Wine aficionados know that a good pair of wine enhances the flavors of whatever food they eat, while a weak pair of wine does the opposite. And some foods, in turn, can affect the flavors in the wine. Is there a better companion to someone’s favorite cheese and / or cured meat than a good bottle of Bordeaux or California cabernet? A team of French scientists conducted special research on the role of the interaction between wine and fatty molecules known as lipids in food in a diet to better understand what is happening at the molecular level, especially with such a complementary pair, according to a recent paper published in the journal Agricultural. Food Chemistry.
Of course, the taste of wine is very subjective to the individual; We all have different combinations of taste receptors that affect how we taste. But some of the characteristics are wholesale: bitterness, sweetness, sour and body (or weight) wine. In most fine-dining restaurants, it is the basis of the art and science of winemaking. The tannins in the wine are polyphenolic compounds responsible for many bitterness and astringency in a given wine; They are obtained from grape skins and stems or as a result of aging in oak barrels. Tannins combine well with proteins and fats, compensating for their ast trinity and bitterness. That’s why heavy tannic ingredient wine (such as cabernet sovignon or barolo) goes very well with cheese and charcuterie.
The degree of residual sugar – the sweetness of the wine determines how much sugar remains after fermentation. Very dry wines have almost no residual sugar, while very sweet dessert-type wines, such as Sutterness or Talkies, have high sugars. Pair sweet wine with sweet spicy dishes, for example, sugar contrasts with the heat of food. Acidity is a measure of how sour a given wine is, and wine has three primary acids. Malic acid gives a green apple a kind of flavor; Lactic acid gives the milky component; And tartaric acid will give the wine an extra bitter taste. Wine that is more acidic pairing with fatty, oily, rich or salty foods as the acids will offset those qualities on that palette.
Finally, the amount of alcohol affects how much alcohol the body (or weight) holds, and it gives a sense of warmth to the palate. The lower the alcohol content (and the more tannins are present), the higher the perception of heat. Traditional wisdom has long held that white wine combines well with fish or poultry, while reds combine with heavy meat. But the reality is more complicated. There are heavier, richer white wines (like Chardonnay), and lighter red wines (like Baujola Lies). It is the weight or body of the wine when making this kind of connection.
French scientists focused their research on tannins, specifically how these compounds affect the size and stability of fat globules (lipids) used in experimental food studies. So, they made their own liquid mixture in the lab outside of olive oil, water and a phospholipid emulsifier, and they added a grape tannin called catechin. The researchers then analyzed the fluid mixture using a variety of techniques, including optical microscopy, electron microscopy, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, as well as measuring the droplet size with static light scattering. Their analysis showed that the presence of grape tannins caused large drops of oil.
Let’s lipid
Next, the researchers conducted a sensory assessment, recruiting a group of male and female students from the engineering department at the Bordeaux of the University Institute of Technology in Perugia, France. Participants were trained over a two-week period, learning to sort aqueous solvents of different concentrations (citric acids, caffeine, potassium aluminum sulfate), and to identify general wine aromas, especially oil and tannin related (especially global intensity) flavors, Acidity, fruity vegetables, dried herbs, dried fruits, bitterness, rancidity and taste. The group selected five different odors out of a possible 24 and learned to recognize them.
Participants were then asked to give different tannin solutions alone or after giving a teaspoon of rape, grape or olive oil down. The results showed that the oils reduced the cyclicity of the compound, especially olive oil, which participants reported gave the tannins a more fruity taste. From all of this, French researchers concluded that tannins come in contact with oil droplets in the mouth, thus making oils less likely to bind to proteins in saliva, causing it to have a sporadic taste.
“Dietary oils are able to reduce the circulation induced by vegetable tannins,” the authors wrote. “These findings confirm the correlation between tannins and lipids as well as … fatty food components. Therefore, tannin-lipid interactions will now be considered by an oncologist to find the best association between very intense stormy red wine and fatty foods. For example cheese , Meat, deli meat or desserts. “
DOI: Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2021. 10.1021 / acs.jafc.0c06589 (About DOIs)
