a cardboard box is a good idea to reduce the sticky mess if one does burst
Leave the bottles for another few days, checking each day and carefully opening each lid to let some of the gas escape if needed. After a couple of days, the second fermentation should have finished, but storing them in a cold room or the fridge will stop the fermentation completely

Keyword elderflower, elderflowers, forage

Price Points: Wine racks

If you’re anything like us, wine doesn’t last long enough in the house to warrant a wine rack! Besides, we’ve previously always lived very close to shops – and usually only bought a bottle or two as and when we’re going to drink it. Perhaps with our new, more rural location, this item might become more essential for us.

However, what I do use wine racks for is my annual summer batch of elderflower cordial. Each late May/early June, I pick the wild, fragrant blooms to make cordial and occasionally champagne. So long as the cordial contains added citric acid and is stored in properly sterilised bottles, it will last until the following summer, when production happens all over again.

These are 3 of my favourite wine racks; I like each for different reasons. Starting with the IKEA model – it’s really cheap, yet is made of solid wood, so can be stained or painted to match your décor. In addition, it’s stackable, so it can be built to suit your space and/or bottle collection.

Number 2 is unobtrusive and minimalist; it’s made of thin black wire with hexagonal slots (a shape that gives a structure maximum strength in minimum space – think honeycomb). It gives the appearance of the bottles hovering in mid-air.

The final example has been designed to resemble a wooden wine box and can hold more bottles than the previous two. If this is your favourite of the trio, it would be a match made in heaven if your name also happens to be Chloé!

HUTTEN 9-bottle wine rack, solid wood: £8.00, IKEA
Black metal bottle rack: £33.00, Maison du Monde
Vinothek 12-bottle wine rack: £39.99, Wayfair

shop wine racks

Some of the links on our blog are affiliate links. We may receive a small commission - at no cost to you - if you click through and make a purchase.
Prices & links correct at time of publication.