Wine
Two-thirds of the cost of a bottle has nothing to do with the wine. Intrigued? Read on...
Great food matched with excellent wine is such a pleasure. And the good news is that most wines go reasonably well with many dishes. Terrible clashes are few and far between. That said, there are a few simple tricks for finding a winning combination. By Susy Atkins.
Susy Atkins, delicious. magazine's wine editor, gives us some tips for some of the best party wines.
Broaden your wine horizons, says Susy Atkins.
There are no hard and fast rules in food and wine matching these days but there are some useful general guidelines that help hugely in making perfect partnerships between dish and bottle.
It’s not especially easy to match wine with chocolate, but you can certainly have fun working out the best matches for your sweet treats.
Whine regions
Where you live in the UK may determine how you order wine in restaurants. Plus a useful guide to food and wine matching.
Just one in three Brits know exactly
which wine to order at restaurants, and one in four admit they wouldn’t
know a bad wine if they were served one, according to research
commissioned by specialty
cheese brand Castello.
Of the 1000 diners interviewed, over half of respondents confessed to
feeling stressed when ordering wine at a
restaurant yet, despite this, diners remain reluctant to ask waiters to
recommend a good option, 56% of diners shy away from asking waiters for
suggestions for fear of
being sold expensive wines, and 41% admit that they don’t ask for help
because they are worried about losing the respect of their peers.
How you respond to ordering wine also depends on where you live:
- Geordies are the most honest when it comes to ordering wine; diners
in Newcastle are most likely to admit not knowing which wine to order
- Diners in Yorkshire are the cheapskates of the country and are most likely to chose the cheapest wine on the menu
- Waiters in Wales are the least trusted as diners expect the hard-sell on expensive wines
- Four out of ten people in Birmingham think that cheap wine tastes as good as fine wine
- Londoners are the biggest wine snobs and are most likely to turn their noses up at the house wine
- A third of diners in the Norwich area think that they know more about wine than the waiters who serve them
- Cornish people are have the most critical taste buds and are most likely to spot bad wine
- Diners in Kent are the most likely to ignore any advice about which wine to order.
Want to look knowledgable about wine?
Read Susy Atkins' quick guide to food and wine matching.
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