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We love to pair wine with food. Think port and bleu cheese. Sangiovese and pasta with a rich tomato sauce. Pinot noir and salmon. But, what do you do when you come across challenging wine and food pairings? We will explore that topic here.

We love wine and food pairings, but how about challenging wine and food pairings?

Some of the Most Challenging Wine and Food Pairings

Every major publication provides a list of challenging wine and food pairings. Here are just a few:

• Decanter – Eggs, artichokes, asparagus, fennel, spinach, truffles, oily fish, smoked foods, pickles and vinaigrettes
• WineEnthusiast – Artichokes, asparagus, cabbage, chili pepper, eggs, barbeque and smoked dishes
• The Wine Bible – Artichokes, asparagus, chiles, cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, kale and cabbage, eggs and vinegar

How Do You Deal with Challenging Foods?

I’m not going to cover everything in the lists above. Instead, I’ll highlight some of the ones I’ve heard most often.

• Eggs – Decanter tells us that “Egg yolk coats the mouth in a very glutinous manner, and crumbly hard-boiled eggs have a sulphurous quality.” They recommend pairing with the most important ingredient in the egg dish, whether that’s cheese or onions or herbs. WineEnthusiast warns us that “Despite eggs loving buttery, lemony Hollandaise sauce, don’t reach for a buttery wine.” They recommend Sparkling Wine or Pinot Noir.
• Artichokes – The Wine Bible highlights the fact that “Artichokes contain cynarin, an amino acid that can produce the impression of cloying sweetness and an unpleasant, metallic taste in wines.” Eater says that “When the wine meets the cynarin on your palate, it enhances any natural sweetness in the wine, making it taste not only too sweet, but flabby and boring.” Eater recommends choosing a wine that is bone dry, light and crisp, with high acidity and no oak.
• Asparagus – Why is asparagus problematic? It contains marcaptan, which The Wine Bible calls “a skunky-smelling compount associated with a fault in wine.” Decanter recommends New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, dry Spanish rosé, Pinot Noir and Pinot Grigio.
• Smoked dishes – Bradly Smoker, in his Idiot’s Guide to Wine Pairing, says that “smoked meat has rich flavors of either dry rub spices or wet brine. These intense flavors tend to suppress the wine, making it taste flat and boring.” WineEnthusiast recommends that we not pair smoked foods with smoky wine. Decanter recommonds Manzanilla, Fino Sherries and Rieslings, with their high acidity and touch of sweetness.
• Pickles – Pickles are incredibly acidic, which could be problematic for an acidic wine. wineclick recommends choosing a wine with a level of acidity proportional to the pickles and a wine with some residual sugar. Their top recommendations are Gewürztraminer and Muscat.

Some Observations

I think it’s really interesting that eggs, artichokes and asparagus have a problematic ingredient that makes for challenging pairings and that smoked dishes and pickles can easily overwhelm the wine.

I was surprised to learn that you want some sweetness in the wines you pair with pickles.

Finally, I noticed some omissions: no Chardonnay and no big, bad reds.

I would love to hear how you approach challenging wine and food pairings.

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