Pairing food and wine is one of life's great pleasures. However, there are some foods that are very complicated to pair with wine, but not impossible. With our sommeliers, we see the complicated pairings and which bottles of wine to solve them with.
Impossible food and wine pairings and how to manage them successfully.
Pair with ice cream
This is one of the most complicated combinations of all, the one that in sommelier courses is considered impossible . The cold of the ice cream in fact makes the palate insensitive and tends not to make the taste of the wine noticeable, anesthetizing the taste buds. However, you can try a combination, with the foresight of tasting the wine first and then the ice cream , serving both at a few degrees higher than usual.
The ice cream can therefore be combined with liqueur or passito wines, sweet but not too alcoholic .
Match the meringue
The meringue-based dessert has a clear characteristic: the extraordinary sweetness, which is not very easy to match, to the point that a first "correct" pairing, according to the textbook, is with water. But you can find highly satisfying pairings with wine as long as you work on concordance on the sweetness.
Here are some of our recommendations on wines to pair with meringue: Moscato d'Asti, Brachetto Passito, Moscato di Scanzo, Recioto della Valpolicella, Primitivo di Manduria sweet Naturale or Aleatico Passito.
Preparations with vinegar or lemon
In these preparations, in which vinegar and lemon have a great impact, the acridity of the citrus envelops the taste buds and covers them with a patina that is complicated to balance well. Think for example of salads seasoned with plenty of vinegar or lemon. However, if the vegetables are served as a side dish, the pairing must be done taking into consideration the main ingredient of the dish.
If you want to try a pairing with these dishes, made complex by vinegar and lemon, the acidic tendency that characterizes them contrasts well with dry, light and soft wines, such as Pinot grigio or a light Chardonnay.
Match the artichokes
Artichokes are difficult to match due to their bitter tendency . They should be paired, by contrast, with soft, fragrant and full-bodied white wines.
We suggest trying them with Frascati Superiore or Trebbiano d'Abruzzo.
- Read also: how to pair vegetables
Wine for Indian cuisine
Indian cuisine is varied but generally characterized by being very rich in spices , which increase the aroma of the dish and add a bitter tendency to the various preparations.
Traditionally it is paired with water or salted Lassi. If you want to experiment with a pairing with wine, you should choose fragrant dry wines, made from aromatic grapes, with good softness such as Traminer, Moscato Bianco or Malvasie. The spices of the preparation go well with wines that express delicate spicy aromas, perhaps due to refinement. If the preparations are intense and have a certain structure, you can also try red wines such as Sangiovese or Pinot Noir.
