Pairing your meals with the right wine is a skill. This complex marriage of flavors can leave your taste buds singing and enhance the flavor of the food you’re enjoying. The ingredients that make your beverage and meals contain unique flavor profiles that you can only appreciate once you hit the perfect note.
While this activity may seem sophisticated and something you would do at a high-end social gathering, wine pairing is a fun hobby you can indulge in at any time. Whether you have your family over for brunch, want to dive into a cheese dish, or wind down with a cozy dinner, you can always pull out the wine. So here are some foods and beverages that work together:
- Strawberry Wine and the Dessert Tray
Strawberries are the ultimate romantic snack. Their small, compact size and tarty taste make them a staple in the dessert world. However, for those who have a big sweet tooth, there is another way to enjoy strawberries as a treat. This fruit can get reduced into wine.
Once it is in liquid form, you can pair your strawberry wine with various desserts. These include delicacies like cheesecake, chocolate mousse, and panna cotta. Top-quality strawberry wine is sweet but not sugary and has a lovely fragrance. Make sure you serve it chilled to bring out the fruity punch and consume it with a dessert of your choosing.
- The Creamy Pasta Affair and White Wine
Who can deny the appeal of deliciously prepared pasta? While there are various types of pasta you can cook, nothing beats the combination of a creamy Alfredo with a glass of white wine. Pasta cooked in creamy sauces is both rich and Reagan an earthy tone. The Italian herbs and green veggies add depth to the dish and cut through white wine’s dryness, giving you a neutral-tasting beverage. Make sure you don’t have a salad with acidic vinaigrette dressing with your pasta since this can make your wine bitter. If you’re looking for a flavored white wine, try the Pinot Grigio.
- A Meat Lover’s Feast and Red Wine
Meat has a unique texture. Depending on the cut and type of meat you’re going for, you may be met with an explosion of sweet and salty flavors. Meat is also dehydrated, so it needs to be paired with a moist companion. In these cases, sweet reds are excellent in balancing the meat’s saltiness and giving it a more earthy palette. Red wines are slightly fruity and have a high acidic content that cuts through the protein and the fatty content, allowing you to savor the spices used to curate the meat.
If you plan on having a sausage pizza, hot dog, or a burger, you better get yourself a Lambrusco Dolce. Italian sausages, in particular, are very dry but bring out the flavor of the meat once cooked. When you sip your wine with your meat item, you can feel the lingering smoky aftertaste, making you drool for more.
- The Fried Cheese and Dry Red
Greasy food and deep-fried meals can be the ultimate comfort food. When you’re not in the mood to grill or slow-cook your dinner, you can deep-fry your favorite meals and have them with a glass of dry red. So if you want mozzarella sticks, cheese curds, or fried Havarti nuggets, you need to uncork a delicious dark red drink. When you fry cheese, you burn down the fats and calorie content, making the dish more velvety, creamy, and tastier. The exterior of your item is also much crispier, best enjoyed with a highly acidic, fruity, and dry drink such as prosecco.
- The Lobster’s Best Friend
There is nothing better than a fresh lobster cooked to perfection. The succulent white meat, soaked in buttery goodness topped with a dash of lemon, beats every other seafood on the menu. When choosing a drink that goes with your lobster dish, you need to find a beverage that can balance the sweet, brine flavor that this sea creature retains after getting boiled. That is why light and fresh drink like white wine is the most suitable contender in the list of alcoholic drinks.
Acidic notes and the soft meat of the lobsters go well together. So try a dry white wine like Riesling, which is both aromatic and sparkling to taste. Avoid drinks that leave an oak and woody flavor since that can make the meat taste muddy.
Final Thoughts
Food and drinks that complement each other are a match made in heaven. The ingredients can dance in your mouth and produce a flavor profile that you can smell, taste, and feel. You need to be careful when pairing your meals with wines. These beverages can be sweet and bitter depending on the acid content of the fruit. If you don’t know how to balance the sweet with the sour, you will ruin the taste of your dish and waste a delicious drink. Strawberry wine and desserts are best friends.
The tartness of the fruit is most enjoyable with the sugar in the desserts, making it the ideal choice for a sweet tooth. On the other hand, if you have a creamy and rich dish like pasta that is soaked in dairy goodness, you need white wine to mingle with the texture. Meat is salty and dry, so only red wines can bring out the taste from the fat and protein, leaving behind a smoky residue. If you enjoy deep-fried snacks, then pull out a dry red wine that can make the velvety cheese taste more hearty. Finally, if you love lobsters and want a drink that can bring out the softness of the meat soaked in butter, you need a dry white.
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