The Datebook Datebook Autumn 18 Calendar of Events | Page 18

VINTNER’S TALES
By Richard Household
Your Taste and
Your Enjoyment
enjoy a wonderfully
charmed life which, in
summary, means I travel a
lot, taste wonderful wines a
lot and eat superb food in
amazing places a lot.
Whether I’m judging for the
International Wine and
Spirits Competition, running
WSET wine courses, hosting
wine dinners or visiting
vineyards my working life is
never dull. I am always
exploring, tasting and trying
to learn more.
The most common questions I
get asked, aside from ‘what is
my favourite wine’ or ‘what is
the most expensive wine I have
tasted’, are more often than
not about matching the right
wine with food. So I thought I
would share some of the
principles I use to make sure
that the wine takes centre
stage at any meal, giving a
wow factor at your dinner or
event.
A little bit of background first
with some tasting basics and
then I’ll go through my 5
golden rules. Here goes …
Our taste buds can cope
with 5 sensory perceptions
and understanding them can
really help with food and wine
matching.
There is no doubt that food can
affect how a wine tastes … for
better or for worse, so some
understanding about how
flavour interacts with wine can
help a great deal to avoid
clashes and provide more
pleasure. Having said that, we
all have personal preferences
and different levels of tolerance
to flavour (heat and spice for
example) but in general terms
this works quite well.
overpowered and taste lean,
lacking in fruit and unpleasantly
acidic. There are exceptions.
You can pair sweet wine with
highly salty dishes. Blue cheese
with sweet wine is a delight!
Taste the wine for
what it is and not
what a book or
review says.
Fat and acid in food and wine
works really well. A fresh wine
with plenty of acidity will cut
through fatty food. It helps to
balance the dish while
refreshing the palate. It is a
great combination and one of
my favourites.
Salty food can work wonders
with wine. It increases the
perception of body and texture
in wine and can help to soften
tannins and decrease a wine’s
astringency. In other words it
can soften a wine and make
the fruit more pronounced. So
you can really go to town here
– powerful wines from the
Rhone, Bordeaux northern Italy
and so on with rich, complex
dishes.
Sweet foods can be a
challenge. If you don’t choose
a wine with sweetness to
match then the wine will be
Richard Household.
I
Bitter food will increase the
bitterness in a wine, so you
need to have a white wine or a
red wine low in tannins, a
Beaujolais for example.
Umami in food will increase the
perception of alcohol, acidity
and bitterness in a wine, while
decreasing the wine’s texture,
body and fruit characteristics.
As a result this can be a real
challenge with food. Salt is
excellent at counteracting
these effects but where there
is no salt in the food –
asparagus, eggs and
mushrooms then wine pairing
can be a challenge. You should
choose very fruity wines with
low tannins.
Having said all that my
guidelines and advice for
choosing the right wine with
the right food is a lot more
straightforward!
Firstly, good wine goes with
most food. When all is said
and done, great well-made
wines will marry beautifully with
most foods. This is because
they tend to have excellent
balance between fruit, acidity
and tannins. They rarely have
one dominant character for
food to exaggerate or
overpower. That’s why the
same great wine can taste
slightly or very different with
different dishes. Rioja Reserva
or great Burgundies are good
examples of this.
The Langhe vineyards of Piedmont in Autumn.
16
THE LONDON & UK DATEBOOK
Secondly, be bold and
adventurous. When you read
all about different flavours,