How to find the perfect drop and match it with your meal
ENJOYING wine is a social and cultural part of Australian living.
Gladstone's Gecko Valley Winery co-owner Tony McCray shares his secrets about finding the perfect wine and matching it with food.
Food matching:
- You should start with a drier wine. Once you're on to the sweet wines, your palate tends to be cloyed.
- Entrees tend to be tasty and tangy, so dry wine like sauvignon blanc or a lightly oaked chardonnay would work well.
- For your main course you would go for something heavier.
- Pinot noir goes with duck and shiraz with an eye fillet steak.
- Whites don't have enough guts to go with red meat but light reds can go with strongly flavoured white meat, like strongly flavoured barramundi or turkey.
- For dessert you can really go mad with all the liquors available.
- A malt tokay would go with a nutty desert.
Wine temperature:
- The wine scene was developed before refrigerators.
- All the flavours are in balance if you imagine the wine has just come out of your wine cellar.
- A red certainly shouldn't be drunk at our 30-degree room temperature, nor straight out of the fridge. It should be about 12-13 degrees.
- You'll find the flavours are so much better if you do take the time to get that right. And you'll find the match of the food much more enjoyable.
- Most whites people drink are too cold, half a degree straight from the fridge. You really don't get any flavour. It should be about 6-7 degrees, so just take it out of the fridge half an hour before drinking.
- And definitely never use an ice bucket. It just destroys the whole purpose of it.
