Wu Shuxian · The Art of Wine Pairing

Author: Wu Shuxian
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-05-01
Features: How to pair Chinese cuisine with wine? How to pair Western cuisine with wine? What kind of wine should be chosen for seasonal dishes? Is it the same to drink wine every month? By reading this book, you will find the answers to the above questions. In 2006, when the firecrackers of the Lantern Festival echoed, I finally completed the last draft of The Art of Wine Pairing with Food, and the completion of this book also fulfilled my long-standing wish—to popularize the basic knowledge and culture of wine through a book. Wine and Dishes basically covers the fundamental principles of combining wine with dishes, especially explaining the pairing principles from the perspective of the taste principles between wine and food, as well as the core of wine—the body. The main purpose remains to help readers truly understand the characteristics of wine and choose their drinks and dishes according to their needs, rather than blindly following my preferences. I believe everyone has their own tastes, and I respect everyone's preferences. The reason I wrote this book was just to provide a professional benchmark for everyone. I am not originally a chef, and I wrote this book mainly for wine, because most people drink wine while pairing it with food. Chinese cuisine is vast and profound, and the traditional eight major culinary schools are already complex enough. Today, with the convenience of transportation, chefs are mobile across the country, making these culinary schools even more diverse, giving rise to "Sichuan-style dishes that aren't truly Sichuanese" and "Canton-style dishes that aren't truly Cantonese." We have also heard names like "modern-style cuisine" and "creative cuisine," which even the renowned chefs of each school can't clearly define. Pairing Chinese cuisine with wine has always been the biggest challenge for wine critics and authors in Southeast Asia, because Chinese cuisine, unlike Western cuisine, focuses on ingredients rather than preparation. Western cuisine is basically 70% raw materials and 30% preparation. If you know the ingredients, pairing dishes with wine is not difficult. However, Chinese cuisine involves serving a dozen dishes at once, making it hard to pair each wine with each dish perfectly. Chinese ingredients are far more diverse than Western ingredients, but the quality of agricultural products in China is unstable, making it impossible to classify them by quality. Some products with a century of reputation have been tarnished due to the addition of harmful substances. Our country has a wider variety of vegetable breeds than foreign countries, such as Shanghai green cabbage, rapeseed, lettuce, and water celery, which are all delicious vegetables. However, due to excessive pesticide residues and the lack of institutional control over scattered farmers, the quality is inconsistent. I sincerely hope that our vegetables and other raw materials for seasonings (such as soybeans) can establish agricultural product associations in each production area, and the country can set qualified quality standards for agricultural products. This way, our Chinese cuisine would have a clear standard to follow, and our delicious and unique agricultural products would have a greater chance to be exported abroad.
In general, white wine is suitable for most Chinese dishes, while mature red wine with soft tannins is suitable for Chinese cuisine. In terms of pairing Chinese dishes, I have collected the characteristics and main dishes of the eight famous culinary schools and matched them with wines that suit them. Most of the pairings should be appropriate. For Western cuisine, I have mainly introduced the main ingredients and wine pairing procedures of Italy, France, and Spain, hoping to give those unfamiliar with Western cuisine a basic understanding of wine pairing. Chinese cuisine has always emphasized health preservation, and the food consumed in each season is very. Therefore, I have also introduced the wines suitable for each season according to the different months and temperatures. Chinese cuisine has always been a matter of diverse tastes, and this book cannot cover everything. It can only summarize the general principles of wine pairing with dishes, and the finer details depend on the readers' personal preferences. This book is not only a guide for consumers to enjoy wine but also applicable to sales personnel in the wine industry and professionals in the catering industry.