Your guide to food and wine pairing

A great food and wine pairing is a feast for the senses. With so many possibilities, it’s easy to become overwhelmed, but creating memorable sensations comes down to just two key elements: understanding the basics and an adventurous mindset.

Cape Wine Master Ginette de Fleuriot, who is the Wine Training and Education Manager at leading wine distributor Vinimark, is passionate about the subject and recently hosted a Food & Wine Pairing Masterclass with fellow gastronome Carolyn Martin of Creation Wines. Their insights offer a solid foundation for anyone looking to learn, experiment and discover. 

Pairing food and wine is both scientific and subjective. If you are looking for the perfect match, be prepared to have fun and experiment but keep these key elements in mind:

1. Smell & Taste
   Interestingly, taste is not solely reliant on our tastebuds. Our taste experience is determined largely by smell. In fact, 70 -80% of taste comes from all the nuances that we smell in the retro-nasal cavity. The five basic tastes that shape flavour experiences are sweet, salty, bitter, sour and umami (a concentrated, savoury taste often found in protein-rich foods, such as miso). Yet there’s a newly “discovered” sixth taste too: minerality. Minerality comes from the calcium and magnesium content in wine. It adds earthy notes like wet stone, chalk or flint, which elevate bold flavour combinations. For example, Glenelly’s mineral-rich Cabernet Franc paired with roasted root vegetables or olive tapenade highlights the wine’s earthy minerality, complementing the food’s savoury elements. Besides the six tastes and the crucial role aroma plays, there’s also texture, temperature and balance to consider. In addition to aromas and flavours, the brain takes in the texture, temperature and even the colour of the food and wine when assessing a pairing experience. Everything must be in balance. Let’s consider the role of texture, temperature and the need for balance in a bit more detail:
2. Texture
   The feel of both the wine and food play a key role in the pairing. For a texture-led pairing, try the elegantly silky Creation Pinot Noir with a soft and smooth goat’s milk cheese like Chavroux. Creation’s Syrah Grenache with Cape-style Mungbean Bobotie enhances the rich character of the dish and the wine’s rounded mouthfeel.
3. Temperature
   If a wine is too warm, the lighter aromas evaporate, and one experiences the wine as more alcoholic. If a white wine is too cold, it similarly loses its bouquet. A red that is too cold feels overly tannic and dry on the tongue. So make sure you serve the wine at the optimal temperature to bring out the flavours of the food. Playing with freshness (via cool, raw ingredients) and heat (via curry and spices) can really highlight a wine’s most interesting qualities and make for a fun, somewhat unexpected pairing. A great example of this – which happens to be one that Martin had guests try at the Vinimark Masterclass – is pairing a cos lettuce taco with curried green beans, marigold, cucumber and celery gazpacho with Creation’s 2023 Chardonnay. The combination highlights the wine’s fresher notes of grapefruit and apple, and in turn, the texture of the wine complements the food. During its production process, this particular wine had lees contact and went through secondary fermentation to turn malic acid into lactic acid; because of this, it gained a silken acidic structure texture that works well with the heat and spice of the curry, holding its own without being overpowered.
4. Balance
   Achieve harmony between acidity, sweetness, tannins and weight. For instance, a dark chocolate tartlet with salted-caramel nuts complements the ripe dark fruit notes and the texture of the underlying tannins in De Krans’ 2020 Cape Vintage, creating a perfect balance. ‘Pairing is not just about what works; it’s about what excites you, what sparks conversation, and what stirs emotion around the table,’ says Martin. ‘It’s a journey of balance, where science blends with art, and tradition meets innovation.’ Pairing food and wine goes beyond flavour. It’s about creating moments that engage the senses, evoke emotion and deepen our appreciation of the stories, traditions and craftsmanship behind each dish and wine.

Here are some foolproof hacks to bring out the best in every wine:

• What grows together, goes together: Ingredients and wine made from grapes grown in the same region will naturally elevate each other.
• Deconstruct to reconstruct: Break down the elements of your dish, putting them back together piece by piece to determine what works best by considering taste, weight, texture, temperature and colour.
• Balance flavours: Contrast sweetness with salt. For dishes with an element of bitterness, avoid serving tannic wines and try fruity wines instead. Always make sure that the wine is sweeter than the dish.

Consider the classics as an entry point – salmon and Chardonnay, oysters and Champagne, or chocolate dessert and Cape Vintage – before venturing into experimentation. If you’re keen to experiment, then why not try the playful combination of sparkling wine with salted popcorn for an unexpected yet delightful twist. Above all, have fun with it!