It’s easy to enjoy Bordeaux with food. This simple but crucial tip is the perfect place to start. Choose a Bordeaux you want, prepare a meal you love, or choose a restaurant that you love. But most importantly, invite a friend or lover along to share your wine, food, and evening.
This is the best pairing you can make with food. If you’re interested in learning more about wine and food matching, you can find the ten best tips on this page.
Some people make wine and food pairing seem like a science experiment. What’s the fun in that? Wine is fun. Bordeaux wines and food go well together. You can use a few tips. In general, if it tastes good, it will work.
Many people are surprised to learn that red Bordeaux wines are often paired with meals featuring fish as the main dish. It’s light, healthy, and a great match. Why not?
Don’t forget that pairing wine with food can be fun. Do not forget this part. You can choose from a variety of Bordeaux wines:
- Older red wine
- Young red wine
- Older white Bordeaux wine
- Sweet wines with or without age
It is important to determine if it is the food or the wine that is the highlight of the evening.
The pairing of food and wine in the Bordeaux region is better than ever. In Bordeaux, many places offer incredible food and wine pairing experiences.
When you have chosen the wine that you would like to share, be sure it is not too warm. Red Bordeaux at room temperature does not have the same appeal as it does when slightly chilled. It will taste fresher, rounder, and more refreshing, especially when served with food.
When you are ready to serve, decant your wine and then wait until it is prepared. This might seem obvious, and it really is. Even the most experienced wine drinkers tend to forget this.
What is your ideal wine-food pairing once you have made the selection? Remember that there is only one star on the table: the wine or the food. The aromas and flavors from the food have completely overpowered the wine at many wine dinners.
When you go out to a restaurant, it is natural for you to purchase or bring your favorite wine. It’s not clear that this will achieve your goal, as either the food or the wine will be the focus.
Too many wine dinners are a problem because chefs claim to be able to create the perfect menu and wine and food pairings. However, what really happens far too often is they do not understand there are times when the wine should be the star of the show.
They will prepare overly complicated, rich, spicy, or exotic creations that can be stunning works of art. But that detracts from the wine. There is only room for one star at the table. Is it the wine or the food? You need to decide and allow that to happen.
The top ten easy Bordeaux Wine and Food Pairing Tips.
Rule #1 Pour wines you like with the food you want. It does no good to order a dish you have only moderate interest in and pair it with a wine you do not like simply because someone said it was a perfect wine and food match.
Rule #2 When in doubt, refer to rule #1.
Rule #3 Decide which is the most important part of the experience for the night, the wine or the food. Serve complicated dishes with simple wines. Open simple wines with complex food. Both you, the wine, and the talk will be happier.
Rule #4: Serve simple dishes with your best wines. Aged Left Bank Bordeaux, with its Cabernet Sauvignon-based blend, takes on beautiful aromatics with truffle, tobacco, smoke, earth, cherries, and spice. That aromatic display will be lost in an overly complicated menu.
Rule #5 If you prefer Right Bank, Merlot-dominated Bordeaux wines pair with the same foods as those from the Medoc. It all goes back to serving what you like. The subtle differences in the character of each bank add some nuances. For instance, you will find more chocolate, licorice, and floral notes in Pomerol than in Pauillac, but for all intents and purposes, they are interchangeable at the dinner table.
Rule #6 Younger wines are more tannic. They are richer in flavor. They can stand up to heavier dishes and more powerful flavors than older wines, which can be stepped on with more aggressive cooking. This is where lamb, aged beef, and stews are really going to shine.
Rule #7 While red wine with red meats is an easy way to look at things, it’s all about the preparation. Fish with lemon, for example, might not be my choice for red wine but use mushrooms, tomato, veal stock, or red wine reductions with the fish, and you have a perfect wine and food pairing.
#Rule #8 Wine with cheese. Wine with cheese is a perfect combination. It’s, in my opinion, the ideal ending for a meal. For many wines and cheeses, white wine often makes a better pairing due to its higher levels of acidity found in white wine.
But if you prefer red wine or red wine with cheese like I do, open a red wine and enjoy your cheese. If you’re a fan of sweet, white wine and cheese, you’re in luck because the high sugar levels pair perfectly with the naturally salty flavors of the cheese. Wine and food pairing is all about matching the wines you like with the foods you enjoy.
The bottom line to pairing wine with cheese is to eat the cheese you love with the wines you enjoy. That will always create the perfect wine and cheese pairing for you every time.
Rule #9 Dry, white Bordeaux wine is quite versatile. White Bordeaux wine, due to its freshness and flavor profile, pairs with almost any white food: shellfish, fish of all types, oysters, clams, mussels, sushi, veal, chicken, pork etc. Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon blends are fresh, refreshing, and quite citrusy.
Sauternes and other sweet, white Bordeaux wine pairs well with several dishes that range from sweet to savory. For example, Oysters and Sauternes are a great summer pairing. Salty cheese, lobster, chicken, and, of course, spicy, Asian-inspired dishes are perfect matches.
The classic pairing is, of course, Foies Gras with Sauternes. With most of those pairings, I prefer lighter styles of Sauternes, perhaps a vintage with a more moderate amount of sweetness or botrytis.
Rule #10: Texture is worth paying attention to. Thick foods and rich wines work well together. Delicate foods make a better wine and food pairing with lighter, elegant wines.
