Choosing a wine to pair with Asian cuisine can be challenging, perhaps more so than alternative cuisines styles. Not only are you likely to be serving several dishes simultaneously, but the flavor profiles of the individual dishes often overlap, presenting a rather unique challenge. One dish may be sweet and sour while another is spicy and smoky. As well, it’s likely that you’ll be dealing with multi-textured dishes from noodles to meats and poultry.

Most dishes are prepared in such a manner that the true flavor is represented by “accessory” ingredients such as sauces, seasonings, and cooking style. As well, the blend of some or all of these can yield still another set of aromas and flavors. With this in mind, I set out to speak with a few local sources about pairing strategies along with my own knowledge and experience. As well, I want to point you to valuable book on the subject, Wine with Asian Food, by Patricia Guy and Edwin Soon. If you’re searching for a resource, this is a great place to start.

While pairing wine with Asian cuisine presents some unusual challenges (it’s not simply a red with steak), there remains a constant goal: to pair a wine with the dominant flavor of the dish, recalling that there may be several secondary and overlapping flavors in any one given dish. If you’re serving multiple dishes at a meal, which is often the case, you might want to have a couple of wines on the table, each of which will work with one or two dishes. As we’re working off the flavor profile of any dish, sometimes a very intense one at that, it’s important to understand the basic flavors that may play a dominant or secondary role. While I’ll touch upon basic wine styles to consider with flavor profiles, the next in the series of articles will go into more depth about specific varietals.

Sweet and sour flavors are a common theme with Asian dishes (i.e. sweet and sour pork, chicken, etc). The sour component often derives from fruits such as lime, mango and tamarind while the sweet flavors come from fresh or dried fruits or coconuts. When the two are combined in a dish, it’s usually the sweet component that takes the lead, hinting at a sweet wine with some firm acidity as a nice choice. If the dish is more heavily accented with sour elements, consider a wine with zesty acidity.

Salt is a very common ingredient in Asian food and is found in soy and oyster sauces. These sauces lend a rich, meaty and savory flavor to a dish providing what is known as an Umami flavor (described below). If Umami is the dominant flavor, you can go with whites or reds, the choice partially depending upon the secondary flavor ingredients and the primary food group (i.e., fish, meat, poultry, game, etc.).

While most of us may not associate “bitter” with Asian food, there are food elements that contribute just that taste. Think about the taste of certain vegetables such as asparagus, eggplant, bittergourd or arugula. Or how about certain roasted nuts? Indian curry leaves, used in some curries and fried in hot oil, can provide a bitter edge while Kai-lan (Chinese broccoli or Chinese Kale) brings its own bitterness to the table. While it’s not too often, in my experience, that bitterness acts as the dominant player, think about whites if that’s the case and try not to choose one with too much herbaceousness. You’re looking to soften the dish, not accent the bitterness.

Umami is probably a name that is not familiar to most of you. The word is derived from the Japanese word “delicious” and imparts a meaty and savory flavor associated with glutamate. Most of us associate the taste with monosodium glutamate, that ingredient that produces muscle tightness in the jaw. It is also readily found in Western food as well in cured meats, ripe tomatoes, mushrooms and asparagus. Umami, along with salt, is a significant flavor ingredient in oyster sauce and is found, as well, in fish sauces. If Umami is the predominate flavor in a dish, you can go with a low alcohol white or a rich and fruity red.

Last in line is the fire and flavor of chili. Asian food has a very special affinity for chili spice. Look at any Asian restaurant menu and you will appreciate the number and variety of “hot and spicy” starred dishes. These firey sensations come from ingredients such as chili peppers with names such as birds eye chili. Peppercorns and mustards and are usually blended with some combination of cloves, curry, sugar, soy and/or fruit sauces, chutney and hoisin sauce, as well. Not surprisedly, you’ll want a wine that refreshes, balancing the heat of the dish. A hint here…..keep tannic wines at a distance. The combination produces a taste that your palate will not appreciate.

If you’ve come away with the impression that pairing wine with Asian food is not as simple as red with beef, then you’re on the right track. With such a varied kaleidoscope of flavors and food textures fighting for recognition, it’s not at all surprising that there are many possible choices. We’ll examine these in more detail in the next part.

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