Most everyone reading is now rolling their eyes. “Not THIS again!” So much fuss is made over pairings between food and wine, that you have to wonder what all the fuss is about, and whether it is possible for anyone to learn it in one lifetime. Do you just have to go to wine college and get a degree? Well, no, but it wouldn’t hurt…

Let’s try to skim this down to the basic elements: At the end, it’s all about you, your taste buds, and how much you care. If you think tilapia fried in olive oil is the best match for Cabernet, that’s all you. Nobody is more right about what you like than you are. And if you really want to appreciate the elegant art of matching food with wine, you should experiment anyway. How are you going to know why a buttery Chardonnay isn’t a good companion for prime rib beef, until you try it yourself? Go ahead and try new things; we promise that the Wine Police won’t come and haul you away!

There are the “by-the-book” wine snobs who have vast lists of food and wine pairings. At the other end of the spectrum are those who dismiss the whole school of thought as a lot of hot air. The truth, as you might expect, lies somewhere in the middle. And with many wine experts contradicting each other on specific cases, you would expect that there’s less science and more art to it.

Some basic rules of thumb: Either white wines go with fish and poultry and red with everything else, or else red wines go best with red meats (beef, pork, lamb) and white wines go with everything else. If only it were as simple as color-coding!

Here’s a better rule of thumb: Pair a strong-taste with a delicate taste. Another way to say this is “complex wines with simple foods, simple wines with complex foods”. You want the two to compliment each other. Think of how you wouldn’t wear a polka-dot shirt with a striped tie, but rather match a solid color to a pattern.

As with clothes, you also don’t want the tastes of food and wine to clash. Use the same common sense that tells you which foods match together. A sweet dinner of crab’s legs and lobster tail will be great with a Chardonnay, which is sweet and delicate. A grilled T-bone steak wants a hefty, fruity wine with a kick to compliment it; time for a Bordeaux! But in some cases, contrast is more important. Liver is a strong, lingering taste, so it needs a modest, mild, contrasting compliment, rather than a match which would be overpowering; how about a Pinot Noir or any burgundy that isn’t too demanding?

The “red with red” rule is so consistent that it even applies to things other than meat: For pasta, match a red wine to a tomato-based red pasta sauce, and a white to a white Alfredo-type sauce. The same goes for sauces on vegetables. As for vegetables themselves, once again we should go for matching simple for simple with complex for complex.

Cheeses are another broad area. Anything goes. Most wine experts in fact like to have a wide array of cheeses and wines so they can mix and match. As with playing chords on a musical instrument, there isn’t always an absolutely right or wrong answer. This goes for cheese sauces and fondues, too.

The purpose of this little spiel is to demystify the world of wine for the common person. Hopefully, you’ve gleaned enough hints from here to have a basic concept of what’s going on. If you want to pursue the subject deeper, there’s whole encyclopedias devoted to this subject. And if you find yourself dining with companions who barely tolerate your wine drinking, let alone putting up with a rule-book wine bore, you’ll still be loose enough to relax and not be so stuffy about it.

The interest and attention given to the health benefits of red wine is not the alcohol part but the antioxidant part of it, the anthrocynadins, polyphenols and resveratrol. Resveratrol particularly has been shown to be a very powerful antioxidant, around 50 times as effectual as Vitamin C alone. Anti-clotting effects, anti-cancer, anti-aging and anti-inflammatory properties are few of the many properties that this particular compound boasts of.

While alcohol doesn’t have any health benefits in the body and only introduces harmful toxins in your body, you might want to separate the alcohol part of wine and remain with the resveratrol to reap the benefits. Well, you can reap the maximum benefits of red wine and more without the alcohol. The experts have made this vital compound available in its natural form as a capsule supplement, with high concentrations of resveratrol to help you reap the benefits of red wine minus alcohol.

The best part of this is that the resveratrol capsules are available at a tiny fraction of what it would cost you to derive the same quantity when got from a good quality red wine. Actually, the cost of a monthly dose of resveratrol capsule might be equivalent to a single quality red wine bottle. The recommended dosage of resveratrol capsules is one or two in a day. If however you still want to take the red wine or any other alcoholic beverage, trust resveratrol capsules to counter the alcohol intoxication effects. 

One notable advantage of resveratrol capsules among many others is the instant energy that they provide. The body gets tired because the tissues and cells are burdened with the work of damage repair. But due to the potent antioxidant properties of resveratrol, you’ll feel young, and more gigantic and energetic because these capsules will introduce antioxidants that will fight free radicals, do the damage repair work thus free your cells and tissues.