Which wines to pair with these popular cuisines

Wine and food pairing goes a long way and can be easily done. Talking in general, when pairing creamy & buttery food with wine, it's best to go for Chardonnay as it has the perfect creaminess in it. While going for spicy foods, pick up a Shiraz or Cabernet Shiraz as it gives a good amount of spiciness to the palate. Food pairing with wine is based on two concepts. The first is that ‘either it is a marriage with similar flavours, textures and elements’ and ‘the second is that you play around with the flavours’. So, for instance, if there is a spicy Chocolate Mousse with bitter chocolate in it, you can pair it with a Shiraz with some spicy notes.

We talked to renowned wine experts - Sonal Holland, who is the only Master of Wine in India and Ankur Chawla, who is a popular Sommelier about various cuisines their pairing with wines. Here’s what they have to say.

According to Ankur, “Before deciding on the food and wine pairing it is always best to look into the main element of the food and based on that the wine could be chosen with the similar elements or flavours. If you do that then it is a match made in heaven.” (Images courtesy: iStock)

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Sonal says, "Ensure that the food you are consuming is moderately spiced, it shouldn't be fiery and hot. If it is chilli and spices, it numbs your mind, and you cannot enjoy the food or the wine. A lot of Indian food is not spicy anyway and elegantly made with a variety of ingredients. So, I would recommend a broad range of white wines that work really well with Indian cuisine. Unoaked white wines like Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Gruner Veltliner or Pinot Grigio. I have also occasionally enjoyed a glass of champagne with Indian cuisine because they really help cut through the bubbles, as in the bubbles cut through the fat in the food. A broad range of rosé also works well with Indian food. Not just that Indian cuisine also pairs best with low tannin juicy reds like Grenache-based wines like Quadron, Beaujolais, Tempranillo or young Rioja wines and the new world Pinot Noir. High tannin red wines like Cabernet Sauvignon from Bordeaux or new world Shiraz, which is rich but with fruity flavours, also works really well with Indian food.

Also, Sonal recommends that one should avoid taking high alcohol wines with Indian food, as it can aggravate the spice levels of the food. So, if you take such wines with Indian food, you will tend to feel it more hot & spicy than the food actually is. So, if you can enjoy that sensation, then go for it, else make sure that you do not pair high tannins and high alcohol wines with Indian cuisine.

There is a predominance of Umami flavours in Chinese cuisine and so they use a lot of soy sauce, and mushrooms which add a lot of salty flavour in the food. "So, the best kinds of wines that pair well with Chinese food in my opinion are low tannin wines," says Sonal. Low tannin red wines like Beaujolais, New World Pinot Noirs, Quadron go best with this cuisine. However, the safest bet is to go for Unoaked white wines as they pair best with Chinese food. One can also go for rosé and it goes very best with Chinese food because they have no tannins but very juicy red fruit flavours. Also, rosé goes perfectly fine with wok-tossed or wok-fried vegetables, which really help in negating the bitter edge of these vegetables.

There is so much to French cuisine than we can talk about. "A lot of French food uses cream and butter in it so I would say an Oaked Chardonnay works really well with French cuisine," says Sonal. Any kind of Oaked white wine works really well with those buttery & creamy dishes. Sonal says, "And if you are looking to pair wines with meaty dishes like steaks, stews or high protein foods then I would recommend some high tannin red wines like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Shiraz from the old world. Even a Barolo would work very well with meaty foods."

Italy tends to use a lot of high acid ingredients in its cuisine like vinegar, tomatoes, olives. Sonal explains that such high acid foods tend to pair well with wines that are highly acidic themselves, which is why we see that most of the Italian wines are highly acidic like Sangiovese, Chianti coming from the Tuscany region or the Barolo from up north, or the Pinot Grigio, a variety of high acidity white wines come from Italy. So, they tend to pair well with Italian cuisine. One can try wines likes Chianti Classico, Brunello di Montalcino, Barolo.

The Mexican cuisine is a bit on the spicier side. I would say, the first thing that you must note before pairing wines with Mexican food is that it must be moderately spicy and not much spicier, recommends Sonal. It should not be hot and spicy as it could numb your taste of the food as well as of the wine. "In Mexican cuisine, they use a lot of corns, beans, so I would prefer to have a Barossa Shiraz or a lovely Malbec from Argentina, or a Spanish Tempranillo would work really well." The reason for the same is that these wines are robust in nature which complements the rich, hearty & weighty Mexican cuisine. So, you must look for a weighty wine with lots of sweet fruit juices in it to complement the food.

In the case of German cuisine, you can’t generalize it as there are a lot of foods with different flavours or profiles, says Ankur. So, for example, if you are eating good quality meat like pork sausage, you would ideally want a red wine, which is decent in tannins. But, if you are having a high protein dish like lamb chop, then I recommend you must go for high tannin wines. For appetizers, you can go for a light body wine, but for the main course, you must take heavier body wines with red tannins in them.

It’s a diverse cuisine with lots of flavours and different textures. When pairing Greek cuisine with wine, it's important to note what kind of food you are having. Ankur says that "Lately a lot of Greek wines are getting paired with Greek cuisine and I believe local Greek wines are outstanding and have a rich history, where the wines go back to the old world." The salads go well with refreshing wines like Sauvignon Blanc. For the main course, I would recommend light red wines like Pinot Noir and Merlot.