So you are in a restaurant with a date, or worse, with the future parents in law... or maybe you are in a bar with your friends and the waiter asks you what wine to serve with that steak and all that comes to your mind is that everyone is staring at you?

So here are some SIMPLE rules, which will help you to learn to match food and wine!

To understand how to match wine and food, let me first throw in a few words about wine

“Beer is made by men, wine by God.”
― Martin Luther

Wine is an alcoholic beverage (dough!) made from grapes;

It's modern history dates back to ancient Rome (although the wine the Romans drunk, we probably wouldn't be able to handle today... let me just say they used to dilute the stuff 1 to 8)

Some date wine as old as 8000 years old!

But we did not gather here for a history lesson =)

To put it down simple, wine can be divided into the following categories:

• Color (White / Red / Rose...)
• Amount of sugar and alcohol (Dry / Brut / Semi-Dry / Sweet and many others)
• Type (Table wine / Desert wine / Ice wine / Sparkling wine / Champagne and so on)
• Geographical indication (those strange letters you see DO, DOC, IGT and many more...)
  
  

Of course there are many other things like the "body" of the wine and learning to smell and to taste the wine.

Just remember, that wine likes to be appreciated, so when you drink it, try to understand the taste that you are getting (a great life hack is to simply look on the description of the bottle after you tasted it), it will help you to understand it much more.

If you would like to know more about this, I will write about it in the future, so be sure to follow my blog.

So, we are back to those simple rules I promised earlier on!

“Wine makes all things possible.”
― George R.R. Martin

• White wine is served chilled and goes well with white meat - fish, prepare yourself to be amazed (!), chicken breast, pork meat, and YES that beats the terrible believe that meat only goes with red wine!

• Red wine is served at room temperature (that's not meaning its warm! It is also slightly chilled!) And goes well to accompany red meat, that is - beef, duck, lamb, prepare yourself once again, salmon (!) (Here only light bodied red wines go well, without going deep into details, just remember that they have to be under 12.5% alcohol)

• The heavier the food you eat, the heavier the wine should be (in terms of alcohol and body)

• Red wine and fortified wine goes fantastically well with cheese (apart from goat cheese, it goes better with white wine) and fruits like cherries or strawberries

• Desert wine and fruit wine goes with desert and fruit (NEVER, and I mean NEVER eat sour like fruit with wine, it will destroy the taste, i.e. citrus)

• Local foods need to be followed by local wine

• Food cooked in a certain wine, is always served with that particular wine (that is why you should not cook in cheap wine)

• Wine is never served with curry dishes, acidic like dishes (vinegar dressing), deserts based heavily on chocolate

• Champagne can be drunk during any point of the meal =)

• Remember if you are having more than one wine, then first goes light, then heavy. Also remember, dry first, sweet after.

• Delicate food (steamed cooked), goes with delicate (simple taste, lower alcohol %) wine

• Chocolate at its original form (especially dark chocolate), can easily go with any wine

Ok, so I think that is more than enough to digest for the first time.

Please follow my blog for more to come, and when choosing a wine at a restaurant or a shop, remember to be sure in yourself!

“Wine makes every meal an occasion, every table more elegant, every day more civilized.”
― Andre Simon

And please remember to drink responsibly :-)