Here is the wine pairing chart, built to print on a single page: twenty food families, the wine style that suits each one, and two bottles you can ask for by name. One rule runs through all of it. Match the wine to the weight of the dish and to its sauce, never to the colour of the meat.
The chart sits just below, ready to print. The rest of this page is about how to use it, and how to eventually stop needing it, because no chart will ever beat two or three good reflexes.
What is a wine pairing chart actually for?
A chart is not there to be right. It is there so you are not starting from nothing at six in the evening, in front of two hundred bottles, with a dinner already planned and nobody around to ask.
It is a starting point, and worth treating as one. Pairings are not laws. They are patterns, observed across thousands of meals, between textures, acidity levels and sugar levels. They hold up most of the time. They also miss, because your dish has a sauce the chart knows nothing about, because the vintage was unusually ripe, or simply because you do not like the thing everyone else loves.
The other limit is that a chart is filed by ingredient, while your palate reacts to sensations: fat, salt, sugar, acidity, chilli heat, bitterness. Which is why the second half of this page is worth more than the first. The chart gives you one answer, the method gives you a thousand.
What wine goes with what food? The full chart
Each row runs roughly from the lightest dish to the heaviest. Prices are realistic shop bands for bottles you can genuinely find, in euros.
| Food family | Wine style | Two bottles to look for | Price band |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oysters and raw shellfish | Very crisp unoaked white | Muscadet Sèvre-et-Maine, Chablis | 8 to 18 € |
| Grilled or steamed white fish | Light lemony dry white | Picpoul de Pinet, Mâcon-Villages | 7 to 14 € |
| Fish in cream or butter sauce | Fuller white, gentle oak | Meursault, Saint-Aubin | 25 to 60 € |
| Lobster, scallops, langoustines | Rich saline white | Chablis 1er cru, Condrieu | 20 to 45 € |
| Sushi, sashimi, ceviche | Dry saline white, or sparkling | Dry Alsace Riesling, extra-brut Champagne | 12 to 35 € |
| Salmon, grilled or smoked | Rounded white or very light red | Alsace Pinot Gris, red Burgundy | 14 to 25 € |
| Charcuterie and cured meats | Light red served cool, or crisp white | Beaujolais-Villages, Apremont (Savoie) | 7 to 14 € |
| Roast chicken | Fuller white or supple red | Saint-Véran, Chinon | 10 to 20 € |
| Fried chicken and takeaway | Sparkling, or off-dry white | Prosecco, off-dry Vouvray | 8 to 18 € |
| Burgers | Juicy fruity red, moderate tannin | Côtes du Rhône, Malbec (Cahors) | 8 to 16 € |
| Pork, ham and sausages | Low-tannin fruity red | Saumur-Champigny, Beaujolais cru | 8 to 16 € |
| Steak and barbecue ribs | Structured tannic red | Haut-Médoc, Crozes-Hermitage | 12 to 30 € |
| Lamb | Cabernet or Syrah based red | Pauillac, Saint-Joseph | 15 to 60 € |
| Beef stew and slow roasts | Powerful red, slightly aged | Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Madiran | 18 to 45 € |
| Thai and Indian curry | Aromatic off-dry white | Off-dry Vouvray, Gewurztraminer | 10 to 20 € |
| Pizza and tomato pasta | Bright high-acid red, little oak | Chianti Classico, Barbera d’Asti | 9 to 18 € |
| Goat cheese and green salads | Dry Sauvignon Blanc | Sancerre, Pouilly-Fumé | 14 to 24 € |
| Mature cheddar and hard cheese | Jura white or light red | Jura Chardonnay, red Burgundy | 14 to 28 € |
| Blue cheese | Sweet wine, fortified or botrytised | Sauternes, Maury | 15 to 40 € |
| Chocolate dessert | Sweet fortified red | Banyuls, Rasteau | 12 to 25 € |
Fruit desserts are missing on purpose, because they swing too far between recipes. Head for a Moscato d’Asti or a Coteaux du Layon, and keep the principle below in mind: the wine must always be sweeter than the plate.
How do you use this chart in real life?
Three questions, in this order, and you land on the right row nearly every time.
How heavy is the dish? Steamed sole and beef stew do not weigh the same in the mouth. Place your dish somewhere between those two, then pick a wine of comparable weight. That single question settles half of all pairings.
What is around the main ingredient? The sauce often matters more than the protein. Roast chicken heads towards a taut white or a light red; the same chicken in a cream sauce wants something fuller. Cooking it over charcoal adds smoke and bitterness, and pushes the dial towards a riper red. Our roast chicken pairing guide is a good worked example of one ingredient going three different ways.
