Through this post I wish to drive home the following lesson about wines..or shall i say about ‘wine and food pairing’ to be precise. And that is ..”Learn from your mistakes”
During my early days of learning wines i was lucky to receive a timely advice from the Indian wine maestro – ‘the wineguyindia’. And this was ‘if you want to learn wines then taste as many wines as possible’ – simple yet effective technique which I have followed and one which I always recommend to anyone seeking wine advise from me.
By extension, this also applies equally well to the wonderful yet intriguing world of ‘wine and food pairing.
Now, it becomes obvious that when you we tasting as many wines as possible then you will love some and dislike some. Same with the pairing : some ‘food – wine pairing’ will work for you by enhancing the overall experience and others would turn out bad – the proverbial culinary disaster.
Regardless of above, take a note of both. Whereas the perfect pairing will automatically imprint on your mind as a pleasurable sensation, on the other hand the ‘bad food – wine pairing’ will also register in mind with equal prominence.
As a student of wine I soon realised that the bad experience teaches more – what went wrong, what was amiss, how could it be better etc – these questions drive home important wine – food pairing lessons.
The picture displays one example of a bad ‘wine – dessert’ pairing. The wine depicted is a Soave Superior Classico, an amazing white wine from Verona region of North Italy.
Soon after the first few sips I realised the richness of the wine – much due to oak effect and some creamy, nutty, biscuity flavours – which I guessed should be because of ageing on lees. Maybe because of this the tip of my tongue (which contains most of sweet taste buds) got a mild sweet sensation.
This further prompted me to try pairing the wine with the dessert – a rich cheese cake in this case.
The result was a disaster – not only there was no enhancement of flavour but the pairing also destroyed the wine totally by making it appear bland.
Lesson here was one from the ‘first principles’ and that is ‘while pairing wine with a dessert, the wine should be more sweet than the dessert.
So this was a case of a bad pairing choice – a mistake which served to refresh me with the basic principle of ‘wine – food pairing’ – one which I would remember forever.
Do share your own wine – food experience, if they drove home a lesson. Cheers.
PS : do also check out this amazing site for healthy cake recipes..with or without wine- http://www.augustfoods.in/ – spreading yumminess through cakes..