A lot of us tend to stay away from ordering a bottle of wine that will match the food that everyone else if having and will just leave it to the restaurant’s recommendations, but there are broad principles that we can learn easily. The rules of choosing wines to accompany food are actually quite simple. Rule of thumb, white wine with fish and poultry dishes, red wine with red meats and cheese and if you’re not on a budget, sherry to with the appetizers and port with desert. Sounds fairly simple doesn’t it? But what happens when you come across exotic dishes? Say sautéed duck liver with peach and balsamic vinegar? Here are few simple guidelines and some less obvious suggestions that you may have never thought of.

Having said that, it’s completely alright to be bold in your wine selection because very few combinations actually clash. For starters, the best appetite-whetters are sparkling wine and dry sherry. Choose a light Californian sparkling wine to start things off with but if you are serving nuts or olives before the meal, dry sherry would be the recommended choice. Now for the main courses:

• Smoked Salmon or scallops needs a hefty white wine such as Pinot or Chardonnay
• Prawns or shrimps will be perfectly happy with any dry white wine such as a Sauvignon Blanc
• Oysters always go with Champagne, Muscadet or Chablis.
  Fish pates needs dry whites that’s not too fruity, such as Chablis or Muscadet
• Pork or Chicken pates always go very well with strong pungently flavored wine such as the California Fume Blanc or Hunter Valley. Surprisingly soft reds would also compliment these dishes very well.
  Pasta Dishes are really best with Italian wines; you can never go wrong with any selection.
• Lamb is the meat that is believed Cabernet Sauvignon may have been invented for, so go wild and experiment.
• Beef dishes can cope with any red wine from almost anywhere.
• Duck somehow needs a midweight red to cut out any fattiness, go for either a Chianti Classico or Californian Pinot.

Cheese & Wine

Now to the topic of cheeses. The recommendation of wine that suits a particular type of cheese is not to keep you within a set of rules but to help stimulate your imagination and to experiment your taste buds.

• Cheddar is typically recommended with red wine such as Northern Rhône Syrah or Bordeaux Medoc Red.
• Chevre or Goat’s Milk Cheese are excellent with Pinot Noir or Red Burgundy (France)
• Parmigiano Reggiano or Parmesan goes well with none other than most Italian wines like Chianti Riserva or Super Tuscan
• Roquefort or Blue Cheese always goes hand in hand with any Sauternes style (Botryized Sauvignon / Semillon)
• Soft French Cow’s Milk Cheese ( Brie, Camembert, St. Andre) can be mixed and matched with Barbera, Gamay or even Beaujolais
• Stilton somehow are mostly recommended with most vintage Porto or any late bottled vintage especially port.
• Swiss (Gruyere, Emmantel, Classic Fondue ) is where you can diversify with Sancerre (Loire) , Pouilly-Fuissé (France) or New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

Wine Article From: Wine-Blog.Net - Information About Fine Wine
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