Basic Wine Course for Waiters

What does food and wine pairing mean?

You have to choose a wine which characteristics will match perfectly or contrast perfectly with the components of the dish and create a perfect balance for a great dining experience.
That in itself means you have to have a vast knowledge of wine and food.

Now, let’s take a look at which characteristics of the wine and which components of the food we need to pay attention to.

Let’s be honest: a wine has many different characteristics and a dish has a lot of components and we cannot match all of those perfectly! Which are the important ones?

Food characteristics

If you ask Gordon Ramsey he will tell you that the food has more than 20 different tastes (characteristics) but fortunately for the wine pairing we need to focus only on 6 of them!

Salt, Acid, Sweet, Bitter, Fat and Spicy

Wine characteristics

when it comes to wine the things are getting even easier. We have to focus on 3 main characteristics when we try to pair the wine with the food:

Acidity, Sweetness, Bitterness (Tannin) 

Knowing the basics characteristics of the main types of wine will help you a lot with matching the right food and wine.

In general, Red Wine has more tannin and therefore Bitterness.

White and Rose Wines contain more Acidity and the Sweet Wines have more sugar (sweetness).

Now all you need to know is what components of the food define the taste of the dish and then the different types of pairing to start matching food and wine perfectly, right? …hm, not so fast 😊

Unfortunately, with the food, it is not so easy. We have to identify the dominant tastes since they could be more than one. For example, a dish with red meat and a lot of sauce will have two dominant tastes. One from the meat and one from the sauce! In this case, it is better to match the wine with the taste of the sauce than with the taste of the meat.

Here are some basic pairing food and wine techniques:

• Red wine pairs better with red meat
• White wine pairs better with white meat or fish
• The intensity of the wine should equal the intensity of the meal
• The wine should have more acidity than the food
• The wine should have more sweetness than the food
• Fat food pairs best with heavy tannin wines
• The sauce of the meal defies the flavor of the meal better than the meat in it. Match the wine with the characteristics of the sauce
• Better pair red wines with food with similar characteristics (taste) – congruent pairing
• Better pair white wines with food with contrasting characteristics (taste) – contrasting (complimentary) pairing.
• If you have a meal with sauce Bechamel you can create a complementary (contrasting) pairing with a Sauvignon Blanc. The food is creamy and fatty and the wine is high in acidity. You can also create a congruent pairing with nice creamy, low acidity Chardonnay. Both the food and wine have similar characteristics! So, if you have a guest who hesitates between the two wines, you can point to him/her that they both will create a fine pairing but it is recommended for white wine to create complementary pairing and that’s why you will advise the guest to chose the Sauvignon Blanc! And you will score a big point 😊

There are some basic matching tactics:

• Bitterness matches well with Saltiness, Fattiness, and Sweetness
• Acidity matches well with Sweetness, Fattiness, Saltiness
• Sweetness matches well with all other tastes

Before you start pairing food and wine you have to learn the taste every component brings to a certain meal and to identify the intensity of the meal as a whole.

Example: A simple green salad with Italian balsamic vinaigrette will have the bitter taste from the green and the acid from the vinaigrette as the primary taste will be acidity. The balsamic vinaigrette has more intensity than the bitterness in the greens.

You will have to learn and be able to identify the characteristics of the wine. Here are some basic characteristics of the most popular wines you can use to pair wine with food:

Cabernet Sauvignon

– full body, heavy tannin wines that are fruity and have low acidity. Learn more here.

Pinot Noir

– very fruity wines with a light body, light tannin, and high acidity.

Merlot

– medium body wines with red fruit flavors, medium tannins, and medium acidity

Syrah

– full body wines with high acidity and fruitiness and low tannin

Chardonnay

– Medium to full body wines with medium fruitiness, low acidity, and mostly dry ( no sweetness).

Sauvignon Blanc

– Light body wines with high acidity and very fruity. Mostly dry or very low sweetness.

Pinot Grigio

– light body wines with medium acidity, not so much fruitiness but lightly sweet.

There is a lot more to learn about pairing food and wine if you want to go deep into the process but as of right now you have the basics that will help you chose the proper bottle of wine and impress your guests.

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