Most everyone reading is now rolling their eyes. “Not THIS again!” So much fuss is made over pairings between food and wine, that you have to wonder what all the fuss is about, and whether it is possible for anyone to learn it in one lifetime. Do you just have to go to wine college and get a degree? Well, no, but it wouldn’t hurt…

Let’s try to skim this down to the basic elements: At the end, it’s all about you, your taste buds, and how much you care. If you think tilapia fried in olive oil is the best match for Cabernet, that’s all you. Nobody is more right about what you like than you are. And if you really want to appreciate the elegant art of matching food with wine, you should experiment anyway. How are you going to know why a buttery Chardonnay isn’t a good companion for prime rib beef, until you try it yourself? Go ahead and try new things; we promise that the Wine Police won’t come and haul you away!

There are the “by-the-book” wine snobs who have vast lists of food and wine pairings. At the other end of the spectrum are those who dismiss the whole school of thought as a lot of hot air. The truth, as you might expect, lies somewhere in the middle. And with many wine experts contradicting each other on specific cases, you would expect that there’s less science and more art to it.

Some basic rules of thumb: Either white wines go with fish and poultry and red with everything else, or else red wines go best with red meats (beef, pork, lamb) and white wines go with everything else. If only it were as simple as color-coding!

Here’s a better rule of thumb: Pair a strong-taste with a delicate taste. Another way to say this is “complex wines with simple foods, simple wines with complex foods”. You want the two to compliment each other. Think of how you wouldn’t wear a polka-dot shirt with a striped tie, but rather match a solid color to a pattern.

As with clothes, you also don’t want the tastes of food and wine to clash. Use the same common sense that tells you which foods match together. A sweet dinner of crab’s legs and lobster tail will be great with a Chardonnay, which is sweet and delicate. A grilled T-bone steak wants a hefty, fruity wine with a kick to compliment it; time for a Bordeaux! But in some cases, contrast is more important. Liver is a strong, lingering taste, so it needs a modest, mild, contrasting compliment, rather than a match which would be overpowering; how about a Pinot Noir or any burgundy that isn’t too demanding?

The “red with red” rule is so consistent that it even applies to things other than meat: For pasta, match a red wine to a tomato-based red pasta sauce, and a white to a white Alfredo-type sauce. The same goes for sauces on vegetables. As for vegetables themselves, once again we should go for matching simple for simple with complex for complex.

Cheeses are another broad area. Anything goes. Most wine experts in fact like to have a wide array of cheeses and wines so they can mix and match. As with playing chords on a musical instrument, there isn’t always an absolutely right or wrong answer. This goes for cheese sauces and fondues, too.

The purpose of this little spiel is to demystify the world of wine for the common person. Hopefully, you’ve gleaned enough hints from here to have a basic concept of what’s going on. If you want to pursue the subject deeper, there’s whole encyclopedias devoted to this subject. And if you find yourself dining with companions who barely tolerate your wine drinking, let alone putting up with a rule-book wine bore, you’ll still be loose enough to relax and not be so stuffy about it.