The effect of temperature on food and wine pairing

Does the temperature at which you serve a dish affect the wine pairing? Matt Walls investigates: (This article was first published in 2012)

Ice cold plate of curry, anyone? How about a nice hot trifle? No. Didn’t think so. We all know that the serving temperature of food has a big impact on the enjoyment of the dish. As foods become hotter, their texture often changes; liquids become thinner, solids soften or melt. Additionally, as they heat up, foods release volatile (i.e. easy to evaporate) molecules more readily, which affects their aroma. So a plate of food served at a different temperature becomes in effect a different dish. And a different dish might require a different wine match.

Last week I went to an ambitious tasting organised by Champagnes Mumm and Perrier-Jouët to investigate this often neglected dimension in food and wine matching. It was led by Peter Barham, Honorary Professor of Molecular Gastronomy at Copenhagen University (his day job is Professor of Physics at Bristol University). He explained that it isn’t just the aroma and texture of foods that can be manipulated by temperature; our sense of taste can also be affected.

Cool a food or drink down, and any sensation of bitterness and sweetness will be reduced. Ice cream mix tastes overwhelmingly sweet before being churned and frozen; once it is set, it tastes less so. Warm up a can of cheap lager and it will begin to taste overpoweringly bitter. Surprisingly though, when it comes to our sense of taste, it is not the temperature of the food that is making the difference – it is the temperature of your tongue.

To demonstrate this, we were given two pots of identical foie gras parfait with sweet peach jelly. All the dishes throughout the tasting were designed to match specific Champagnes by Jonray and Peter Sanchez-Iglesias, owners of the Michelin-starred Casamia restaurant in Bristol. This pairing was to complement a glass of sweet Champagne – G.H. Mumm Demi-Sec NV. The pots were served at the same temperature, but with two sets of cutlery: one hot and one cold. When using the cold cutlery, the dish and the wine did seem to taste less sweet than when using the hot cutlery – the cold spoon did seem to numb my tongue to the sweetness of the dish.

Then we tried a dish of prawn consommé, sweet corn puree and toasted pine nut. This was well paired with a glass of G.H. Mumm Cordon Rouge NV. We were given two versions of the dish; one cold, one hot. The dish itself was more successful hot; the texture was smoother, more balanced and the flavours more integrated.

Did it match the Champagne better? Due to the heat, the flavour of the dish was a touch more pronounced, and this may have helped meet the intensity of flavour of the Champagne. But as the Champagne gradually warmed in the glass, and the dish cooled down, this fleeting impression diminished.

Lastly, we were presented with two toasted brioche sandwiches of Tunworth cheese with marmite butter and a glass of G.H. Mumm Cuvée R. Lalou 1999. One sandwich was at room temperature, one straight from the grill. This Champagne is rich, toasty and full-bodied, and it worked well with both versions of the sandwich, but particularly the hotter one; the melted cheese had richer, more farmyardy flavours which paired well with the truffle, hay and other mature characteristics in the wine, thanks to its eight years ageing on the lees. The smoother texture of the melted cheese also worked better with the Champagne than the firmer, more rubbery texture of the room-temperature Tunworth.

Technically speaking, this was a difficult tasting to pull off. With the temperatures of the food, wines and cutlery constantly pulling towards room temperature, timing was all important. This element was hard for the kitchen and waiting staff to achieve with precision, even in this dedicated experimental tasting. But although this exact type of tasting is challenging to replicate, there are some more general insights that are useful to bear in mind.

Though there were disagreements in the room about which combinations of foods and wines worked the best, the temperature of the food (and indeed the mouth) does actually make for a subtly different dish.

One thing that many tasters did seem to agree on was that it was more often warmer dishes that made for better matches with Champagne; if you are throwing a party and intend on serving Champagne and canapés, instead of the more typical cold canapés, it would be well worth experimenting with warm ones instead.

The inclusion or omission of an ingredient in a dish will have a greater overall effect on any food and wine match, but considering temperature of serving can perhaps add a little fine-tuning to make a good match that little bit better.

Matt Walls is a contributing editor to Decanter magazine. His latest book is Wines of the Rhône and you can find him on Twitter @mattwallswine.

Jonray Sanchez sadly died in 2015 at the age of 32.

Vector by Zanna Pesnina at shutterstock.com

Clever pairings for rare sherries

I don’t think I ever go to a sherry tasting without coming away renewed in my conviction about what a marvellous match it is for food and the one I attended yesterday was no exception. It was organised by the enterprising Les Caves de Pyrne who are importing for the first time into the UK some rare sherries from Emilio Hidalgo and took place at Dehesa, the sister (if that’s the appropriate word) restaurant of the better known Salt Yard.

The sherries themselves were spectacular but what was impressive was how well they were matched with the food - no mean feat with wines of this character and complexity

Especial Fino, La Panesa with smoked Lincolnshire eel with hispi cabbage and dehydrated olives
The component sherries in this untypical fino are an average age of 15 years which accounts for its rich golden and intense flavour of roasted almonds. The combination with the eel seemed quite Japanese in character - it added a nutty top note that provided a brilliant contrast to the slightly oily, soft, smoky fish (the cabbage and olives didn’t really affect the pairing, I found).

Oloroso Seco, Gobernador with roasted Jerusalem artichoke, pied de mouton and Morcilla
A true dry oloroso with a powerful flavour of grilled hazelnuts which stood up well to the earthy flavours of the artichoke and morcilla, two difficult ingredients to pair with wine. A very autumnal combination as Le Cave’s Doug Wregg aptly observed.

