Explore Food & Wine

We obtain information about the taste of food eaten through small structures called ‘taste buds’ on the upper surface of the tongue. There are six known elements of taste ’salty’ ’sour’ ‘bitter’ ’sweet’ ’spicy’ ’savoury’

When we taste wine we are using the above elements to determine its flavour. It depends on the age and condition of each individual’s tongue as to the taste they determine. On that basis its possible that one person will taste wine and get a completely different taste than another. Yet whenever I have been involved in wine tasting most people tend to agree on similar characteristics. The most frequent response being ‘i like it’ or ‘i don’t like it’

So I prefer to stick with the like it don’t like it view.

If we look at each element and try to combine it with one or more of the other’s then we get good combinations for example ‘Sweet- Sour’ ‘Sweet- Spicy’. In fact its possible that all combinations of the six produce acceptable results.

And where is this leading to you might ask?
All combinations of wine with food will work. for example
Red wines combine with Chocolate. The best being heavy reds such as port but even heavy burgundies produce interesting results.
So now with the above knowledge in mind we go looking for combinations.