The taste of wine is best disclosed not by itself, but accompanied by suitable products. Thus, before buying wines for a feast, think about how they will be combined with the prepared dishes.
Pick your recipe
Basic rules for the selection of wines
The first principle is: a simple wine is suitable for a simple dish. For example, for a steak without additional additives, an ideal accompaniment would be a simple dry red or semi-dry wine of short aging. For more complex dishes with a conflicting taste and lots of spices, brighter wines are also required.
In a good restaurant, select a sommelier for wine selection - he will tell you the perfect solution based on stocks in the cellar of the establishment.
Try to select local wine for local dishes. Exceptions may exist, for example, if there is no winemaking in a particular region, but if wines are produced, they often become the best additions to local dishes.
Also take into account the serving time of each wine during the meal. It is recommended to start with a simpler but better drink. Save the best wine for the main course. For cheese or dessert, you have the opportunity to maneuver - you can end the dinner with a simpler wine or change the type of drink. For example, if you served red wines with appetizers and a hot dish, end the dinner with pink or white.
Please note that such recommendations are conditional. You can focus on your taste and preferences, as wine tasting is a very subjective area.
The specifics of individual varieties of wine
Care should be taken to serve sweet wines, such as sauternes. They are not combined with all products. Sweet wines will reveal their taste well with dishes with a rich taste or a lot of spices, for example, meat with curry sauce, lamb roast with herbs. Sweet wines are also good in combination with pastes, such as foie gras. At the same time, do not serve sweet wine with desserts with lots of sugar. For a dessert with cream or sweet fruit, brut champagne might be the perfect complement.
Cheeses are best combined with white wines. This is especially true for goat cheese and young soft blue cheese - camembert and brie. From French drinks, these dishes are perfectly complemented by a glass of St-Émilion wine.
There is an opinion that red meat is more suitable for meat, and white wine is more suitable for fish. This is not always true. Pork will go well with white Chablis, and very bright and rich red Spanish wines are suitable for some varieties of fish.
In rare cases, wine should not be served with a dish, but separately from food. This applies to the most expensive collection drinks, as well as to wines of more than twenty years of aging. However, most likely, only a professional will be able to get special pleasure from these wines.
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