Pairing Wine And Cheese? Science Says White May Be A Better Choice Than Red

Nov 8, 2016

(NPR) - Conventional wisdom would have you drink red wine with cheese. A new study, published in the Journal of Food Science, only partially supports that pairing, and also adds a new tool to the scientific study of food combinations.

"Red wine with cheese, it can either go really well or not that well," says Mara Galmarini, a sensory scientist at CONICET, the Argentinian National Scientific and Technical Research Council. "A white wine, you have less risk."

Ed Behr, editor of the influential Art of Eating newsletter, says he's not surprised. Behr has long argued that red wines and cheeses often fight, to the detriment of both.

"There's no question in my mind that white wine goes better. And more often than not, depending on the cheese, a little sweetness makes things even easier," Behr told The Salt.

Galmarini spent two years exploring wine and cheese pairings at the Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l'Alimentation (CGSA – Centre for Taste and Feeding Behavior) in Dijon, France. Much of the work was to build on a new technique called temporal dominance of sensations (TDS) that researchers there developed to examine how taste evolves over time.

The problem with current methods, Galmarini says, is that they are static and singular. Expert tasters can accurately describe what is in their mouths, often giving a numerical rating to the intensity of each element of the flavor. That doesn't work to chart how the taste of a mouthful changes or how different foods and drinks affect one another.


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