Wine Pairing For Health Promotion

Wine pairing is a popular topic in the wine world but did you know that there is a health connection? Did you know that some of the compounds in wine are good for your heath? Wine pairing will now be more about what wine goes with your chicken, lamb or nut roast. In my new book Nutriwine I explain how wine pairing will be practiced in the future - with a health connection.

Wine Pairing & The Molecular Health Recomendation
The whole experience of wine tasting gets better when you start to pair wine with food. This will also further expand your frontal cortex for wine information and cause more health peaks in the body biochemistry as it reacts to the flavour and the food is even better digested. Generally speaking people pair white wine with white meat like chicken and fish and red wine with red meat typically beef and lamb. Very sweet wine goes with dessert as any other wine paired with a sweet dish will taste acidic. The whites will cut through brine and the reds will add texture to the meat and both will draw out flavours. For restaurants it may be helpful to consider the components in terms of taste of the wine as that can't be altered the food can be designed around the wines offered. Afterall the elements in wine are set long before you dine.

Whites will range in terms of dryness to sweetness and age as we have seen earlier. With reds your talking about tannin and oak from a taste range from soft to a hard taste that extends to leathery. A dry Savignon Blanc will go well with grilled fish and crab with its citrus notes. With roast chicken you could have a Chardonnay to complement the butteryness or a velvety Merlot to draw out the texture of the meat. Coming to beef you could have Pinot Noir or a Cabernet Savignon their full body and also tannins complement the meat. Champagne will cut through any brine in fish dishes like caviar and oysters. There are a number of easily printable free charts online to download and print to assist your wine pairing. With the huge popularity of Asian food now around the world think Rieslings from Germany for refreshing crispness.

You might think that all this is pie in the sky but there is a lot of science behind wine pairing. For example bell peppers contain 2-methoxy-3-isobutylpyrazine which is found in Savignon Blanc. So those two would go well together. This is a very simple example of how sophisticated this can get but basically he is matching the food and wines based on their aromatic and flavour compounds. If they are similar they won't clash and instead create a gastromic synergy.

The main goal of wine pairing with food is synergy that increases your dining experience. Like any good marriage the wine must not overtake the food and the food must not overtake the wine. Together they bring out the best of one another. White wine for example will cut through fishy taste and the citrus notes will complement the taste of the dish. Lemon is generally served with fish and lemongrass in Asia.

There are two paths when it comes to wine pairing. One is by following the advice of experts in what wine to pair with your food and the other is empirical - personal trial and error. Each person will have different likes and dislikes. As Vaynerchuck says often in Wine Library TV if you try a different wine with your food everyday in six months you will know your likes and dislikes.

Dr Maury was a french physician also qualified in acupuncture and homeopathy. When it comes to wine Maury believes that wine acts as an aid to digestion. Medoc wines are great at toning the stomach with their tannins with calcium and magnesium. Also the intestine walls get toned particularly if the person is prone to diarrhea or irritable bowel syndrome. For constipation he recommends sweet wines like Anjou high in glycerol which will have a mild epsom salt effect. Another promoter of wine and health was Dr Luca California. He also wrote a number of books on the subject. Since their books we have way more scientific studies to prove what they were saying at the time about wine and health.

The active compounds of wine for health are B vitamins, minerals and phenolic compounds, such as; anthocyanins, catechins, quercetin and resveratrol. The B vitamins are Vitamin B1 (thiamin), Vitamin B2 (riboflavin) and vitamin B3 (niacin) specifically. B vitamins are essential for energy production in the body. Viamin B1 is good for the pumping strength of the heart and levels are depleted with long term use of diuretics. Thiamin is also good for the nervous system and protects the nervous system from damage particularly in diabetic neuropathy. Plus improves your thinking and was the first vitamin to be discovered.

Vitamin B2 helps in the production of thyroxine hormone which controls metabolism and red blood cells when it works with iron. Main benefit of riboflavin is that it protects the eyes particularly the lens against cataracts. Half of the body's requirements for Vitamin B3 comes from the amino acid tryptophan. Being a natural anti-inflamatory it has benefited those with arthritis. In nerve health it is said to ease depression anxiety and insomnia.