Our approach to food and wine pairing
Food and wine pairing can enhance the flavour of the food and create a fantastic dining experience. It doesn’t need to be complicated, difficult or pretentious. I see wine as an extra ingredient, or a sauce that we add to a dish. For example, one would add lemon juice to seafood and mustard to steak – pairing a glass of wine to food can be just as simple.
​
My approach to food and wine matching is based on the following methods.
Constrasting
This is a pairing method when you pair a dish with a wine with opposite flavours. This kind of pairing usually creates a chemical reaction to the flavour and hence a different effect to the entire food experience.
​
For example, we would pair a glass of Champagne or Chablis with oysters. This is because Champagne and Chablis both have high acidity and citrus flavour. Oyster on the other hand has very distinctive umami taste and the texture can be quite slappy. Therefore, the high acidity in the wine cute through the texture of the oyster whilst the citrus flavour acts as a refresher or enhancer of the umami taste.
MAtching
This is a method when you pair a dish with a wine with similar flavours. This kind of pairing usually enhances the dominant flavour of the dish and creates a harmony of flavour.
For example, sake and Fino Sherry pair wonderfully well with oysters. This is because the umami taste in the sake and Fino Sherry echoes the similar taste in the oysters.
Texturing
In addition to the flavour characteristics, texture in the food and wine are equally important. Texture of the food normally comes from the oiliness, saltiness, proteins and moisture. Texture or body of wine normally comes from the level of alcohol, dryness/sweetness, tannins (red wine only) and acidity.
There should be a balance among all these elements so that they don’t overpower each other and form imbalance weird taste in our palate.
I would also like to emphasise the above are just some basic approaches. I am not trying to create any golden rules. What I want to achieve is that I want to encourage you to keep tasting, cooking and experimenting so that we will all find our best pairing methods for the food and wine we love.
​
Let’s share our journey to Asian food and wine pairing!