In another of our blog posts - where does alcohol free wine fit into my life? - we put forward the notion that the alcohol free wines should be treated in exactly the same way that their alcoholic counterparts are in this respect. To that end, alcohol free wines are the perfect accompaniment to food, serving to elevate flavours or an occasion in the same way an alcoholic wine would.
Tackling the question in a different way, it helps to know which styles of wine pair best which which types of food. In their brilliant and very accessible book, Which Wines When, Bert Blaize and Claire Stricket provide all manner of different wine pairings to sit alongside your favourite foods, whether those be curries, pastas or pies.
Generally speaking, there are some principles that are useful to bear in mind when selecting wines to be enjoyed alongside food. If you work on the assumption that it’s always the food that changes the wine, rather than the other way around, it’s a really useful starting point to know that:
- If food is sweet, wine will be more drying and bitter, more acidic and less sweet and fruity.
- If you have umami flavours at play, the same is true as above.
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With salty foods, wines will seem less drying and bitter, less acidic, more fruity and have more body.
- When it comes to acidic foods, you’ll experience wines as less drying and bitter, less acidic and more sweet and fruity.