Good wine pairing comes down to matching the weight of the wine to the weight of the dish, then choosing between a wine that echoes the food and one that cuts through it. The sauce decides more than the protein does, so read it first. Get those right and most meals have several good bottles waiting, rather than one correct answer you have to hunt down.
Take one chicken breast and cook it three ways. Roasted with lemon and thyme, it wants a crisp Chenin Blanc, while a peri-peri baste calls for a Riesling with a touch of sweetness to calm the chilli. Braise it in red wine with mushrooms and Pinot Noir takes over.
Same bird, three bottles. This wine pairing guide explains why, then applies the principles to the food you actually cook, from the braai to a Friday night curry. Each cuisine section names bottles from our Cape and European shelves, so you can go straight from reading to pouring.
Why Some Pairings Work and Others Clash
Wine pairing is the practice of choosing a wine whose structure balances the dominant tastes in a dish. Structure is the part of a wine you feel as much as taste, mainly its acidity and tannin. Sweetness and the warmth of alcohol play a part too. Every element on the plate pushes one of those levers up or down.
|
What's on the plate |
What it does to the wine |
What to pour |
|
Fat, as in lamb chops or aged cheese |
Softens tannin, so a firm red feels rounder |
A structured red such as Keermont Syrah |
|
Salt, as in oysters or biltong |
Tames bitterness and makes fruit taste riper |
Champagne or a crisp white |
|
Acid, as in tomato sauce or lemon |
Makes a softer wine taste flat |
A wine with more acidity, such as Chianti Classico |
|
Sweetness, as in chutney or pudding |
Makes a dry wine taste thin and sour |
A wine at least as sweet as the food |
|
Chilli heat, as in peri-peri or Durban curry |
Alcohol and tannin turn up the burn |
An off-dry Mosel Riesling with modest alcohol |
|
Bitterness, as in charred greens or rocket |
Stacks on top of the tannin |
A white or a low-tannin red |
Read the table as cause and effect. A young Cabernet that tastes harsh on its own can turn smooth beside a fatty ribeye, while the same wine next to a chocolate brownie tastes thin and bitter. The bottle didn't change, only what it met on the plate.
South African cooking makes this more interesting than most. A single braai plate can hold charred lamb fat next to a sweet chutney, and each one pulls the wine in a different direction. The trick is to find the element that dominates and pour for that.
The Three Wine Pairing Principles Worth Knowing
Sommeliers work with dozens of rules, but three of them do most of the work at a home dinner table. Each one is easy to test the next time you cook.
Match Weight With Weight
Light food wants light wine, and rich food wants a wine with enough body to stand beside it. A delicate piece of steamed kabeljou disappears under a big oaked red. A slow-cooked oxtail potjie does the reverse, flattening a lean Sauvignon Blanc until it tastes like water.
Our red wine guide sorts the main grapes by body, from light to full, and the same scale runs through whites, from a zesty Loire Sauvignon Blanc to a barrel-aged Cape Chenin. Cooking method adds weight too, so a pork chop off the braai can take a bolder wine than the same chop poached.
Complement or Contrast
You have two routes to a good match. A complementary pairing echoes a flavour already in the dish, like an earthy Pinot Noir beside a mushroom risotto or a peppery Syrah with a pepper-crusted fillet. A contrasting pairing uses opposites, like sweet Sauternes against salty blue cheese.
Neither route beats the other. Contrast suits rich, salty food, where the wine resets your palate between bites. Complement suits dishes built around one clear flavour you want more of.
Read the Sauce Before the Protein
The protein is often the least important thing on the plate. Chicken and white fish take on the character of whatever they're cooked in, so the sauce should choose the wine.
Take a fillet of hake. With lemon butter it suits a crisp Chenin Blanc, but in a tomato and olive sauce a light Italian red works better than most whites. Red meat follows the same rule, and a plain grilled steak that loves a firm Cabernet needs a riper, fruitier red once it's under a sweet monkey gland sauce.
Food and Wine Pairing by Cuisine
Grape-by-grape charts are useful, but nobody cooks a grape. Here is how the principles play out across the meals South Africans actually put on the table, with bottles to try for each.
The Braai
Smoke and char need a red with some grip, and lamb chops are where Syrah earns its place at the fire. The fat on the chop softens the tannin, while the wine's peppery, savoury side picks up the smoke. Keermont's Syrah from Stellenbosch has the structure for chops and boerewors.
For a butterflied leg of lamb, step up to a Cornas from Domaine Lionnet in the Northern Rhône. Sweet basting sauces push you back towards riper Cape Syrah, since a savoury Rhône can taste sour against the sugar.
Snoek with apricot glaze is a white-wine job. A Swartland Chenin Blanc like David & Nadia's handles the sweetness of the glaze and the oiliness of the fish.
Cape Malay and Durban Curry
Spice is where most pairings go wrong. Chilli heat makes alcohol taste hotter and tannin taste harsher, so a big Cabernet with a lamb curry turns into a fight.
The answer is a white with lower alcohol and a little sweetness. A Mosel Riesling Kabinett from Joh. Jos. Prüm cools a Durban curry the way a spoonful of yoghurt does, and its acidity keeps the sweetness from feeling heavy.
Cape Malay cooking is milder and more aromatic, often with fruit in the sauce. A Vouvray Demi-Sec from Domaine du Clos Naudin has just enough sweetness to meet the chutney in a bobotie, while a dry Cape Chenin works when the dish leans savoury.
Seafood From the Cape Coast
Salt and bubbles make one of the most dependable matches in wine. A briny West Coast oyster with blanc de blancs Champagne is a classic for good reason, and Larmandier-Bernier's Latitude, made entirely from Chardonnay, is a good bottle to start with.
