The food is food, the wine is wine. Together or separate, pros and cons. Good either way!
It depends on the pairings.
Foie and Sauternes, Stilton and Port, German Riesling and Spicy Foods…all are synergistic for me.
I think some foods are taken to a higher level with wine and vice versa, and I’m thinking of Champagne with shellfish specifically. I can’t imagine a better meal than a bottle of Blanc de Blancs, oysters and lobster. Or Champagne and fried chicken. Or Champagne with any food, really.
I do think some food/wine matches are over-hyped, like steak and cabernet/bordeaux - for me the wine always overwhelms the beef.
I have seen so many wine / food epiphanies in my 30 years in the biz that sometimes I feel like a tent revival preacher. Nothing like seeing someone who thinks they don’t like an old white Rioja on first sip go into palpitations and start speaking in tongues when the paella is served.
I love wine and food together. Strict matching is really tough business, but while I enjoy just having a glass of wine, I prefer having it (by far) with food.
How big a can opener did you need to open this can of worms?
For me the answer is…it depends. I think I enjoy most really great wines more by themselves or just with something to nibble on. I was given a 2000 Vieux Telegraphe recently and it was a remarkable wine, but it was the type of wine that I enjoy more on it’s own. I did have some of it with food, but mostly because it was around dinner time when I opened it, but we drank most of it with no food. But I had a Reverdy Sancerre a couple of days ago with pissaladiere (sans anchovies, which will roil any traditionalist) and I liked it better with food because the acidity was a nice contrast to the sweetness of the onions. So for me it really depends on the wine.
Wine without food makes me ill. Certainly when it comes to red Burgundy the stuff just doesn’t taste complete without food, and I think to drink it thus is rather bestial.
Pissaladiere is from the Latin piscis which translates to salted fish. If you are eating it without anchovies (which you are welcome to do) you are having an onion tart.
Yes, hence the phrase “which will roil any traditionalist.” No worries - call it what you want. My point about do I prefer wine alone or with food stands.
I am not good at pairing wine with food, but I enjoy having them both together. So I have my own system. Usually I eat food with the $20ish or under bottles. A nice cru Beaujolais, Rioja, or Chianti Classico tends to go with most food I eat. The expensive bottles (for me that’s $40-$80, rarely more) I like to drink without food, to completely experience the wine.
Sometimes the answer is spectacularly yes. When it works oh wow!!!
Regardless of the source, some flavors work together synergistically. It makes sense then that the flavors from specific wines can meet with some flavors of specific foods to create a whole greater than the sums of the parts. This dynamic is not just limited to food and wine pairings. Any two sources of flavor can potentially produce this magic.
Yet another example to follow up on Roberto’s: Poulsard on its own can be quite offputting, but combine it with some good charcuterie and see how fast that bottle gets emptied.
I think it is often more about structure than flavors.
" I like to drink without food, to completely experience the wine."
That is a non sequitur with most fine wine.
I prefer to enjoy the wine on its own, but I have enjoyed some successful pairings which, one could argue, were synergistic:
- seared foie/Tokaji
- oysters/Chablis
- venison/Hermitage
- lobster/Monty
- pici con cinghiale/Brunello
- coniglio/Barolo
- spicy instant noodles/Gewurztraminer
- walnuts/Amontillado
- pancakes/Bella’s Garden Shiraz
The wines I enjoy the most and drink the most of go with food. In the old days when I was into “bigger” wines, they rarely paired well with food.
Of course there are exceptions to the rule but I think “the blood of Christ” was created for mealtime.
I think the OP would be shocked if he went back and drank some of the wines he has consumed sans food with a meal. It is amazing how food, even simple and low quality food, can impact the way a wine tastes.
There is an 11 dollar Vouvray that I never much liked the first couple of times I had it. It tasted thin, a bit cloying and just kind of flat. I was choking down the bottle while watching a little tv when my roomate came home with a few pieces of gas station chicken. End of the night closeout kind of deal. After just a single bite of that chicken, this wine just came to life. It’s thin frame suddenly seemed full bodied and the balance impeccable. It was an entire different wine and I relished every subsequent drop of wine that minutes before I was barely tolerating.
A 2008 King Estate Pinot Gris consumed a year ago had no perceptable flavor until I microwaved a $.79 frozen pasta dish, at which point it’s austerity morphed into a fruity, slightly sweet quaffer.
If your not having any food with your wine, you are drinking wrong! That doesn’t mean you have to be eTing elaborate 4 course meals to enjoy them, but at least have a snack .
All of the wines I like are made to go with food.
I had a particularly striking example the last two nights. I made a big pot of clam and crab chowder (New England style), and opened a bottle of inexpensive Muscadet (Gilbert Chon Muscadet Clos de la Chappelle). The wine by itself tastes of mineral and a bit metallic, with some bracing citrus acid but little fruit otherwise, and a slightly effervescent mineral water tasting finish. Not bad, but not particularly enjoyable by itself.
But with the soup, it was delicious, an entirely different experience than the wine by itself. If you tasted them from two glasses, you wouldn’t think you were drinking the same wine, and you’d think the wine you had with the soup was a far better wine than the one you had by itself.
That was the exception, though. Most of the time, I think good wine tastes about equally good with any food other than serious mismatches (e.g. cabernet and spicy Indian food), and I’d rather have good wine than a perfect pairing.
its all good.