Wine Tasting & Food Pairing: Comments Keep Rolling In

Comments to The Food Pairing Craze: Down The Same Wrong Road As Wine Scores keep coming. Click here to scroll down to the comments area of the original article and express your opinion.

1. Wine Harlots says:

   July 30, 2011 at 3:33 pm

   Wine scores are a tool that has been wielded as a weapon — to equate food pairing suggestions are the same seems to be a big stretch. I get all the time what wine will work with a meal — most people have their wines with meals. There are some basic guidelines for food pairings, but if it isn’t perfect, so what? It’s just juice after all.

   Nannette Eaton

2. Wine Curmudgeon says:

   July 31, 2011 at 8:22 am

   I thought I was the only one who used Green Day in blog posts.

3. Ed Masciana says:

   August 1, 2011 at 12:36 pm

   I appreciate the crusader attitude regarding we are all individuals with different palates, but the fact is MOST of us taste the same things in the same wines, especially when someone points them out. Grassyness in Sauv Blanc, black cherry in Cabernet, green apple in Chardonnay etc. are pretty easily picked up by most people. Using these flavor profiles to more intently pair wine with food (especially when you’re talking older wines or non mainstream varietals) does take some experience and aptitude. But when it’s perfect, and we’ve all had those rare occasions when it is, the match is made in heaven.

4. Julius says:

   August 1, 2011 at 12:42 pm

   It is so easy to criticize a system whether it be right or wrong. Food and wine pairings, just like wine scores need to simply be relegated to the category of “Suggestions”. That way there is no longer the elitist attitude, but simply an expressed opinion that people can either follow or ignore. Of course anyone not smart enough to figure that out in the first place will not benefit from such insight either. So do not criticize the systems, lay the blame solidly on the shoulders of the reader.

5. lperdue says:

   August 1, 2011 at 12:48 pm

   Profiles are valuable because those who don’t like grassy or black cherries can avoid the same wines that others will flock to. But if a snob implies that it is “wrong” to dislike oak or green apples in Chard, of that is is “wrong” to dislike the latest Grand Cru or cult wine, then that implication is an arrogant turn-off.

   I agree that superb matches made for great enjoyment. But being dogmatic about things and implying that some matches are not acceptable adds just one more level of insecurity.

   Further, more and more research is showing that individuals show a much greater degree of variation in the way they experience wine and food. And to tell those people their wine choices or pairings are “wrong” simple drives them away and narrows the market and decreases sales.

   Information such as flavor profiles and the text that accompanies them should be guides to leading people toward what they DO like. In the end, the only good wine for any individual is the one they like … even if some expert has deemed it worthy of the dump bucket.

6. Allison says:

   August 3, 2011 at 6:14 am

   Why do we need someone to tell us what wine goes with what food…can we not tell on our own…I will open a bottle of wine with dinner…if I totally enjoy it, I will have it again…If it doesn’t go well with the dinner I have made…I will try something else next time… it’s not rocket science!! Getting ready to open my 1999 Heitz Martha’s Vineyard next week with friends…She is making dinner…I don’t think it is really going to matter what she makes…because with great food, great wine, and great friends it’s going to be good no matter what!!

7. Tim Hanni MW says:

   August 3, 2011 at 1:56 pm

   Ed Masciana says:
   “…but the fact is MOST of us taste the same things in the same wines, especially when someone points them out…”

   Science is proving that the differences can in fact be enormous.

   ” Using these flavor profiles to more intently pair wine with food (especially when you’re talking older wines or non mainstream varietals) does take some experience and aptitude.”

   It is actually the creation of “metaphors and frames” (google George Lakoff for more info) and our overly vivid imagination that creates these types of matches. not reality.