There are plenty of over-used phrases in wine: “bold yet balanced” and “terroir-driven” come to mind right away. There are others like “wet slate” and “subtle barnyard” that are perhaps hard to understand. Yet one phrase is both over-used and poorly understood, and that’s “food friendly.” As the wine industry grapples with a wide range of styles and tastes, claiming that your bottle is “food friendly” has become an easy crutch, even if it’s often not true.
Let’s start with a basic concession: obsessing over ideal food and wine pairings can get tedious, quick. While of course there are some that are truly transcendent (popcorn and Champagne), and a few that are so abysmal they should never be replicated, most of what’s required for a good pairing is good food and good wine. The proper match can heighten the experience, of course, and sometimes a wine only really shines when paired with the right dish, but there’s also a lot of undo fretting over what should be a simple proposition: eat what you like, and drink what you like, and they’ll go together well enough.
That said, there are definitely wines that are more versatile when it comes to pairing, and they often have similar qualities. If they’re white wines, they tend to have higher levels of acidity, which helps keep the flavors of the food and wine from seeming cloying. They’re probably not exposed to loads of new oak, and they’re probably not super fruity. They’re also probably not super aromatic, as varietals like Gewurztraminer tend to require exactly the right contrast to keep from overwhelming.
Reds often pack a lot of acid as well, and if the goal is to pair them with meat they should have perceptible tannins, preferably more from the grapes themselves than the oak barrels they might be aged in. They should be medium-weight more than super full, so as to not overwhelm delicate flavors and textures. While they can have a fruity component, the most “food friendly” reds tend to blend fruit notes with elements of earthiness and spice.
Unfortunately, claiming that your wine is “food friendly” is a no-lose proposition for a wine maker: who would actively spurn a wine like that? Yet I often taste bold, fruity, oaky reds that are only “food friendly” if you’re eating a steak or something similarly full-flavored and fatty: probably not an everyday occurrence for most of you.
This serves mostly to muddy the waters about what exactly “food friendly” means, and it leaves wine drinkers adrift when it comes to understanding what the foundations of a good pairing truly are. Perhaps fittingly, many of the most “food friendly” wines may seem innocuous or even a bit harsh when tasted on their own, springing to full vitality only when actually paired with foods. That’s why when I taste wine I often bring my own snacks, to ensure that a putative “food friendly” wine is actually all it’s cracked up to be.
