Schlossadler International Wines Presents

By Ronn Wiegand Copyright Deutsches Weininstitut
www.germanwineusa.org

Balance of Flavors German Wine & Food Pairing Guide

Pairing German Wine with Food

Our Changing Menu

What we eat and how our food is prepared have changed considerably in recent years. Demand for fresh, seasonal and specialty products and ingredients has never been higher. Health conscious diners are eating lighter foods and seeking out better prepared, more nutritious and more flavorful dishes.

Through travel, media exposure and personal experience, we have become much more aware both of other cuisines and of the wealth of ingredients and exotic preparations now available to us in the global pantry.

Many products which were considered new several years ago already have been integrated into what we eat today. Salsa, for example, outsells catsup in the USA, where it may be served with everything from tortilla chips to broiled salmon.

As our daily menu becomes more varied and eclectic, the wine selection process becomes more challenging. Which types of wines go best with specific foods and preparations? What about sauces, herbs, spices and seasonings?

This webpage provides you with answers to these questions and introduces you to some of the most accommodating mealtime wines produced anywhere, German wines.

German Wines: Versatile Wines With Today's Menus

Germany produces a wide range of white, rose and red wines. Because they are generally lighter, crisper, and more fragrant than most other wines, German wines are often perfectly suited to today's lighter, more flavorful fare.

What makes German wines so versatile?

Germany is a northern European wine country, whose cool climate and long growing season yields wines with refreshing crispness, elegant flavors, and moderate alcohol content (averaging 8% to 11%, compared with 12% to 13% for wines from most other countries).

The moderate alcohol content of German wines means fewer total calories per glass and an appealing drinkableness, which makes them less tiring than fuller bodied wines.

At the table, this natural lightness, combined with the wine's underlying crispness, allows German wines to pair easily with a broad range of foods. And the elegant fruitiness of German wines marries readily with robust--and refined--dishes of all types.

The only question is, which wines go with which food?

Getting Stared in Pairing Wine and Food

Pairing food with wine is a skill which can be developed very quickly by following some basic guidelines and by trusting your own taste. The guidelines below are not inflexible rules. They are suggestions to help speed you along on your taste journey.

Food and Wine Pairing Guidelines

1. Focus on the food or dish first, since most people decide what they will eat before deciding on which wine to enjoy with it.
2. Look at the complete dish, not simply its primary ingredient. In making wine selections, it is often as important to consider the method of preparation and sauces or seasonings used in a dish as it is the primary food ingredient.

   Roast pork could be matched with many wines. But pork in a dried cherry and red wine sauce would require a wine that would stand up to the sweetness and fruitiness of the sauce, such as an aromatic or medium dry German wine (as a Traminer or Scheurebe Q.b.A., Kabinett or Spatlese).

3. Size up each food or dish according to its overall taste impression, focusing specifically on its texture (heavy, smooth, light) and its flavor intensity (pungent/spicy, medium, mild).

Texture

Texture is the feeling and weight of the dish in your mouth. Generally, heavier textured dishes (meat, game, oily fish, cheese) call for either full bodied wines, which complement the dishes' heavy texture, or very crisp, zesty wines, to cut through that heavy texture.

Flavor Intensity

Generally, it is best to match delicately flavored dishes with lighter bodied and delicately flavored wines and to match fuller flavored dishes with fuller bodied, fuller flavored wines.

However, dishes and foods which are particularly intense in flavor are more difficult to match with wines than dishes with less intensity. This is especially true of dishes with high levels of sweetness, saltiness, spiciness, tartness or strong fishy, oily, gamy or smoky character. (Note: this includes many ethnic foods and dishes.) Here are some recommendations for intensely flavored dishes which are more demanding of the wines with which they are served.

German Wines and Ethnic Foods

German wines are extraordinarily, versatile with foods and dishes from around the world. Indeed, because of their lightness, crispness and fruitiness, German wines are among the best wines of all to pair with dishes which are very, spicy, and/or lightly sweet, including classics from spicy cuisines like Thai, Mexican, Chinese (Szechuan-Hunan}, Tex-Mex, Cajun and Indian.

Here are a few quick rules for matching German wines with ethnic foods.

• If a dish contains some sweetness, serve an off dr), German wine to match that sweetness.
• If a dish is spicy, serve lighter bodied (lower-alcohol) German wines, since alcohol amplifies the spiciness of a dish.
• If a dish is hot and spicy, serve a German wine with both low alcohol and slight sweetness to counterbalance the heat of the dish.

Indonesia    Beef satay, with spicy peanut sauce
Mexican      Chicken enchilada
Chinese      Szechuan beef stew
Tex-Mex      Three chili pizza
Cajun        Shrimp gumbo
Indian       Chicken curry

THE WINES OF GERMANY

The wines of Germany are produced in 13 regions from more than a dozen different grape varieties. Although the wines have much in common, they also exhibit regional characteristics.

For example, white wines from the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer and Ahr regions tend to be light and fairly crisp; those from Pfalz, Baden and Wudtemberg are fuller and spicier.

The Major Grape Varieties of Germany

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