Principles of Chinese Food and Wine Pairing

Many people think that wine is only good with Western food, but in fact wine can be paired with different dishes from all over the world. For example, Chinese food. In Western cuisine, there are usually only two main courses, and you only need to follow the matching principles with one wine. Chinese food is much more complicated than Western food because Chinese people's tastes are so tricky! The Chinese table is full of different genres, steaming, stir-frying, stewing, pot roasting, and a variety of sauces to match. In a Chinese wine pairing, the master should prepare at least one white and one red wine. At the same time, the pairer needs to pay attention to the balance of the pairing, which should be weighed against the intensity of the wine's flavor and structured texture, and vice versa. Pairings can become very different from one hometown dish to another, so it's hard to say whether Chinese food will be paired with a particular red or white wine. Today we will give you a few examples of some of the more common dishes to enjoy Chinese food with wine.

• Greasy dishes: For example, roast pork, braised pork knuckles, steak, and other thick, greasy dishes are good with wines that are tannic and heavy. Red wines with Cabernet Sauvignon are recommended.

• Spicy dishes: Spicy dishes such as hot pot, sliced pork, spicy duck head, etc. go well with sweeter wines. Many wines under 11 degrees actually taste sweet! Here we recommend noble rot.

• Lighter dishes: For example, white cut chicken, dishes without much seasoning, are more suitable for lighter white wines to sublimate the taste. Here we recommend Riesling or Chardonnay from colder regions.

If there's a dish you're dying to learn about, feel free to let us know! We will come up with a related article to satisfy everyone's learning curiosity!