Food & Wine Pairing

A Simple Guide to Red Wine & Food

So far we've discovered that pairing food and wine isn't really about following a list of rules. It's about getting the flavours, weight and intensity of what's in your glass to play nicely with what's on your plate.

Now it's time for the reds.  We all know the traditional advice: red wine with meat.

And yes, there is some science behind that one. But red wine can work with everything from pasta and pizza to cheese, chicken and even — brace yourselves — fish.

The trick is knowing whether you've got a light, fruity red or something big, bold and tannic.  So let's open a bottle and investigate.

🥩 Steak & Beef – The Classic

Let's get the obvious one out of the way.

Red wine and steak really are very good friends.

Red wines contain tannins — those compounds that can create a slightly dry, grippy feeling in your mouth. Protein and fat in meat soften the perception of those tannins, while the wine helps cut through the richness of the food. The richer and fattier the cut, the more robust your wine can usually be.

Try:

Cabernet Sauvignon → steak, roast beef and richer cuts

Malbec → steak, burgers and barbecued beef

Syrah/Shiraz → grilled and peppered meats

Merlot → roast beef, burgers and slightly softer meat dishes

In other words, the steak-and-red-wine rule wasn't just invented to sell expensive bottles in steakhouses.  They actually knew what they were doing.

🍝 Pasta – Once Again, It's All About the Sauce

Remember Part 2?  The pasta still doesn't care what wine you're drinking.  The sauce does.

Tomato has plenty of acidity, so it needs a wine fresh enough to keep up with it.

Chianti/Sangiovese → tomato sauces, lasagne and ragù

Barbera → tomato-based pasta and richer sauces

Montepulciano → meatballs, ragù and baked pasta

Pinot Noir → mushroom or lighter tomato-based dishes

A rich beef ragù can cope with a much fuller red than a simple bowl of spaghetti pomodoro.

So if somebody asks:  “What red goes with pasta?”

You already know the professional answer:  “What's the sauce?”  Look at us. Practically sommeliers 😁

🍕 Pizza – Possibly Wine's Most Useful Partner

Tomato. Cheese. Salt. Fat. Herbs.  Pizza has rather a lot going on, but fortunately red wine is up to the challenge.

Fresh, fruity Italian reds are particularly good because their acidity works with the tomato while their fruit complements the toppings.

Margherita → Chianti or Barbera

Pepperoni → Sangiovese or Syrah

Meat feast → Syrah, Malbec or Cabernet Sauvignon

Mushroom → Pinot Noir

Four cheese → a juicy Merlot or Barbera

And if your pizza arrived in a cardboard box rather than from a wood-fired oven in Naples?

The pairing still works.  Wine doesn't judge.

🍖 Lamb – Herbs Are Your Clue

Lamb is richer than many meats but also has a distinctive flavour of its own, so it works beautifully with reds that have plenty of character.

Cabernet Sauvignon is excellent with roast lamb.

Rioja/Tempranillo works beautifully with slow-cooked or roasted lamb.

Syrah is great with grilled lamb and stronger flavours.

But pay attention to the herbs and sauce too.  Rosemary, thyme, garlic and other Mediterranean flavours can completely change which wine works best.

Remember our golden rule: Pair with the whole plate, not just the thing in the middle of it.

🍗 Chicken – Yes, Red Wine Works Too

Chicken appeared in our white-wine guide, but we're bringing it back.  Why?  Because chicken couldn't care less about traditional wine-pairing rules.

A delicate poached chicken probably wants a white.But roast it, grill it, cover it in mushrooms or give it a rich sauce and suddenly lighter reds can be fantastic.

Pinot Noir → roast chicken and mushroom dishes

Gamay/Beaujolais → grilled or herb-roasted chicken

Merlot → richer chicken dishes and casseroles

The important word here is lighter.

A huge tannic Cabernet with delicate chicken is a little like inviting a brass band to provide background music over dinner.  

Technically possible.  Perhaps not ideal.

🐟 Red Wine With Fish – Call the Wine Police

Here comes one of the great wine “rules”:  Never drink red wine with fish.

Except... you absolutely can.

