Overcoming Pair-a-Phobia
Do you find yourself traumatized by “pair-a-phobia”, the fear of wine pairing? The overwhelming diversity of selection, stunning range of prices, and complication of choosing the right wine leave far too many people saying “just give me a beer”.
Of all the uniquely American behaviors that people in Europe find odd, probably our fear of choosing the right wine is the one they think is most bizarre. When you grow up where wine has always been part of the local culture, it’s just what you drink with your meals. Worrying about choosing the right wine would be like having an anxiety attack over choosing between Diet Coke, Coke Zero or Diet Pepsi.
I certainly understand the origins of this fear. The Focus OIV 2017 from the International Organization of Vine and Wine says there are over 10,000 different grapevine varieties. There are people who spend their lifetime working their way up levels of certification of wine expertise, with only a handful of heralded individuals reaching the upper echelons. And there are countless treatises written about proper wine and food pairing - some even called a bible (https://www.amazon.com/Wine-Bible-Karen-MacNeil/dp/0761180834). Surely it must be overwhelmingly complicated to get the right pairing. For this, I have three words: piffle, twaddle and taradiddle.
Just as those three words themselves are unnecessarily complicated and pretentious, so are all these systems for choosing the right wine. I will admit, I love the complexity and diversity in the world of wine. In my career as an agronomist, I traveled extensively and enjoyed wine tasting at hundreds of wineries in more than a dozen countries, in addition to being a winemaker myself. In my opinion, there are just a few simple guidelines to follow:
Drink good wine with good food.
“Good wine” is what you like. Period. No right or wrong there.
Keep in mind what you like isn’t stagnant. It changes with your mood and the mood of the situation. Are you eating pizza and wings watching football on TV, or celebrating your wedding anniversary at a fine dining restaurant?
What you like will evolve so TRY NEW THINGS. You won’t know what you like if you don’t.
Balance. Don’t let the wine overpower the food or the food overpower the wine. This one does require you to know some wine basics. Just like food, wine ranges from delicate and subtle to complex and intense.
Most of us will only have one wine during a meal, so pair it with the star of the meal - usually the main course. If the first course will be much lighter than the main course, you should probably drink something other than the main course wine. It’s common in Europe to have a white wine or beer at the start of the meal and switch to a red for the main course. I find there are three things that can guide you on predicting how complex and intense a wine will be before you even taste it: what variety, from where, and how much does it cost, in that order.
White wines are almost always lighter and less intense than red wines. Among the white wines you will most likely encounter, Chardonnay is the intense end of the scale, and Muscadet and Chenin Blanc would be the light end. There is a very wide range of intensity in red wines. Cabernet Sauvignon, Tannat, Petit Sirah and Syrah are the big hitters; while Gamay and Pinot Noir are refined and delicate. Everything else would likely be between these extremes.
“New World” wines tend to be fruitier and more intense than “Old World” wines of the same variety. What does that mean? Think of “Old World” as Europe and “New World” as California and Argentina. The intense sunshine and low rainfall of those “New World” locations result in intensely flavored grapes which make intensely flavored wines.
More expensive wines tend to be more intensely flavored than less expensive of the same variety from the same region.
With just those simple rules you can predict that a $200 bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley in California is going to be a powerful punch to the palate, and will go best with rich, intensely-flavored food like a dry-aged steak. Personally, I wouldn’t drink that wine with a broiled filet of sole. For that I would consider a Chablis (which is Chardonnay) or Pinot Noir from Burgundy, leaning toward the lower end of the price scale.
I know these simple rules haven’t yet cured you of that phobia, but hopefully we are getting started. For the rest of this series, I am going to make it even easier, with straightforward answers to “what should I drink with…?”. In the meantime, do yourself a favor. Stop in your local wine shop. Pick an aisle. Choose a random number and go that many wines down the aisle you chose. Grab that wine, if it is in your price range. If it isn’t, just go down the aisle a bit further to the next one that is. Buy it and have it with your next dinner. You’ll feel that pair-a-phobia starting to melt away.
