When You Order non-Complementary Foods

You're eating a meal with your spouse, significant other, a parent, child, friend, business associate, or just some other person. And, you'd like to drink wine with dinner. And, while the bottle list is pretty good, the by-the-glass is extremely pedestrian. But, you run into a problem. The foods that you order, whether it's two people or four, just don't complement each other when it comes to wine. 

You need an example? Imagine that one of you orders ribeye or New York strip and the other of you orders Dover sole. Or, one of you chooses the mixed greens while the other has the bacon burger. In each case, one of you was looking for a big, bold, tannic red wine while the other was looking for a somewhat subdued, gentle white wine.

It doesn't just happen with parties of two. In fact, it's more likely to happen with parties of four or more. Even if you go to a steakhouse or seafood restaurant, it seems there is always one outlier in the group. Somebody has to be difficult and choose to go against the grain. If they are choosing to be particularly difficult, they want the wine choice for the table to suit their food and don't particularly care if it works with yours.

We wrote about this briefly yesterday. Sadly, it won't be perfect, but we can try to be as pleasing as possible. By the way, this is the challenge that sommeliers always face. You might notice, if you hang with a lot of sommeliers, although you probably don't, that, as a group, they tend to recommend what we might describe as a specific class of wines. Often, though, we can't put our fingers on what that is.

The rest of the world is somewhat different where so much wine consumption is done with meals, but somehow in the US, we've managed to make it so that we drink enough wine just sitting around. As a result, or at least it seems to be as a result, Americans have fallen in love with fuller-bodied and often less acidic wines. You don't know what I'm talking about? Think Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. You don't believe me? Look at a wine list and see which red and which white are each blesses with their own categories.

When we ask for recommendations, however, sommeliers rarely choose those varietals. Instead, they often choose Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Pinot Noir, and Sangiovese, or of course, the ever-present blends. What do they have that Cabernet and Chardonnay don't?

The answer is acidity. While there is certainly not a direct correlation, more highly acidic wines tend to be more food friendly. They simply go with more foods. They are less likely to overwhelm and more likely to complement. So, when all else fails and everybody except for you, of course, is being a jerk and just ordering the "wrong" food, go acidic on your wine if you want to please the whole table.