Pairing food with Charity Wines for Your Next Event

One of the many reasons people love wine is that the right wine can make a great dish even better. Combining food an alcohol has always been popular. And truth be told, if you don't know any better, just being able to choose red or white is enough for a functional pairing and will almost never ruin the meal. But a deliberate and high quality wine pairing is one of the best pleasures in life. If you're looking at California wines for an important meal or considering buying charity wines for a big dinner, you can get a wine advisor to help make the right choices based on the intended menu. But for those who aren't ready for that level of complexity, it is also effective to identify the flavor ranges of the food and then find wines that are known to compliment those flavors. This is easier, and gives you a little more flexibility to choose the right price for your budget as well.

For the average palette, wine can only do one of three things for food. It either improves the flavor of the dish by complimenting them, doesn't really interact with the food at all and is just a separate flavor experience, or counteracts those flavors and makes the meal less delicious and potentially even makes it unenjoyable. Obviously, this last possibility would be the worst, but almost anyone who sells wine can help point you in the right directly to avoid ruining a good meal. However, if you want to do better than just find a nice California wine that won't ruin your meal, you need to think about the wine as an ingredient in the meal and then consider different food and wine options in terms of flavor groupings.

Certain pairings obviously are better together than others. To figure them out, you should start by identifying the characteristics of the meal that will point you to the right selection. The most important axes to use for grouping are the strength of the flavors, how heavy or oily the food or flavor is, and whether it is sweet or tart. If the wine or food is significantly stronger than the other, it will overshadow the flavors and dominate the palette. Food tends to be strong, middling, or delicate in flavor. Wine's strength usually depends on its tannin and alcohol content.

If the wine is a heavy red, it will work well with an oily heavy dish like steak. If the weight of the wine is below that of the food, it won't be able to cut through that oiliness to bring out any extra flavor. Similarly, a sweeter wine will usually conflict with a tart or very savory dish. These three types of flavor groupings all suggest matching flavor. This approach is most appropriate for people with less wine experience, as it's easier to apply. Although the result won't always be the best pairing, it will always be good enough.

There are experts who work with a finer, more detailed approach than matching, and some foods actually benefit from contrasting flavors to help cut through their strongest characteristic. In these circumstances, such as with rich cream sauces or very spicy foods, the right wine will have an acidity that can reset taste buds so every bight is more enjoyable. If you're serving one dish that is much stronger than the others and want to help people enjoy all the separate flavors, you can look into this kind of contrasting wine with the help of an experienced wine salesman.

The final point to remember is that many classic dishes have traditional pairings, and it's hard to go wrong with these proven options. And if you want to try new California wines to be a bit different, for example, it's not too hard to do some research about the specific food you're serving to get an idea of what flavors should be complimented and what types of wines will do that.

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