Wine and extra virgin olive oil: how to combine them

Wine and oil have a lot in common. Together they accompany your dishes, enhancing flavours and aromas. Here are some guidelines for choosing them consistently

Wine and oil are two elements that are never lacking in our kitchens and in the Mediterranean diet.

Their bond is very strong: both are produced by processing fruit that must be cultivated with great skill. The taste and smell of wine and oil depend precisely on the fruits and crops from which they come. The location where the vines are grown and the olive trees are cultivated, the weather conditions, the origins of the plant, the processing, the storage condition the quality of the wine as much as that of the oil.

Since the organoleptic qualities of wine and oil vary greatly from one type of product to another, it is a good idea to follow some tips for matching them.

How to pair wine and oil?

Two strategies can be followed to determine how to combine flavours and smells in cooking.

One can choose a pairing by concordance: in this case, with regard to both wine and oil, one tries to find flavours that go along with those of the dish, without creating contrasts.

In short, wine (or oil) and food must have common characteristics: sweet with sweet, delicate with delicate, and so on

Then there is pairing by contrast: if you choose this strategy you will choose contrasting flavours, but trying to balance the dish, without creating disharmony.

These same logics can be used to match oil and wine: learning how to consciously pair these two foods will allow you to prepare dinners and lunches in which flavours and smells are well balanced and in which dishes acquire depth.

Let us therefore see how to plan your dinners by choosing the right wine and oil.

If you decide to prepare white meat or fish, the perfect dressing is a light fruity EVO oil. You can choose for such a delicate dish a light wine such as a Chardonnay or a Vermentino.

In this case the guiding thread is lightness, together with delicacy: you are therefore thinking in terms of indulging the flavours, without looking for strong contrasts.

How to combine oil and wine in the tastiest dishes?

If you want to prepare a dish with a more important flavour such as a legume soup or barbecued red meat, it is best to choose an oil with a stronger flavour and aroma, such as medium-fruity extra virgin olive oil.

Bonarda dell’Oltrepò Pavese or Barbera piemontese, Rosso di Montalcino go very well with these dishes and with this oil because they match because of their strong but harmonious flavours.

If you want to prepare a nice creamy soup, perhaps of pumpkin, the medium-fruity oil will enrich the dish with flavour, but the advice is to pair it with a white wine, dry, with some bubbles.

Or medium-dry wines go well with fruity extra virgin oil.

If we want to offer our guests bruschetta with garlic, tomato and basil, the oil to use is an intense fruity extra virgin oil, so as to stand up to these very tasty ingredients and enhance their qualities even more. Accompany with a Chianti or a Franciacorta.

If we want to play even more with flavours and aromas, we can add a variable using aromatic oils. We at Frantoio Muraglia have come up with four aromatic bouquets, namely Lemon PGI Rocca Imperiale, Celery, Ginger and Calabrian Chilli. Each of these aromatic oils opens up a world of different combinations.

Other elements to consider when pairing wine and oil

Of course, these are only suggestions, or rather suggestions, that we would like to provide you with.

There are other characteristics to consider when matching wine with dishes: if a dish prepared with butter must take into account the kneading quality typical of animal fats, a dish prepared with oil has different characteristics.

Olive oil brings with it sensations of unctuousness and viscosity.

We are talking not only about taste buds but the sensations, the textures that are felt on the palate and tongue.

The choice of wine also depends on this: a fried fish is best accompanied by a wine with a higher alcohol content because it balances out the unctuousness, while a succulent red meat, i.e. one that causes strong salivation, should be balanced with a red wine, rich in tannins, which bring salivation back to the right levels, ‘drying out the mouth’ so to speak.

Furthermore, study by researchers at the University of Bordeaux found that extra virgin olive oil improves the taste of red wine and that the explanation lies in the fact that the chemical components of oil and wine come into play.

In short, not only do chefs and our taste buds, as well as our noses tell us that combining wine and oil is an excellent idea: science too has brought us certified proof of the validity of their union.

The important thing is to know how to choose the best wines and oils, those of which our tradition has always been rich.

It will be up to you to try, to experiment, to match wine and oil to take up each day from dish to dish, from meal to meal, the challenge of taste that our extra virgin olive oil poses to you.