maridaje · 2 June 2026
Pairing without rules: five ideas to stop fearing wine
Forget "red with meat, white with fish". The best pairing isn't the one a manual dictates, but the one that makes sense to you. Five principles I use in every tasting so that wine stops intimidating.
There's a question I get at almost every tasting, usually half-whispered, as if it were a confession: "Ricardo, am I drinking this right?" And I always answer the same: there is no drinking it wrong. There is drinking it with fear, which is different.
Pairing has been sold for years as a science of strict rules. And yes, there's chemistry behind it. But 90% of what you need to enjoy isn't technical — it's daring to try. These are the five ideas I work with.
1. Weight matters more than colour
The old "red with meat, white with fish" rule fails constantly. What truly matters is the weight of the dish and of the wine. A powerful stew calls for a full-bodied wine, whatever its colour. An aged white can handle a steak better than a light red.
Before thinking about the colour in the glass, think about how heavy what's on the plate is.
2. Acidity is your best friend
If a dish is fatty, salty or fried, a wine with good acidity cleans it up and leaves your mouth ready for the next bite. That's why a fino or an Atlantic white works so well with cured ham or with something fried. Acidity cuts through fat like a knife.
3. Pair by region, you'll almost always get it right
There's a lovely, untechnical rule that almost never fails: what grows together, goes together. A cheese from the Alpujarra with a wine from the Alpujarra. Seafood from the Costa Tropical with a white from around here. The territory has spent centuries fine-tuning those combinations for you.
4. Contrast moves you too
It's not all about seeking harmony. Sometimes the best moment of a dinner is a well-thought-out clash: a sweet wine with a very salty blue cheese, a dry sparkling with something fried. Contrast wakes the palate just as harmony cradles it.
5. The final rule: you have to like it
I can explain theory for hours, but if you open a bottle you love with a dish you love, you've got it right. The palate is personal. My job isn't to impose a taste on you — it's to give you the tools to trust your own.
And if you'd like to practise all this with five wines in hand and someone telling you the story bite by bite, you know where to find me.
