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With John Eld's usual flair, he imparted his experiences and musings about pairing food with wine. As in enjoying wine, it is usually through personal experience and experimentation that we learn what goes with what.

The old adage that white wine goes with fish and red wines with meat has some basic truth, but unless you understand the reasoning for that statement, you could miss pairing some really great wines and foods. Here are some points to consider when deciding.

Program Notes	Pairing Foods and Wines Presented by John Eld	February 12
- Home page - - Meetings page - January program February program March program April program May program September program October program November program	With John Eld's usual flair, he imparted his experiences and musings about pairing food with wine. As in enjoying wine, it is usually through personal experience and experimentation that we learn what goes with what. The old adage that white wine goes with fish and red wines with meat has some basic truth, but unless you understand the reasoning for that statement, you could miss pairing some really great wines and foods. Here are some points to consider when deciding. *First: Decide which is going to be the "star" of the meal; the wine, or the food. If you have a great bottle of wine, keep the food simple and if you have a great meal planned, go with a simple wine. Don't just blindly match food and wine based upon what you've heard others say.* Drink the wines you like with the food you like, just be able to tell why you do. *Do some personal palate testing and homework. Create a list of personal descriptors for each type, vintage and producer of wine. Remembering that there are differences from winery to winery of the same style of wine. The process should entail drinking one wine for a week with all of the foods you eat. Keep a diary of your thoughts about how the food and the wine tasted. You should soon have an idea of what you like to pair with that wine. Understand what happens to wine flavors when combined with food flavors. White wines are more acidic, like lemons, so they will match well with fish and shellfish that you would normally put lemon on. Pinot Noir goes great with grilled salmon as any strong cooking method like grilling will tend to carmelize the protein. Syrah however, goes well with any kind of barbeque to cut through the strong "fat" flavoring. Beware of problematic foods.* Hot peppers, artichokes, and salty foods make it difficult to complement with a wine. *Dessert and dessert wines need to be taste tested together.* You should always choose a wine that is sweeter than the dessert. *Buy with bread - Sell with cheese*. This phrase used by buyers and sellers of wine explains how bread and cheese work with tasting wine. Since bread cleanses the palate you can taste the nuances and faults of a wine...which would be important if you are buying a wine. Cheese on the other hand will coat the palate and can mask the flaws of a wine and so you would want to have customers eat cheese first, before tasting an average wine for sale.