How to Properly Pair Your Brut Champagne With Food
Doing the universe’s work by educating the masses on these common pairing mistakes!
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Brut champagne is one of the most popular choices for many (think your typical Veuve, Moet, Dom P., etc.)! Brut champagne is a signifier of celebration, joy, and new life events — but many are unintentionally ruining their palate’s experience by pairing it with the wrong foods. One very popular example is pairing brut champagne with cake or other sweet desserts. This is often seen at weddings, birthdays, and anniversaries. While everyone is entitled to drink and eat any combination they would like, this is a very painful pairing to inflict upon sommeliers, wine enthusiasts, and sensitive palates. This was actually one of the first lessons learned in my early WSET courses, as it is a major pet peeve of my esteemed wine educator. Instead of sweets, I advise pairing brut champagne with salty and acidic foods such as french fries, fried chicken, and potato crisps.
This is because you want to generally pair your wine with a similar taste and structure profile so that they compliment one another (though there are some exceptions), and the food will help to soften bitterness and high acidity. Salty and acidic foods are coined as low-risk foods in the wine world, as they are generally easy to pair with. I personally love to pop open a bottle at the start of an evening rather than at the end to start on a high note and pair with delicious salty appetizers and snacks while everyone mingles.
Pairing wine with sweet foods can prove to be a challenging task as it is considered a high-risk food (along with umami, bitter, and chili heat foods). This is because the sweetness of the food increases the wine drinker’s perception of bitterness, astringency, acidity, and even alcohol, and decreases perception of body, sweetness, and fruit in the wine. If you would like to find a better champagne pairing for your sweet treats such as cake, you want to avoid dry wines — I would choose a demi-sec champagne which has a sweet taste profile (or a doux champagne for ultimate sweetness). You can also pair demi-sec with glazed meats, crème brûlée, and all things sweet and fruity such as the beautiful tarts you see at French bakeries. A rule of thumb for very sweet foods is that it should be paired with a wine that has as much sugar as it (demi-sec wines contain 32-50 grams, doux wines contain greater than 50 grams). If you would like to explore an alternative option to champagne, a Tokaji would make for a great pairing.
ShopMy Champagne and Glassware Recs! More champagne pairing blogs to come <3
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