There’s nothing we love more than natural wine, besides maybe eating food along with our natural wine! But when it comes to pairing food and wine, it can be hard to know where to begin. To help you get to grips with how to pair your food and wine together, we have created a quick guide to pairing food and wine!
Local Cuisine with Local Wines
If you have no idea how to pair food and wine, don’t worry and more importantly, don’t overthink it! A good way to start is to pair local food with local wines. This is more of a traditional approach to pairing wines, and works best for older wine regions. A good example of this would be pairing Greek food with Greek wine!
Weight, Texture and Flavours
You want to match wine that compliments the flavour of the food you’re eating. A heavier dish like steak goes well with a full-bodied red wine. Lighter foods such as fish go better with lighter white wines.
Or you may have a hot and spicy dish, something that can really overpower your tastebuds. To pair a wine with this, go for a wine with high acidity levels to combat the spice of the food!
Acidity is an important factor to consider for every pairing, you want acidity levels to match so one element isn’t overpowering the other. With meals with high acidic levels being paired with highly acidic wine, and the same goes the other way matching meals with low acidity with food with low acidity.
Contrast Can Work
Although matching wines and acid levels works beautifully, sometimes, a contrasting mix of wine and food can make for an exciting experience. Pair a fatty food with an acidic, tart wine to cut through it.
Pair a sweeter wine with a spicy meal for a vibrant sensation. Although this can be riskier, once you get confident with pairing, you can start to enjoy contrasting flavours.
Easy Pairings
To finish, we’ll give you some food for thought. Here are some easy pairings to consider to start your wine pairing journey:
Put red wines together with rich red meats and fatty meals, like roast lamb or beef. A hearty meal needs a good red to go with it. A lighter red wine is the perfect match for a tomato sauce.
White wine is greater for lighter meals, such as fish, chicken or even cheese plates. Sparkling wine in particular is great with seafood.
Orange wine is where it gets less traditional. These wines go great with food though, including roasted aubergine, nut-based meals and hard cheeses!
Now, it’s time for you to experiment with pairing wines. Head to our shop to see our collection of whites, reds, oranges and more, and check out our events page for upcoming in-store goings on!