Food & Wine Pairing: Not So Simple

Series Summary

Wine comes in many flavors, tints, tones, levels of dryness and blends. Wines are used for cooking or to enhance the flavor of a meal or certain dish. Wine is made from the fermentation of fruits such as grapes, strawberries, elderberries and blackcurrants. Depending on the grapes, the product yielded is called zinfandel, pinot grigio, pinot noir, merlot, chardonnay, blanco noir or other variations of wine. Some wines include carbon dioxide that is a product of fermentation. These sparkling wines, or champagnes, and are often used in celebratory events such as weddings, graduations and holidays.

In this free video series, you will learn how to pair food and wine. Get tips for both red and white wines. Learn the real rules of food and wine pairing from Jane Nickles, author of "Wine Speak 101" and Sommelier Instructor for the Texas Culinary Academy. Miss Jane will dispel myths and give you thorough instruction int he intricacies of taste, texture, flavor, contrast and similarity. By the end of the series, you will know the rules, from the acid and acid rule to the flavor bridge rule.

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm Jane Nickles and I'm going to tell you a little bit about food and wine pairing. A lot of people have ideas about food and wine pairing and a lot of people will just ask me what wine goes well with what dish. I can answer those questions but what I'm going to try to do today is I'm going to give you the real rules behind food and wine pairing. It's not so simple as red wine with meat and white wine with fish. Although as we'll see those are pretty good rules. When it comes down to food and wine pairing is you need to look at the taste and the flavors and the textures of the food and the taste and the flavors and the textures of the wine. Then you need to know about twelve simple rules that I'll tell you about. The twelve simple rules will tell you exactly how the food and wine will pair up together. And the bottom line is this, food changes wine. You want your food to be able to change your wine in a way that's going to be appealing to you and bring out the best character of the wine. So we're going to look at the food, see how it will change the wine and from there we'll know how to make a perfect pairing. With this system you'll never have to look at another chart again to see what goes well with beef or lamb or pork. Because you'll know from the rules. So stay tuned and we're going to learn the real rules of food and wine pairing."