1,505 easy and fully explained recipes, with +66K photos and 78 videos

This site uses only a few technical cookies necessary for its operation. By continuing to browse, you accept their use.
To find out more...

The magic of local wines

It's never easy to find the right wine to serve with the dish you've just cooked for your guests, because we're not all amateur sommeliers, and then there are so many possible choices in wines that "the perfect match" seems like a distant utopia, almost impossible to obtain. Add to that a lot of preconceived ideas that we have unconsciously in mind, like fish = white wine, and meat or cheese = red wine, which make it very easy to get lost.

8,560 4.7/5 (15 reviews)

Keywords for this post:Wine Color Agreement Advice Regional Local

Last modified on: April 7^th 2020

For this post: Comment Follow Send to a friend

The magic of local wines

Fortunately, you can ask your wine merchant for advice, which is always a good idea, or you can browse the web, but there you may also find almost everything and its opposite.

It is important to recognize that giving advice on wine is quite arbitrary, of course, matches that please everyone are possible, but there is also a good part of the taste, preferences and personal choices of the person who gives the advice that is found in the suggested wine, which is quite normal.

In short, all this to tell you that there are no established rules, and that the tastes of each person can give very different food-wine associations, and yet very successful.

So there are no rules? So it's true, globally, but there are some "tricks" that work all the time, and it's about one of them that I would like to say a few words.

There is a kind of constant in wine and food pairing, it is the wonderful association that happens almost every time with a regional dish, and the wine of the same region. Let's call it "The magic of local wines"...

I don't know which one influenced the other, but I have to admit that if you taste a regional dish, let's say typical of the area, you can safely opt for a wine from the same area, and be almost 100% sure that the match will be perfect.

I'll take two examples to illustrate my point:

cassoulet appellation cahors

1) Cassoulet and Cahors wine: If you serve a cassoulet to your guests, accompany it with a Cahors wine, a good one, which preserves its typicity, and not something neutral and smooth to flatter the globalized gullets, and you will be amazed by the result.

saucisse de Morteau vins du jura

2) Morteau sausage (a dish based on) and a wine from the Jura, in particular a white wine from the Savagnin grape variety, and there you touch on the marvelous... (Yes, yes, well, I'm probably overdoing it here, but what do you expect, this is one of my favourite dishes, and I should never get into it). Same thing if you taste an old Comté, with a lightly toasted sourdough bread.

This natural pairing is therefore an interesting option if you are hesitating about your choice of wine, and if your recipe is a little regional, look at the regional wines, you might just find what you are looking for.

Note of course that this agreement is not an obligation, besides there is never an obligation in gastronomy if you like, but just a very interesting option. And anyway, the possibilities are so numerous, and the tastes so different, that each one of us will have his way of seeing things, and thus of realizing his agreement. The ideal of course is that you, or one of your guests, say, after the first glass "Hey, it's not bad at all!

To sum up: Are you going to serve a (slightly) regional recipe? Always think of local wines to serve with it.

Lasts posts

A drizzle of olive oil

Often in a recipe, you have to "baste" vegetables, for example, before sending them to the oven. What the author means by this is that you need to put oil on top of the vegetables to cook them in the oven. Typically, we just quickly drizzle oil over the vegetables, hoping not to miss any, but...
July 13^th 20255795

Always secure your cutting board

When using a cutting board, it's very important that it's stable and doesn't move while you're cutting, for safety's sake. Boards have a natural tendency to slide on the work surface, but here are 2 ways to block them effectively.
July 1^st 20257925

Cherry clafoutis, with or without pits?

When it comes to cherry clafoutis recipes, there's often a camp of those who argue that you absolutely have to leave the stones in because it tastes better, and the other camp (myself included) who prefer cherries without stones, which makes a much more pleasant clafoutis to eat. But is it true...
June 29^th 20257875

Should potatoes be washed twice?

Let's say you have to make a recipe that includes potatoes, let's say sliced, you'll most likely proceed as follows: Peel the potatoes, wash them, slice them, wash them again, pat them dry and add them to your recipe. But there's a "but": depending on the recipe, the second washing may be a bad...
May 19^th 20252,418 15

Grilled bacon is much better in the oven

Some recipes call for thin slices of bacon to be cooked and added to the recipe, or to prepare one of those delicious breakfasts known as "à l'Anglaise".
April 25^th 20252,1285

See all posts Random post RSS feeds

Other pages you may also like

The taste of raw tomatoes

Let's take a look at tomatoes, which are still in full bloom at the end of summer (as I write these lines), and which make for delicious salads. I had already talked to you about the interest of peeling tomatoes, which gives them an extraordinary sweetness in the mouth, but let's talk about the...
September 8^th 201813 K4.9

The cake and the raisins

When you bake a cake, like a cake or pound cake, you may have already encountered this thorny problem: How to make sure that the raisins, or the candied fruits, or any other small filling, do not fall to the bottom of the pan during the baking process?
May 31^th 201912 K4.7

Fruits and their syrup

As I write these lines, we are finally in the summer, the holidays are approaching, and above all, the fruits are pouring onto the market stalls, if they are ripe, it's time to enjoy them to the full! .
July 24^th 20199,0764.7

The salad spinner is not only for salad

Where we see that the salad spinner can be used for many other purposes.
March 25^th 20228,9344.8

Properly cooked! (the taste)

Going out to a restaurant is getting harder at the moment. In France, at least, you have to try and find one that has agreed to pass on the new lower rate of VAT at anything other than a symbolic level, and there aren't many. And then, most importantly, you have to find a good one: one where you...
February 6^th 201115 K 14.6