The best advice we can give you is to experiment by pairing different wines with different foods. While some truths (see below) are inescapable, any combination you enjoy is a good combination! Just keep an open mind, and regularly try different combinations to regularly mix things up.

The truths about how wine can react with food:

• A wine high in tannins (Bordeaux, for instance) paired with a food high in tannins (like walnuts) will render the wine almost too dry and astringent to drink.

• Protein tends to calm tannins, so a very tannic wine might be really wonderful when enjoyed with rare beef.

• Delicate foods (veal, or filet of sole, for example) will be overwhelmed by a full-bodied red wine. Conversely, lasagna will almost totally cancel out a dry, medium-bodied Sauvignon Blanc.

• A wine can add its primary flavor to a dish, giving food a layer it didn't start with.

• Some wine and food combinations result in a flavor that was not present in either one, and is not meant to be, metal for instance. Try white turkey meat with red Bordeaux if you doubt this.

• Tannic wines make sweet foods taste less sweet; salty foods emphasize tannin.

• Salty foods mute the sweetness and enhance the fruitiness of a sweet wine.

• Wines that are high in acid taste less acidic with salty or sweet food; acidic wines also can offset oily foods.