Magnificent Wine & Food Matches

Here's a simple formula, which I learned in the early '90s from Tim Hanni, Master of Wine and all round cool guy:

• If wine tastes too aggressive, add acidity or salt to the food.
• If wine tastes flat, add sweetness.

Pretty simple!  Different folks have different tastes in wine, of course.  That's the value in condiments.  The same bottle of wine can be made to taste sweeter or drier by the addition of salt, lemon, chutney, ketchup, etc.  Both the wine and the food will be more to your taste, a case of the whole becoming much more than the sum of the parts.

The synopsis of how the 5 basic tastes interact in food & wine pairing:

Sweet increases the perception of sour.  Also of bitter. (The wine will taste drier and less fruity.)

Sour decreases the perception of sour. (The wine will taste more mellow, richer.)

Salt decreases the perception of bitter and sour, and of astringency (actually a tactile sensation, rather than a taste).

Bitter increases the perception of bitter.

Umami behaves much like sweet, increasing  the perception of sour, bitter.

Comments

[Pesce]

The science of taste is fascinating.