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Red wine with red meat. White wine with white meat. These traditional and very limiting wine and food pairings have been the norm for years. But fortunately, that's changing. Many people today believe you should forget about the rules and drink or cook with a wine you like. If you want a Cabernet Sauvignon with your chicken salad, have it. If you prefer a White Zinfandel with a grilled steak, then chill a bottle while the meat is sizzling. Tim Hanni, a master of wine, trained chef and president and CEO of WineQuest, Inc., a consulting firm dedicated to enhancing wine's image and enjoyment, supports that view wholeheartedly. "Everything we believe about wine and food pairing is changing," he says.

The marriage of food and wine is not made in heaven. It's made in the mouth. "When you put wine and food in combination, things change," Hanni says. "Sweet foods make wines taste more acidic. Acidic foods make wines seem sweeter." The wine hasn't changed, but the perception of it has. Whether the change is seen as positive or negative, depends on the individual. "For years, we've been telling people what to drink based on what experts like. They should be drinking what they like."

Hanni, who calls this concept "The Cause and Effect of Food and Wine," bases his assumption in large part on the Japanese concept of umami. Recognized as the fifth and savory taste, the principles of umami and an understanding of how the other tastes in food affect the taste of wine, "can be used to adapt any dish to any wine," Hanni says. "You can adjust the seasoning of food in the kitchen or sometimes at the table so that a particular dish pairs well with the food you are eating."

The Five Tastes

To understand how Hanni's approach works requires a simple refresher course on the sense of taste, which is both physical and psychological. We in the Western world long have recognized four elements in the sense of taste: sweet, sour, bitter and salty. They're easily identifiable to most people. But individuals vary in their tolerance for or acceptance of each. For more than century, though, the Japanese have insisted there is a fifth taste sensation. They call it umami. Often described as the savory characteristic in foods, it is prevalent in Asian cuisines.

The prototype for the umami taste is MSG, which triggers the umami receptors in taste buds. "Umami occurs naturally in many foods. The flavor is brought out by curing, smoking, and in some cases, cooking," Hanni says. Westerners may find umami hard to recognize. "But one thing is for certain. They like it. It's what makes aged beef preferable in taste to fresh beef. It's associated with everything from steak to ham and seafood, tomatoes, asparagus, meats and cheeses. In fact," he adds, "the sweet taste attributed to many shellfish actually is the umami taste."

All foods contain some or all of these five tastes. Wines, on the other hand, have three basic tastes: sweet, sour (or acidic) and bitter. Astringency, a fourth term widely used to describe wine, actually is a tactile sensation. It is a sense of touch (the wine in the mouth) not of taste. To successfully create dishes suitable for any wine, cooks and those who enjoy their food need to know how the five tastes, especially umami, in food affect the three tastes of wine and its astringency. For example:

Sweetness in food increases the perception of sourness, bitterness and astringency of the wine. It makes the wine appear less sweet (or more dry), stronger and less fruity. Sweetness in a dish comes from the inclusion of sugar, most fruit and fruit juices, hoisin sauce and honey. It also can come from cocktail sauce, teriyaki sauce, some tomato sauces and often vegetables.

Dishes with high amounts of acidity from vinegars, lime, lemon and dry wine reductions affect the sour taste sense. They will decrease the perception of sourness or acidity in wine. They make the wine taste richer and more mellow. Wine that is sweet to begin with will seem to be even sweeter.

Sweet and sour combinations in food, such as honey-mustard sauces, often cancel each other out. If one taste dominates, though, the wine will react according to the principles above.

Foods with bitter components, such as endive, arugula, radicchio, herbs, many spices, some fruits and food charred during the cooking process, will increase the bitterness wine.

Saltiness in food tends to tone down the bitter and sour tastes and the astringency of wine. Salty foods may make sweet wines taste sweeter.

The umami taste in food also increases the perception of bitterness in wine and may leave a bitter or metallic aftertaste. It also makes the wine seem more astringent. "The judicious addition of salt to food, especially to sauces and other foods high in umami, can be useful in some cases to tone down the bitterness and astringency of some wines," Hanni says.

While Hanni's principles may sound academic and a bit complicated, they really are quite simple. If you understand what a particular taste will do to the taste of the wine you want to drink, you can adjust the way your food is seasoned or sauced to match the wine.

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