One evening in 2016 Hubby and I went for a date night dinner at Pricci, one of our favorite restaurants here in Atlanta. We especially like to go on Thursday, when all of the bottles on their wine list are half off. I got the lobster special, and he had a fish called opa, which was served with tomatoes, olive oil, and capers.
One would think that with two fish dishes, we would’ve ended up with a bottle of white wine. Nope. We got a Chianti, which is of course a red wine made from Sangiovese grapes. Are you shocked? I learned at DragonCon that many of our rules such as drinking white wine with fish are leftovers from Victorian times, but as you probably realize, it’s a little more complicated than that. I have good news for you, though – you already know some of the principles without realizing it.
This week I’m going to focus on one of the easier pairing strategies – opposites attract. We’re all familiar with the phrase, right? Think about how it applies to some of our classic food/food or food/drink pairings, even outside of alcohol. For example, Hubby and I got barbecue and sweet iced tea when we were driving through Alabama on the way to the beach a couple of weeks ago. The barbecue was salty, and the tea was sweet, and they went beautifully together. Now you fill in the blanks:
Burger, fries, and a _____
Pizza and _______ (okay, this one is alcohol)
Peanut butter and _________
Oil and ________
Coffee and _______
Did you get them all? All of these combinations have elements with contrasting characteristics:
Burger (salty), fries (salty), and a milkshake (sweet)
Pizza (fatty) and beer (acidic)
Peanut butter (salty) and jelly (sweet)
Oil (fatty) and vinegar (acid)
Coffee (bitter) and donuts (sweet)
Now think about wine. To use our dinner as an example, the Chianti paired well with my food because it’s acidic, and the lobster ravioli (pictured) was a little sweet and definitely creamy, which gave me the acid/fat contrast. Hubby’s dinner had a lot of olive oil in it, which also played well with the wine because of that fatty/acid combination.
Next week we’ll talk about putting complementary food and drink together. Meanwhile, I encourage you to experiment and see if you notice any opposite pairings that work really well, whether alcohol is involved or not. I’d love to know what your favorites are or if you’ve had any surprises. Please comment below and let me know – I’m always on the lookout for new pairings!
Cheers!