food-and-wine-pairing-a-sensory-experience-robert-harrington

Old World have a tendency toward greater levels of earthiness. Specific wine examples are
provided in Table 10.1.
Smoky foods need wine that has a strong enough personality to cope with this more
powerful flavor. Smokiness generally works well with oaked, rich, and fruity whites or spicy
reds. Smoked fish, pork, and other meats can also be paired with German Kabinett Riesling.
Smoky barbecue sauces generally work well with powerful reds such as Shiraz or Zinfandel,
but you must make sure that the sweetness and acidity levels in the sauce are not too extreme.
Smoky barbecue sauces with higher sweetness can be served with reds that have plenty of
fruit—New World reds and Old World examples such as Beaujolais, Dolcetto, and Tempranillo.
As discussed in Chapter 9, foods with prominent herbal flavors can generally be paired
with Sauvignon Blanc, but the type of herbal flavor in the food will have an impact on the
affinity of this potential match. Refer to Tables 9.1 and 9.3 for some suggestions in this area.
WINE FLAVOR CATEGORIES
Identifying and categorizing wine flavors tends to be more difficult than food flavors. For
food, you have the physical product (such as a bell pepper) to cue you about what you are
about to taste and smell. For wine and other beverages, we are forced to rely on our aroma
memory and the quality of our sensory abilities. Practice is the only way to improve your
ability to identify the various wine flavors.
The aroma wheel is an industry standard used to identify and categorize wine aromas.
While there are a number of possible aromas in wine, there are seven dominant categories
that seem to have a direct correlation to the wine and food pairing process. These are
included in the lower boxed in area of each section in Figure 10.1 and include fruity, nutty,
smoky, buttery, herbal, floral, and earthy. The other category includes flavors such as meaty,
vegetative, chemical, and so on. Spiciness is not included here because it is assessed separately,
as discussed in Chapter 9.
Table 10.1 provides examples of wines that typically fall into the seven major flavor
categories. This table can be used as a basic guide for pairing when wine flavor serves as a
driver for wine and food matching.
A young Riesling is the classic fruity example. While many of the wines on the market
have fruity aromas and flavors, these aromas and flavors vary by varietal and climate zone.
Most wine made with the Riesling grapes has an intensely fruity and in some cases floral
characteristic.
Nutty aromas and flavors in wine are less common. Some types of sherry have nutty
characteristics and are a natural match, as an aperitif, with salted nuts. Fino and Amontillado
sherries have a nutty character that creates a similarity match with almonds.
Smoky characteristics in wine are common in some New World Chardonnays and
particularly in oaky Australian ones.
The classic herbal example is Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. Sauvignon Blanc
wines are generally quite herbaceous as well as occasionally grassy or vegetal.
Oaky Chardonnays from California, Washington, and Australia that have undergone
malolactic fermentation provide classic buttery characteristics.
Moscato d’Asti, an Italian sparkling wine from the Piedmont region, has an inherent
floral flavor. Earthy flavors are more likely in Old World wines and particularly likely in
French white wines and French reds from Burgundy, Bordeaux, or Côte Rôtie.
Two additional flavors can sometimes be found in wine: cheesy and meaty. Aged Greco
di Tufo (white) and some Chianti, Brunello, or Valpolicella (reds), which are all Italian wines,
are likely to have cheesy flavors. Sometimes wines can be described as meaty. Young Pomerol
(France) and young Merlot from California or Washington tend to be meaty wines. 8
Wine Flavor Categories 213