by Melissa J Luther

Created on: August 08, 2009   Last Updated: October 02, 2009

The right wine elevates a meal from merely good to unforgettable.

Different wines have different personalities, as do different foods, and certain personalities pair more successfully than others. This simple fact is the basis for rules about wine and food pairings.

Wines and foods react when consumed together, changing the taste of each. Understanding these interactions will help you recognize why some foods and wines play well together and others just do not.

Some wine and food characteristics to consider:

* Sweetness/Dryness

Wines are either dry or sweet, with varying degrees of each.

A dry wine results when all of the available sugars have been turned into alcohol. The driest wines taste too sharp to sip on their own; they need robust foods to mellow their flavor. Most wines are dry, including the basic Chardonnays, Merlots and Pinot Noirs.

Sweet wines have a significant amount of sugar left after fermentation. These wines pair well with sweet, smoky or spicy foods. Rieslings, Gewurztraminers and Moscatos are typically sweet wines.

The sweetest wines are classified as dessert wines and are best enjoyed alone. German Eisweines and French Sauternes are two dessert wines.

Some dry wines are very fruity, making them seem sweet. Shiraz and Lambrusco are two examples.

* Acidity

The amount of acids, usually tartaric, malic and citric, in a wine determines its acidity, and acidity affects how dry or sweet a wine tastes, independent of sugar content. The more acidic the wine, the drier it usually tastes.

Balancing the acidity levels in the food and wine is important. High acid foods will overpower a low acid wine. Likewise, sweet foods will accentuate the sharpness of a high acid wine and make it taste unpleasant.

Ingredients like tomatoes, vinegar and lemon pair well with high acid wines. This is the reason Southern Italian food pairs so well with Italian wines like Chianti; the acidity in the wine stands up to the acidity of the tomato-based foods.

If your food is spicy as well as acidic, choose a slightly sweet, but still acidic wine, like Chenin Blanc.

* Weight

Weight refers to how strong the wine and food tastes. You don't want the taste of one to overpower the other. This is the basis for the classic rule of white wine with white meats and red wine with red meat.

A full-bodied red wine, like a Cabernet Sauvignon will overpower a light dish like a broiled whitefish or lemon chicken. These dishes go best with a white wine or a light red like Pinot Noir. That

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