Cheatsheet: Food and Wine Pairing

It's not always clear why certain wines work better with particular dishes. With countless grape varieties, wine styles, ingredient combinations and culinary traditions to choose from — not to mention personal preferences and sensitivities — the sheer number of potential pairings can be overwhelming.

Food and wine pairing comes down to understanding how the characteristics of the wine — its sweetness, acidity, or bitterness — play off the flavours and components in the food, such as fattiness or richness.

The Wines and Spirits Education Trust (WSET), a leading provider in wine education around the world, has some basic guidelines for selecting wine to go with your meal:

When the dish is salty and acidic, wines will take on softer characteristics. It will taste sweeter and fruitier, less bitter and acidic.

When the dish is sweet and umami, wines will taste drier, more bitter and acidic, less sweet and fruity.

You'll notice this when you're digging into a decadent slice of chocolate mousse, and you take a sip of a dry, acidic white wine like sauvignon blanc. Suddenly, the wine tastes more tart than it did on its own. That's because the sweetness in the dessert makes the wine's acidity really stand out in contrast.

This is also why many like pairing Champagne with fried chicken. The saltiness of the dish helps soften a crisp, high-acid sip of Champagne.

You can also consider the weight and intensity of the flavours in a dish — its richness, dominant flavours, and level of spiciness. A delicate dish may be overwhelmed by a bold, intense wine, while a strongly flavoured dish can overpower a subtle wine. Spicy dishes such as your favourite Thai curry pairs well with highly aromatic and flavourful wines like riesling and gewürtzraminer that can stand up to the heat and complex flavours.

Comoclub caught up with Culina's Operations Manager Jean-Philippe Joye and Wine Manager Ken Goh, who shared insider tips on navigating the wine list at The Most Exceptional Feast — a celebration of Culina's 30th anniversary on 21 April 2024 at COMO Dempsey — where you can sample wines alongside a sumptuous, highly-curated spread of dishes crafted with some of the world's finest ingredients.

Bubbles:

Champagne Sanger Brut Voyage 360: Mineral with notes of citrus, honey on the palate with a fruity finish. Great to pair with oysters and the rest of the Ice Bar selection.

Bava Moscato d’Asti: Light sparkling, sweet, aromatic and low in alcohol, this will pair well with most desserts, excluding chocolate.

Rosé and Whites:

M. Chapoutier Grand Ferrage Côtes-de-Provence Rosé: Light and crisp, with flavours of peach, apricot and strawberry, it is a very good accompaniment to all charcuterie and market vegetable dishes, as well as the canapés.

Bava Cor de Chasse Gavi: Dry, fresh, harmonious and medium-bodied, pair this with the canapés selection, prawn cocktail and seafood ceviche, as well as the Barramundi main course.

Cakebread Cellars Sauvignon Blanc: Notes of sweet citrus, melon, guava and white flowers. This can pair well with the Ice Bar selection if you like richer flavours. This will also pair well with the Spanner crab spaghetti and scallops with garlic butter.

Ministry of Clouds Adelaide Hills Chardonnay: On the palate, a bedrock of chalky minerality and a core of intense stone fruit. This wine will complement the crab cakes, crab salad, barramundi and some soft cheeses from the cheese cart.

Mount Riley Pinot Gris: This wine has ripe fruit flavours, rich texture and fresh acidity, which could be the winning pick for the white asparagus dish, the foie gras terrine, as well as some washed-rind, slightly pungent cheeses, and the blue cheese selection.

Reds:

Louis Jadot Bourgogne Côte d’Or and P. Ferraud Moulin-à-Vent L’Eolienne: The former is 100% pinot noir and latter 100% gamay, with similar taste profiles. Dry, light and mineral, slightly smoky, they are the best pairing for the Charcuterie cart, including the Iberico Jamon, and the Shirobuta pork collar. You can enjoy these with most cheeses as well, in particular the soft, creamy selection (JP and Ken highly recommend the truffle cheese), along with the bikini and steak tartare.

Luigi Bosca Sangre Malbec: A full-bodied wine with ripe fruit is the heaviest red in the wine list, which will pair very well with the steak and eggs, as well as the Maimoa leg of lamb.

St Francis Old Vine Zinfandel: This classic Zinfandel is rich with notes of warm baking spices combined with flavours of raspberry, to drink with meat dishes or paired with hard cheese.

Xanadu Cabernet Sauvignon: This vibrant, full-bodied wine with pronounced berry flavours is a must with the Maimoa leg of lamb.

Save your seat now for Culina's Most Exceptional Feast on 21 April 2024 for lunch or dinner, with unlimited pours of fine wine and Champagne, and join us in celebrating 30 years of high quality ingredients, delicious meals, and premium wines.