A guide to associate problems with perfect wines

Assorted food and wine, or twinning as it is often called, has become an increasingly popular sport. I admire the practitioners, while being far from being online hard.

The wine is complicated enough and I have always been reluctant to add an additional layer of complications. In practice, I find that it is possible to drink practically any wine with food. If there is really a little confrontation, it can usually be attenuated by taking a bite of water or something neutral or absorbent like bread between food and wine.

The only time I expect to associate perfection is in a restaurant of peaks with a professional sommelier, which should experience the dishes enough to recommend an ideal wine on three different price levels.

But there are foods that distort the palate to the point that they are really extremely difficult to associate with wine.

Artichoke globe are the most obvious example. They have the immediate effect on most people to ensure that things have a strangely sweet and metallic taste. As Victoria Moore points out in her complete twinning guide, The Wine Dine dictionaryWhen you eat a globe artichoke, it is such a demanding process, and the leaves themselves are fairly juicy, you don't really need to drink anything with it.

Grilled artichoke hearts, a delight of cold meats, are not entirely as distorting. Moore recommends wines with a texture: orange wines, slightly bitter or light and pale sherry. I tried all of this and I found a Manzanilla and Fino went beautifully, in particular one of the young versions not filtered in Rama. Riesling was a real confrontation.

It's the season for asparagusAnother vegetable accused of being difficult to associate with wine. There is a doctrinal ditch between asparagus connoisseurs. For the Germans, the asparagus must be fatty and white, and the conventional partner is dry (“trochen”) German riesling or Silvaner, the wine grape characteristic of the Franken region which is largely underestimated. Rudolf May makes a range of beautiful Silvaners, many of whom are imported in the United Kingdom by Howard Ripley.

For most British, asparagus should be bright and thinner. He can also go with a dry German riesling, of which there is such a choice these days.

Sauvignon Blanc is often considered to be an appropriate accompaniment for green asparagus. Sauvignon whites in New Zealand lower or older can actually taste canned asparagus. But for this vegetable essentially in the shape of spring, I think that a really fresh wine of Sauvignon type is preferable. Many dry friuli whites have a certain “greenery” to its flavor. Those who have jumped grapes or friulano in the mixture can be a good friend of green asparagus.

Another obvious enemy of wine is chili and other red -heated spices that attack, even numb, the palace. Lager does its cooling, probably better than water. But if it is to be wine, sweet and daring red like those listed here can work better than the more classic, structured and dry reds which have an even more austere taste once the palate has been blossomed by a spicy dish. Really fruity whites and rosés can also work.

Wine and cheese are considered to be a sacrosanvy combination. Americans often serve it in front of a meal, Europeans towards the end or as a light meal alone. Whether before or after a dessert can be a domestic flash point. I prefer before because it seems logical to follow a main salty dish with something tasty before ending with something soft. Traditionally, red wine has been served with cheese, perhaps simply with the red wine served with the main dish (so do not call for a new drink), but many of those who take note of how food and wine interact that white wine is much more suitable.

Just to make things even more complicated, the cheeses themselves vary a lot of character and their impact on the palace. I would say that it is almost impossible to find a wine that would go with a really diverse cheese painting. And anyway, it may be preferable to serve a single cheese in perfect condition, certainly if you are looking to combine perfection.

Hard and savory cheeses such as cheddar, mimolette and cantal are doing well with dry reds, but white wines are often a better bet with many other cheeses. Sweeting hard cheeses, such as Comté, Beaufort, Emimenta and Gouda, can be better with animated whites, even a white -white burgundy or another Chardonnay. Gouda can make a taste of metallic red wine, but is surprisingly well with a fruity rosé.

Cheese with fresh goat milk and SancerreOr any other dry dry Sauvignon, is a successful widely recognized combination, and the wines I recommended for green asparagus is well. But as goat ages ages, he becomes more and more salty and probably calls a richer white. Sweet and salt go well together (think of ham and melon, port and Stilton), as evidenced by the sweet whites are aluminum foil perfect for creamy blue cheeses like Roquefort. The St-Félicien Super-Creamy is charming with average average wines such as Vouvray, Alsace Vendange Late Wines or a Riesling Spätlese.

But Gorgonzola, like Brie, Camembert and Baron Big de Suffolk in England, is a cheese with a sweet rhyme which has real challenges for wine agreements. These creamy cheeses cover the palace and, in the case of Brie and Camembert, can sometimes feel the ammonia, depending on their age. Aldo Sohm, the famous Austrian sommelier at Bernardin in New York, recommends Champagne or Calvados in his book Single wine – Although I am not sure that we want to inject champagne so late in a menu.

Fiona Beckett, a writer specializing in the correspondence of food and wine, is also a fan of going to the local and recommends a good Norman cider or young Calvados with Camembert. With Brie and Baron Bigod, she suggests a fruity pinot black. I also asked my colleague Tamlyn Currin which she recommends. She is strongly interested in the agreements, and her suggestion of a fresh and fruity Beaujolais worked well when I tried it, just like Moore's Provencal rosé.

I know that champagne, often dry and tangy, is served with a dessert in many French households, but I have never found a happy combination. Much better with sweet food is sweet wine, but it must be a softer wine than food, otherwise the pudding will give wine too acidic.

Rather like sweet souped cheese, chocolate generally coats the palate and can be a real challenge for wines accessories. Any wine served with chocolate must be really, really soft and strong enough to withstand the power of chocolate. Perfect are the natural mild wines of Roussillon such as Rivesaltes and Banyuls. A new cache of sumptuous Rivesaltes, from 1980 to 1955, was discovered in the St-Michel domain cellar for vintage importers in London. Like Madeira, these wines usefully last months in an open bottle, which can provide 20 or more portions.

Tasting notes, scores and dates of drinks suggested on purple pages of Jancisrobinson.com. International resellers on Wine-searcher.com

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