Wine and dine

Hold the stem, grab a grub and tickle your taste buds

If you are a beginner and think wine is too western for an Indian palette of yours; pair it with something as local a dish as chicken 65 or paneer tikka. Read on to know more about wine and food pairing, wine etiquettes and how to pick a wine bottle

Wine and food

The thumb rule is that white meat is ideal with white wine and red meat with red wine. However, the ingredient in the food can be a decisive element as to which dish should be paired with which wine. This holds true for Indian cuisine; especially Andhra food as they are highly spicy with the presence of chilli and pepper in them.

The level of spice can decide which wine has to be paired with which food. For instance, if the dish is chilli chicken or chicken 65 in which the spice takes over, the pairing should be done with red wine. For a tandoori chicken with moderate spicing, an ‘Off-dry Rose’ is idle to tickle your taste buds. If it’s simple fish, the choice should be white wine, but if it’s a spicy cuisine like chapala pulusu, the wine to match with it is a fruity, medium boiled red wine. Chicken and fish, which are white meat, has the Indian paneer as its equivalent. So, when consuming paneer, the wine to go with it is white wine.

For the veggie

There is a misconception about the non-availability of food options for veggies. Any food can be paired with either white or red wine. Ideal food pick for veggie would be salad or cottage cheese or paneer.

Wine etiquettes

While white wine is served in a smaller and slimmer glass with a small bowl, red wine is served in a bigger glass with wide bowl. The aroma of white wine is important which the small bowl of the glass helps in preserving. White wine is served chilled in small portions and has more refills. To keep the drink cool, hold the glass by its stem and not the bowl. You sure don’t want your body temperature to heat up the aromatic chilled drink. While white wine needs to save the aroma to enhance its quality, red wine is served in glasses with wider bowls to allow air to add its magic to the taste of the drink.

Read before you buy

The new world labels are straight-forward which even a first-time wine bottle holder can decipher. These are where-the-wine-was-made, where-the-grapes-were-grown, which-food-to-pair -it-with et al. While the old world wine bottles sell with labels only a wine connoisseur can interpret. To buy an old world wine label, you should know what you are looking for.