Acidity cuts fat
High-acid wines refresh fatty, rich, or creamy foods by clearing the palate between bites.
Food & Wine Pairings
What goes with what — and why.
Search from either side of the table. Tell us the dish you're cooking and we'll find the bottle — or tell us the bottle and we'll find the dish.
I have a dish — what wine?
Popular dishes
Apple Pie
BBQ Brisket
Bacon
Baklava
Beef Burger
Beef Stew
Beef Tartare
Beet Salad
Biryani
I have a wine — what to cook?
The Three Levers
Why Pairings Work
Every great match is built on one of three ideas — sometimes all three at once. Once you can name the lever, you can predict the pairing.
Aged wine bridges to slow-cooked food through texture
A well-aged wine and a slow-braised dish pair through shared textural complexity — savory, earthy, and developed flavors on both sides.
Avoid tannin with raw or delicate fish
Tannin reacts with iron compounds in fish to produce a metallic, fishy aftertaste that spoils both.
Featured Pairing
What you'll get back
Every search returns a recommended match, the structural reasoning, and the pairings to avoid.
The dish
Roast Chicken
The wine
Oaked buttery Chardonnay
Why it works
Roast chicken is a classic middle-weight pairing anchor: richer than poached poultry but not as forceful as red meat. Oaked buttery Chardonnay works here because its creamy texture and oak spice mirror butter, cheese, cream, and shellfish richness without needing sweetness. That makes the match feel deliberate: matching oak and creaminess to real richness in the food, letting the wine share the dish's sense of richness, with the wine refreshing the next bite rather than stealing the spotlight.
Browse by Dish
Browse by category
Nine kitchens worth of inspiration.
Browse by Wine Style
Browse by wine style
Eight families that cover almost every bottle on the shelf.
Bold Reds
Cabernet, Syrah, Malbec, Nebbiolo
Elegant Reds
Pinot Noir, Sangiovese, Grenache, Gamay
Crisp Whites
Sauvignon Blanc, Albariño, Vermentino
Round Whites
Chardonnay, Viognier, Roussanne
Bubbly
Champagne, Cava, Crémant, Prosecco
Rosé
Provençal, Tavel, dry rosés
Sweet
Sauternes, Tokaji, late-harvest Riesling
Fortified
Port, Sherry, Madeira, Marsala
Famous Bad Pairing
Cabernet Sauvignon vs. Chocolate Cake
It sounds romantic. It tastes like chewing on a tea bag.
Tannin
Cabernet's tannin is already grippy. Dark chocolate adds its own. Stack them and both feel drying.
Reach for
Ruby or Tawny Port, Banyuls, or a late-harvest Zinfandel. Sweetness needs to meet sweetness.
Still Stuck?
Ask Scott a question →
Just ask Scott.
Got a weird ingredient, a half-finished bottle, or a dinner-party puzzle? Scott has read every pairing in this database and a lot more — and he'll explain his reasoning.
