What food is on the menu tonight?

What wines do you drink with what food?

It wasn’t too long ago that that particular question was easily answered.

If your meal is based on red meat you drink a red wine. If your meal is based on white meat – you drink a white wine.

It is all to do with conditioning your palette to enhance the flavor of the food you eat.

That sounds simple enough doesn’t it? To accompany a meal consisting of steak or lamb, you choose a red wine. To accompany a meal of pork, chicken or fish, you choose a white wine. So off you go to the liquor outlet and get confronted with innumerable red wines and innumerable white wines – which red or white wine, still or sparkling? Merlot or Claret? Moselle or a Chardonnay? The choices are endless or so it would seem.

If you are just buying a bottle of wine for yourself and/or partner to drink with your meal – depending on your age and taste in wines, the choice is going to be easy.

I am sure that everybody has their own unique favorite when it comes to wine, both in red and white and sparkling and still.

If you are the adventurous type and are willing to give anything a go, you are still going to purchase a wine that is very close in character to your preferred wine of choice. Maybe you would be prepared to purchase a sparkling wine instead of a still wine for a refreshing change.

Wine and wine drinking is synonymous with special events and celebrations.

So you have a very special occasion coming up where you would like to take along some good quality wine to share with your hosts, guests or friends.

Where do you start? You know your tastes in wine and if you are a very observant guest at any special function you can associate different wines with different people – to a point!

Where do you go from here? It is mind boggling when you think of all the wines that are now available on the market, which makes your choice so much harder. Do you purchase still wine or sparkling wine? How do you go middle-of-the-road where wine is concerned when everybody has their own individual taste?

Have you ever noticed at celebratory events that involve wine and wine drinking that, after partaking in a couple of glasses of wine and the atmosphere is relaxed and friendly, people will drink wine that is not necessarily their chosen blend.

If this special event is associated with a meal, maybe the meal will dictate the nature of the wine you take along and will assist you with your choice of either a white wine or a red wine. A dry wine or a sweet wine? The majority of women will partake in a glass of moselle – light to medium and fruity. Men on the other hand may prefer a bolder, dry tasting red wine or a milder, somewhat fruitier middle of the road red wine like Mateus.

Naturally, you are going to purchase a wine that both you and your partner enjoy, even if the embodiment of those particular wines are poles apart in themselves. Wine drinking is an individual thing – you are not going to please everyone, so you may as well please yourself.