I have often seen people say elegant or austere wines “need food” or are “food wines”. This has always confused me because I have found that drinking wines with food usually reduces the perceived fruitiness of a wine. So if I start with a wine thats already a little austere, the wine will taste almost fruitless during dinner.
Is this a quirk of my taste buds? Anyone else experience this? Why do people call elegant or austere wines “food wines”?
I find that tannic/austere wines perform better with a rare cut of meat. The fat/meat absorbs some of the tannin, allowing the fruit to “pop,” while the acidity cleanses the palate after the fact.
I also find it important to have higher acidity wines with higher acidity foods. Such as Sangiovese with tomato-based sauces. If the wine isn’t acidic enough, it gets lost when having with food. Same thing goes with desserts. The wine has to be sweeter than the dessert, otherwise it will come across as watery and simplistic.
Many folks are not looking for fruit in their wines to begin with…
Im skeptical. Fruit/floral related esters are pretty core to wine flavors. Even mature wines seem to be most appreciated when a core of dried fruit is there with the teriary elememts.
But maybe I wasn’t clear enough. I find food can make lighter wines taste unpleasantly astringant to me. The wines seem to lose whatever buffers the structure. Not always, but often enough that it makes me wonder why my experience seems to differ with what people are reporting.
Called food wines because any food served with them suddenly becomes the star of the meal. 
I would say that my favorite flavors in wine are savory flavors of meat, earth, spices and such. Fruit is a distraction a lot of the time.
Yep, I’ve had wines that are just acid and tannin and those aren’t very interesting. Fruit as the dominant or the only component is boring, but as one of many components it is perfectly fine. I have some platonic ideal of wine developing tertiary aromas like leather and mushroom while retaining a seam of minerality, spice and relatively fresh fruit.
Depends on taste, though. I’m sure Francois Audouze finds wines under 20 or 30 years of age painfully fruit bomby. If you are looking for varietal character, then the fermentation esters are probably more important.
We used to sell a Rosso di Montalcino that smelled EXACTLY like the smoked ham and swiss sandwich of your dreams. It was NOT tannic or acidic, just savory. People ASKED for it as “the ham sandwich wine”…
Now this is something I can get behind. Makes me think of an '06 Alliet Chinon that was leathery and borderline stinky smelling, but tasted like a meal with savory umami and veggie flavors. Yum! Not a smoked ham sandwich, but probably on the same area of the non-fruit spectrum.
There’s a lot of discretionary room, obviously, for matching up different foods and wines. I’ve read that chefs will try to serve fairly plain food with older, ‘softer’ wines, and more fancifully-prepared dishes with younger wines showing more structure, for example.
‘Food wine’ to me connotes a wine that shows so-so on its own, but works very well with some food or other. In my experience, the dominant quality of such a wine in most cases is overwhelming structure and associated roughness (something like austerity). With the right food, these qualities, for some reason, may bring the whole mess into a satisfying balance. Fruit may be desirable in some food-wine mixes, but doesn’t play a key role in these particular ones. This characterization therefore serves to partially redeem a wine that is otherwise not especially attractive, but is without implications for wine-food combination in general - where, much of the time, as Berry says, fruit flavor is highly desirable.
Thanks for the response. I think your right that its an issue of having the right food (like fatty meat that someone says above). Thinking about it I do eat alot of tangy and even sweet dishes so that would explain my challange with the types of wines I drink (lighter body, less ripe). Riesling has become my favorite wine for dinner.
All wine should be food wine. If you want a cocktail then order a cocktail. For me, wine and food are inseparable. Any wine that I wouldn’t drink with food then I most likely wouldn’t drink by itself either. I would agree with Roberto that my favorite flavors in wine are savory flavors of meat, earth, spices, etc. but where I disagree with him is that I do want fruit in my wine and certainly would never call it a distraction. It is simply another component of the whole. I don’t want the fruit to dominate just integrate with other components and flavors.
As someone else wrote recently, Riesling is about the most versatile wine going.
I agree that most wine should be food wine (that’s how we do it in our home). So distinguishing a wine as such is a form of faint praise.
“I agree that most wine should be food wine (that’s how we do it in our home). So distinguishing a wine as such is a form of faint praise.”
Au contraire…with so MANY wines these days being plainly 'cocktail wines" and not really good with food, it is HIGH praise indeed to note that a wine is…well…WINE.
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To me the fruit-forward wines are for sipping on when you don’t want to think too much about, such as at a wine bar with friends.
The super fruity wines tend to be higher alcohol and lower acid & probably lower tannins & maybe a little R.S. This isn’t the best combination for a dinner wine IMO. But like anything else it depends (on the wine, the meal, the drinker).
Enzo, if you look at the long tradition of wine writing, fruit per se was not really a relevant part of most dry table wines till well into the late 20th century (enter Mr. Parker stage left). I have learned from and drunk with vignerons with literally centuries of experience who basically say “We make WINE. You want fruit, drink fruit juice.” (as well as scores of wine importers and wine directors of great restaurants with similar thoughts).
Where is the fruit in, say, Fino Sherry or serious Muscadet let alone a great aged Côte Rotie or Barolo of traditional styling?
It’s perfectly okay to air a different point of view.
That does seem a bit unusual Berry. I see austere as short-hand for high acid, and I find higher acid wines to be better matches to food. I see this result play out with guests as well. I will serve certain wines alone and they will garner little interest, but with dinner they tend to be the first to go. I am thinking of Loire reds, lots of Italian reds, and even cool year bordeaux and burgundy. The almost sour acidity of austere wines both cuts through the fat of a meat, cheese or sauce and also makes the flavor pop like a spritz of lemon does.
As far as I’m concerned the term is tautologous. The wines I like are meant for food, they do not show properly without and I find drinking wine without food makes me feel unwell.