Marques de Rodil Palo Cortado with pan-fried barbary duck with blood orange and parsnip purée
The stand-out pairing for me for its sheer unexpectedness. The palo cortado which was aged for half its 20 year life under flor was paler than the oloroso, but deliciously fragrant and nutty almost turning into caramel with the sweet orange sauce (made with blood orange juice and chicken stock) and creamy parsnip pure. A really inspired combination

El Tresillo 1874 Especial Amontillado Viejo with Parmesan, Comté and Mahon with caramelised walnuts and rye bread
Possibly the best sherry I’ve ever tasted - certainly the best amontillado. I can’t really improve on the tasting note: “Imagine notes of cooked walnuts, orange peel, dried figs, toffee, cream, warm wood and spices (cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and cloves among others” (although possibly hazelnuts rather than walnuts) Almost too good to drink with the cheese - you really didn’t want anything to distract from the amazing flavours but it did obviously work, especially with the Parmesan and Mahon. Shame it retails at around £60-70 but a perfect present for an ardent sherry lover.

Pedro Ximenez, with bitter chocolate sorbet, muscavado ice-cream and moscatel raisins macerated in PX brandy
Again a lovely and quite distinctive sherry without the excessive sweetness of many PXs: pure liquid raisin. Possibly the raisins in the dish were therefore superfluous though there was a touch of lemon zest which accentuated the flavour of the sherry nicely. (I also found the combination of black coffee, chocolate sorbet and PX pretty sensational when I sipped my espresso afterwards)

These sherries are only available in limited supply. Only 5000 bottles are made of the fino, for example - and most will go into restaurants like Dehesa and Salt Yard. But if you’re a sherry fanatic you really must try and taste them.

You may also enjoy: 

• The best pairings for amontillado and palo cortado sherry
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• The best pairings for fino and manzanilla sherry
• The best pairings for dry oloroso sherry

I attended the tasting and lunch as a guest of Les Caves de Pyrène.

Image by Volker Schoen from Pixabay

Organising a wine and seafood pairing dinner

Last night we had a fun five course wine and food matching dinner at Rockfish Grill in Bristol which showed the range of wines you can match with fish. Here’s a few thoughts about how we approached it for those of you who are organising a similar event.

* The kitchen’s priorities are different from those of whoever is chosing wine. The chef wants to create a menu that shows off their signature dishes and make sure his or her team can deliver it. The wine person wants to make sure each course will work with wine. So it’s a compromise. We dropped two dishes - anchoïade on toast and ‘Bismarck’ herring with onion and dill which would have been tough on wine.

* We gave a choice of two wines for most of the courses to provide two contrasting options and allow some feedback from the guests.

* We introduced the guests to some wines they were unlikely to know such as Picpoul de Pinet. That’s the great advantage of a wine dinner - you can experiment in a way you might hesitate to do if you were ordering wine in a restaurant.

* We created two controversial (to some) pairings in the form of red wine with fish and sweet wine with cheese - both well received.

* Most of the discussion about the wines took place at the beginning of the evening. It’s important when people are going out for what can be quite an expensive evening with friends that you leave them time to talk and enjoy the wine and food. You can always go round the tables and discuss the pairings with them individually.

This is the menu that chef Mitch Tonks of Rockfish Grill chose and my pairings:

Razor clams grilled over the fire
Dartmouth crab with salad and mayonnaise
Goujons of lemon sole with tartare sauce
This choice of 3 starters was served with a Picpoul de Pinet 2008 from the Vignerons de Florensac, a simple, very crisp, Muscadet-like white and a contrasting much more complex aged Sauvignon St-Bris vieilles vignes 2006 from Clothilde Davenne. (St-Bris is just next door to the Chablis region) The general feeling was the Picpoul worked best with the goujons and crab, especially the white meat and the Sauvignon with the more robust cooked clams.

Scallops roasted in the shell with white port and garlic
We went for two totally contrasting wines with this course, Mitch’s own Tonnix, a crisp zesty Portuguese white from Quinta de la Rosa and a much richer white burgundy St-Véran Domaine des Deux Roches Burgundy 2007. The St-Véran, the more classic match, overwhelmingly proved the favourite choice but I really liked the fresh, palate-cleansing effect of the Tonnix too.

Cuttlefish braised in Chianti with borlotti beans
This robust seafood stew was a natural for red wine with the typically Italian 2005 Trescone, Lamborghini a blend of Sangiovese, Ciliegiolo and Merlot. providing a refreshing counterpoint to the red wine sauce and mealy beans. Better than any of the whites I thought.

Grilled Monkfish with fennel
A dish that worked with three of the wines: the Trescone because monkfish is a meaty fish and grilling or roasting fish makes it more likely to go with a red (a lot of guests enjoyed this); with the Tonnix (a crisp, citrussy counterpoint but with enough personality to stand up to the grilling) and the St-Véran (white burgundy is great with rich fish and especially with fennel and cream which is almost always a good match with Chardonnay)

Gorgonzola with honey
Most agreed that the sweet wine we served - Domaine la Hilaire Jardin D’Hiver from the Gers in south-west France, a blend Petit & Gros Manseng - worked much better than the Trescone with the cheese - a first experience of the combination for a number of the guests.

Mitch also served a rhubarb and campari trifle which obviously contained its own booze so we didn’t attempt to pair wine with that!

So, a good way to spend an evening with great food and wine and the opportunity to pick up a few tips along the way. Wine dinners can be a lot of fun.

If you’d like me to help your organise or speak at a wine dinner contact me on the enquiry form at the bottom of the page.

You might also like: 

• Top wine pairings with scallops
• The best wine pairings with crab
• The best pairings for prawns or shrimp

Photo by Alex Favali