Find the Perfect Wine to Compliment your Cuisine

Wine is an extremely popular drink nowadays and more and more of us are drinking it with the food we cook. But, this can bring up a problem or two along the way. It might be real easy for a wine expert to find the perfect bottle to match a meal but how do we do it?

After all, if you go along to your local store you’ll be faced with all kinds of types of wine to choose from. So, do you splash out on a fine red wine, buy a budget white wine or even look at a vintage bottle of champagne?

Read on through our introductory guide and your worries will be over – we’re about to give you an idea of which wines go with which food so you can just get on with drinking them!

White Wines

Most people prefer to pair up a white wine with lighter food. So, you could find the perfect combination here with white meats such as chicken and pork, with light salads or with fish and seafood. The key here is not to drink a wine that might overwhelm the tastes you are getting from your meal – for most of us a white wine will give the light crispness that we need.

Red Wines

Red wines are generally held to best match up with heavier or more substantial meals. So, you could, for example, try red wine with lamb, beef and tuna. Many vegetarians like a nice bottle of red with their food as well. Red wines are generally of a fuller body than white wines so they can hold their own with strong flavors.

Dessert/Sweet Wines

These types of wine are – as you can imagine – best suited to be eaten with desserts and puddings. Funnily enough, mixing a sweet dessert with a sweet wine really does work.

Champagne

Which is the best food to drink with champagne? Any food! Go to a formal wine tasting and the expert might tell you that champagne isn’t really a wine that should be drunk with food. The truth is – if you like it and can afford it – then you can drink it any time you like!

The key thing to remember with wines when you are looking to pair them with food is that you should make the ultimate decision on the bottle you buy yourself. The guidelines of keeping white wine for light foods and red wines for heavier foods works fine – but if you find a white wine you love and you want to have it with steak then go ahead!

Planning the perfect wine and cheese party

A wine and cheese party is the perfect way to entertain guests. You get all the fun of having people round and feeding them food and drink without the formality that often goes with the dinner party.

A good wine and cheese or cocktail party will be a fantastic social event – so how should you best arrange it? The first thing to do is to work out how many people are coming. This will help you plan how much wine and how much cheese to buy.

There’s nothing worse than running out of food mid-way through the party – unless of course you are left with three refrigerators full of cheese once all your guests are gone! So, get your numbers right and you’ll get your wines, appetizers and other stuff right at the same time.

The key thing with this kind of cocktail party is not to over face your guests – so serving a tray of hors d’oeuvre or an entrée works well. This way they can eat in small bursts and still mingle and chat.

If you want to make a real impact then put some thought into the wine and cheese you’ll be serving. Try new stuff and stuff that is slightly more exotic than the norm and you’ll create a talking point for your guests as well as giving them nice food to eat.

But, remember a lot of people have quite conservative tastes – especially when it comes to cheese – so you’ll need to cater for them too. And, some people don’t like cheese at all – so, even if you’re having a wine and cheese party rather than a general cocktail party, make sure that they have some hors d’oeuvres to nibble on as well!

It’s real important – especially where cheese is concerned – to get your wines right as well. Pair the wrong wine with the wrong cheese and you really will leave your guests with a nasty taste in the mouth!

As a rule of thumb, most people will enjoy a crisp white wine such as a Chardonnay, a Riesling or a Sauvignon Blanc with soft cheeses such as Brie, goat’s cheese and blue cheeses such as Stilton. This combination ensures that the strong taste of the cheese isn’t overpowered in the mouth by the wine and vice versa.

Conversely, many people will pair up red wines with hard cheeses such as Cheddar, Gouda and Jarlsberg. So, try a Beaujolais, a Rioja or a Cabernet here. The mix of hard cheese and red wine really does seem to work well.

Eating cheese is one of the few times when a sweet wine will suit the majority of people as it reacts real well in the mouth with the taste of the cheese. And, of course you can always simply serve champagne if you like!

One key thing to remember here is that you can always serve both red and white wine and leave your guests to decide which suits them best – we all have different likes and dislikes after all. If you’ve provided the right kinds of wines to match your cheeses then you won’t go far wrong in the end.

So, all that you have to do now is wait for your guests to arrive, choose the right music and have a good time. After all, the best parties are always those where the host has a good time too!