Is this relationship doomed? He likes white wine, she likes red.
I have a dear friend who prefers lean white wines like sauvignon blanc. I have learned over the years that that is my least favorite wine and have thought our relationship was doomed since he doesn’t like what I do. He will drink red wine to placate me but it’s not a real pleasure for him. After relearning last week how to improve your experience of a wine from Liz Thach, Sonoma State University Professor of Wine Marketing and one of the few women in the world who has achieved master of wine status, I tried it out at our recent dinner.
I had purchased a light chardonnay, not too high in acid. On my first taste – ugh. But I was serving it with shrimp scampi and pasta so I knew that the wine would taste very different with food. So first tip – give food a chance. If at first you don’t like a wine but your friends or partner do, wait until you taste it along with some food.
I did that, tasted our meal, and still didn’t like the wine while he loved it; it was a light white wine after all. So remembering Liz’s tips, if a wine tastes too acidic or sharp (like a big tannic red) add salt or something sour to your food. What worked in our meal was a squeeze of lemon on the pasta dish and suddenly the white wine tasted good to me.
SALTY
SEA SALT
SOUR
CITRIC ACID FROM LEMONS
Finally an easy solution to bring different palates to a tasting agreement: I can drink the white wine he prefers and he’s discovering that red’s not so bad providing he seasons his food a bit differently.
So not only does a pinch of salt or a squeeze of lemon improve your experience of a wine, it may also improve the longevity of a relationship.
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