What dominates: fat, salt, sugar or chilli? Fat wants acidity or bubbles. Salt loves sparkling wine and saline whites, which is why oysters sit where they do on the chart. Sugar in the dish demands even more sugar in the glass. Chilli heat wants a touch of residual sweetness and, above all, low alcohol, because alcohol amplifies the burn.
One more free win: serving temperature. A red served too warm reads heavy and hot, a white served too cold has no flavour left at all. Whites at 10 to 12 degrees, most reds between 15 and 17, as covered in our note on red wine serving temperature. Plenty of pairings that get blamed on the bottle were really just badly served.
Which rules replace the chart when your dish is not on it?
Your dish is not in the list, and it never will be, because no list holds every dish on earth. These are the five principles the chart is built from, so you can write the missing rows yourself.
- Weight first. Light with light, rich with rich. This is the rule that rescues the most dinners.
- Acidity cuts fat. Melted cheese, anything fried, butter sauces: a fresh wine resets the palate between mouthfuls.
- Tannin loves protein. Tannins soften against rare red meat and harden against sugar, umami and fish. That is mechanical, not cultural.
- The wine must be sweeter than the dish. Serve a dry wine with dessert and the wine tastes sour and hollow, every single time.
- What grows together goes together. Chianti with tomato pasta, an alpine white with alpine cheese. Not magic, just three centuries of testing.
Those five lines beat any grid, because they work on a dish nobody has ever charted. Grape variety comes after that: it fine-tunes the style, it does not decide it.
What is the classic mistake with a pairing chart?
The mistake is reading it as a rulebook. A pairing is not right or wrong, it works or it does not, on your table, tonight, with your sauce and your guests. If the chart says white and everyone wants red, open the red, keep it light and serve it cool. Nobody judges an evening by how well it complied.
The second mistake is quieter: matching the wine to the headline ingredient and ignoring everything else. Duck is not a pairing, duck with orange sauce is. Chocolate is not one either, since the cocoa percentage changes the answer completely.
The third one is expecting fireworks. Most of the time a good pairing goes unnoticed. The wine does not get in the way, the food tastes slightly better, and nobody says anything. That is exactly the point.
How do you print this chart and keep it handy?
Ctrl+P on this page, or Command+P on a Mac, landscape orientation, and the whole thing fits on one sheet. Untick browser headers and footers, shrink the margins, and print it in black and white if that is what your printer is loaded with. A magnet, the fridge door, and it is there when you actually need it.
If you would rather go deep on one food family, every detailed pairing we have written sits together on our food and wine pairing hub, from seafood platters to Christmas dinner.
And if you want the vocabulary behind why these pairings work, the 70 aroma descriptors reference card, printable as well, is offered at the bottom of this page. The chart tells you what to open; the card gives you the words for why it works.
Frequently asked questions
How do I print this wine pairing chart?
Hit Ctrl+P on this page, or Command+P on a Mac, and choose landscape: the chart fits on one sheet of A4 or letter paper. Untick the browser headers and footers, drop the margins to minimum, and print in black and white if you like, it stays perfectly readable. Then a magnet, the fridge door, and the chart is there at the only moment it matters, which is while you are cooking.
What is the basic rule of food and wine pairing?
One rule does most of the work: the wine and the dish should weigh the same. A light dish wants a light wine, a rich dish wants a rich wine. If either side flattens the other, the pairing fails, whatever colour the wine is. Everything else, acidity cutting through fat, sweetness taming chilli, tannin loving protein, only comes into play once the weights match.
Should I match the wine to the meat or to the sauce?
The sauce, nearly always. Roast chicken and chicken in a cream sauce do not want the same white: the cream decides, not the chicken. Same with plain grilled cod against cod in butter sauce. Get into the habit of looking at what surrounds the main ingredient first, so sauce, cooking method, spice. The ingredient sets the direction, the sauce sets the volume.
Is red wine with cheese really a mistake?
Not a mistake, just rarely the best answer. The tannin in a young red hardens against the umami of an aged cheese, and the wine turns dry and slightly metallic. Crisp dry whites work with the large majority of cheeses, and sweet wines are unbeatable on blues. If you want red, keep it light, fruity and low in tannin, and serve it cool: Beaujolais or a simple Pinot Noir holds up on mild pressed cheeses, cheddar or Comté, and much less well on the rest of the board.
What wine works when everyone is eating something different?
Pick a wine that picks no fights: a dry saline white, a brut sparkling wine, or a light red served cool. Those three profiles carry enough acidity to follow almost any plate and not enough personality to flatten one. That is the honest use of a chart. When it gives you three different answers around one table, open the freshest and most neutral of the three.