The problem isn't really the colour of the wine. Heavy tannins can clash with delicate fish and sometimes create an unpleasant metallic sensation.  So choose a lighter, lower-tannin red.

Pinot Noir can be lovely with salmon or tuna, particularly when they're grilled or served with mushrooms or earthy flavours.  A light Gamay can work too.  And slightly chilling a lighter red (yes, really!) can make it wonderfully fresh alongside food.

So yes:  Red wine with fish.  We've said it.  Nobody has arrested us yet.

🧀 Cheese – Red Isn't Always the Answer

We've already committed one act of wine heresy by admitting in Part 2 that white wine can sometimes be better with cheese.

But plenty of reds work beautifully too. The trick is avoiding a huge tannic red with a delicate creamy cheese — the wine can simply flatten everything in its path.

Pinot Noir → Brie, Camembert and Gruyère

Merlot → Cheddar and Gouda

Cabernet Sauvignon → mature Cheddar and harder aged cheeses

Port → Stilton and other blue cheeses

A good general rule is:  

The stronger the cheese, the more character the wine can have.

Although if there is an entire cheeseboard involved, we're perfectly happy to recommend more than one bottle in the interests of accuracy 😉.

🍄 Mushrooms & Umami – Pinot Noir's Best Friend

Mushrooms have those savoury, earthy umami flavours we talked about in Part 1.  And one particularly lovely partner is

Pinot Noir.

Pinot can have its own earthy, woodland characteristics alongside red-fruit flavours, which makes it brilliant with mushroom risotto, mushroom pasta, truffles and earthy vegetarian dishes.

It's a good reminder that red wine doesn't need meat.

Sometimes matching flavours works just as well as creating contrast.

🔥 Barbecue – Think About the Smoke

Barbecued food brings smoke, char, spice, sweetness and usually quite a lot of sauce into the equation.

Which means it can cope with some fairly punchy wine:

Malbec → burgers and steak

Syrah/Shiraz → smoky, peppery meats

Zinfandel → sticky ribs and sweeter barbecue sauces

Grenache → sausages, grilled meats and Mediterranean flavours

If the sauce is sweet, choose a wine with plenty of ripe fruit.

If it's spicy, be careful with very high alcohol.

And if your chef is standing over the barbecue announcing that everything is “nearly ready” for forty-five minutes...

Open the wine early.

Coming Next...

We've done white. We've done red.  So in Food & Wine – Pt 4, we're sitting happily somewhere in between with our guide to rosé and food.

Because rosé deserves considerably more than being dragged out of the fridge for a summer barbecue. It's fresh, fruity, wonderfully versatile with food and — purely coincidentally — the Four Non-Farmers might know a thing or two about it. 🌸🍷

Cheers from the Four Non-Farmers! 🍷

🍷 The Quick Red Wine Cheat Sheet

Light & Fruity

Pinot Noir • Gamay

→ Chicken, salmon, mushrooms, charcuterie and softer cheeses.

Medium & Juicy

Merlot • Sangiovese • Barbera • Tempranillo

→ Pizza, pasta, roast meats and burgers.

Big & Bold

Cabernet Sauvignon • Malbec • Syrah/Shiraz

→ Steak, lamb, barbecue and rich slow-cooked dishes.

Rich & Sweet

Port and other fortified reds

→ Blue cheese, chocolate and desserts.

🍇 And Where Does Pinot Noir Fit In?

We couldn't finish this one without mentioning Pinot Noir.

It's one of the world's most versatile food wines, partly because it tends to have good acidity, relatively gentle tannins and plenty of red-fruit character.

That means it can move surprisingly easily between salmon, chicken and mushrooms at the lighter end, through to duck, pork and richer dishes.

And, of course, Pinot Noir happens to be one of the varieties growing rather happily at a certain little vineyard in Essex.

Pure coincidence, naturally. 😉

🍷 The Most Useful Rule?

Don't simply match red wine with meat.  Match the weight of the wine with the weight of the dish, then think about the sauce, seasoning and how it's been cooked.

A light Pinot Noir and a huge Cabernet Sauvignon may both be red wines, but expecting them to work with exactly the same food is rather like saying:

“They're both shoes. Either pair will be fine for hiking.”

Technically true.  Potentially regrettable.