Fish and chips in Kalk Bay works on the same logic. The acidity and bubbles in a Brut such as Pol Roger's Brut Réserve cuts straight through the batter.
Grilled linefish with lemon wants a crisp white with acidity to match the citrus. Garlic-butter prawns can carry more weight, and a Chardonnay with some oak stands up to the butter.
Sushi and Asian Flavours
Soy sauce adds salt and umami, while wasabi adds heat. Pickled ginger then throws sweetness and acid into the same mouthful.
Champagne copes with all of it, cutting through tempura batter as easily as it handles the soy. A dry German Riesling such as Dönnhoff's Tonschiefer Trocken is the other safe choice, with the acidity and delicacy that raw fish needs.
For sweet and spicy Thai or Korean dishes, go back to an off-dry Kabinett. Pol Roger's Rich, a demi-sec Champagne, also has enough sweetness to meet chilli and palm sugar.
Italian Night
Tomato is high in acid, which is why so many red wines taste flat next to a bolognese. Italian reds grew up alongside this food and carry the acidity to match it.
Sangiovese is the classic partner for tomato-based pasta, and Fèlsina's Berardenga Chianti Classico from Tuscany is an easy place to start. Barbera from Piedmont does the same job with softer tannin, which makes it a strong pizza wine. Try the Barbera d'Alba from Elio Grasso or Luciano Sandrone.
Creamy carbonara flips the logic back to whites, where acidity cuts the richness. A Sicilian white such as Idda's Carricante has the freshness for it.
The Sunday Roast
Roast chicken is the most forgiving dish in this guide. Its crisp skin and gentle flavour suit Chardonnay from Burgundy or the Cape, and neither will let you down.
Add mushrooms to the pan or roast a duck instead, and Pinot Noir takes over. Its earthy side matches the mushrooms and its acidity cuts the duck fat. Newton Johnson's Pinot Noir from the Upper Hemel-en-Aarde and a Bourgogne Rouge from Bachelet-Monnot are both good places to begin.
Roast lamb with rosemary goes back to Syrah or a Bordeaux-style blend, where the tannin meets the fat.
Cheese and Dessert
Dessert has one firm rule: the wine must be at least as sweet as the pudding. A dry wine next to malva pudding tastes sour and thin, which wastes both.
Tokaji Aszú from Oremus in Hungary has the sweetness and apricot character to meet a malva pudding head on. Fèlsina's Vin Santo is the traditional Tuscan partner for almond biscotti.
Cheese splits two ways. Salty blue cheese with sweet Sauternes is one of the great contrasts in wine, and Château Lafaurie-Peyraguey comes in a half bottle that suits a cheese course. Hard, nutty cheeses like aged Gouda are happier with Champagne or a mature red.
Foods That Fight Wine
The foods that don't go with wine are the ones that change how your palate reads it. Knowing them saves you from blaming a good bottle for a bad match.
Artichokes contain cynarin, a compound that makes whatever you drink next taste oddly sweet. Asparagus brings a green bitterness that clashes with oak and tannin, so a crisp, unoaked Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire or the cooler Cape coast is the safest choice.
Vinegar is the next trap. A sharp salad dressing or pickled onions will strip the fruit from most wines, and your best defence is a wine with even more acidity, like Champagne.
Eggs are trickier than they look, because the yolk coats your palate and mutes most wines. Champagne is the usual brunch answer, since the bubbles scrub your palate clean between bites.
Chocolate is the pairing people most want to work with a dry red, and it rarely does. The sugar makes the wine taste sour and the bitterness stacks on top of the tannin, so reach for a wine with real sweetness instead.
Very hot chilli comes last. A Durban curry at full heat overwhelms most wines, and even an off-dry Riesling can only take the edge off.
Your Wine Pairing Questions, Answered
What food goes best with wine?
Food with some fat and salt flatters almost any wine, which is why cheese and roast meats are the default. Lamb with Syrah is about as reliable as a good food and wine pairing gets. For one bottle across a mixed table, Champagne is the most versatile choice, with Pinot Noir as the closest red equivalent.
What are the two basic rules of food and wine pairing?
Match the weight of the wine to the weight of the food, and make sure the wine has at least as much acidity and sweetness as the dish. Break the first and one side swamps the other. Break the second and the wine tastes sour or thin.
What do you call someone who pairs wine with food?
A sommelier, the trained wine professional who builds a restaurant's list and recommends bottles for each dish. At home, the principles in this guide cover most of what a sommelier would tell you at the table.
What should you pair with South African wine?
Start with the grape rather than the country. Cape Chenin Blanc is the most flexible, happy with anything from bobotie to roast chicken. Syrah is the braai wine, especially with lamb.
Can you drink red wine with fish?
Yes, with the right fish. Meaty fish like tuna or salmon work with light, low-tannin reds such as Pinot Noir, especially served slightly chilled. Tannic reds with oily fish like sardines are the risk, since the combination can leave a metallic, fishy finish.
What if you only drink red?
Then drink red and choose it with care. A low-tannin red like Pinot Noir or Dolcetto covers far more of the menu than a heavy Cabernet does.
Planning a Menu? Start With the Sauce
Next time you cook for friends, write the menu down before you think about wine. Circle the sauce on each course and the dominant element usually names the bottle for you. Serve the bottles light to heavy and dry to sweet, so each one tastes better than the last.
The Great Domaines team is happy to suggest bottles for a specific menu, from a midweek curry to a four-course dinner party. Tell us what you're cooking and we'll work backwards from the sauce.