I'm beginning to think an early spring-cleaning of the filing system may yield more long-term benefits than recent attempts to spring-clean the inner self. The wine industry must spend more on fancy brochures than it does on glass bottles - a state of affairs that fills the battered old cabinet to bursting point in the space of a single vintage. But my latest purge has turned up some interesting bits and pieces, now earmarked for salvage. Among them is an article from an American magazine, Wine Spectator, which might liven up midweek evenings.
"Great Values, Great Matches", it's called - nothing too transcendent there. But read the introduction. "It's after 5 p.m. when the phone rings in a busy office. A man answers; it's his wife, calling from her office. She's busy, too. `I'm too tired to go out, but I want something nice for dinner,' she says. `Let's make a deal. I'll stop by the butcher and pick up some lamb chops. You buy the wine.' A little later, the husband is in the wine store. He's losing his mind because there are hundreds of different bottles on the shelves. He goes up to a salesman and pleads, `What can I get for $15 that goes with lamb chops?' Could this be you?"
Thomas Matthews's feature (published in April 1997, in case you too want to rummage through ageing wine bumf), goes on to outline a basic system for matching food and wine. Not the sort of precious food and lofty wine you might have on a grand night out, but the fairly straightforward dishes most of us end up preparing after work. Teamed with tasty but affordable bottles which suit, your simple dinner tastes great.
Matching wine and food precisely is a fascinating but complex science - no doubt about it. Most writers on the subject get so bogged down in trying to explain the significance of tannins, sugar levels, acidity and so on that readers give up after the first few paragraphs. Although the Wine Spectator system is far from comprehensive, its great advantage is that it is simple. Easy to use and easy to remember. It's based on a single concept: To go well together, wine and food should have roughly the same "weight".
Wines are divided into four categories: "Lighter Whites", "Richer Whites", "Lighter Reds", "Richer Reds". Basic foods are divided up the same way, from lightest to richest or heaviest. Pair the four subsections in the two lists off, and you have a kind of ready-reckoner - a firm basis for success. Here it comes, with a few minor amendments I've slipped in to temper the American bias for Irish tastes.
"Lighter Whites" include many inexpensive unoaked or lightly oaked Chardonnays (Chile, South Africa, Burgundy); Sauvignon Blanc (Loire, New Zealand, Chile, South Africa); Riesling, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris. Foods to suit are delicate white fish such as plaice or sole; omelette or quiche; vegetable stir-fry; risotto; salads; pasta with vegetable sauces; Thai or Chinese food.
Among "Richer Whites" are oaked Chardonnays (California, Australia, upmarket Chile and South Africa, Burgundy); most Alsace whites; white Rhone wines; Albarino; Semillon. Foods which may point in this direction include salmon, scallops, prawns, crab; fish pie; chicken - especially roast chicken or chicken satay; pasta with cream or seafood sauce.
"Lighter Reds" include Beaujolais; Pinot Noir (inexpensive Burgundy or New World); Cotes du Rhone; Loire reds; straightforward Merlot; basic Chianti, basic Rioja. This is the list to mull over if you're eating pork in many forms: For example, pork chops with cider, pork steak with mushrooms, gammon steaks, baked ham; veal; duck breasts; many chicken dishes if you prefer red to white; richer fish if you prefer red to white; pizza; many cheese-dominated dishes; pasta with a meat sauce.
"Richer Reds" encompass decent Cabernet Sauvignon (both Bordeaux and New World); fullish Merlot; Syrah/Shiraz; Chianti Riservas, rich southern Italian reds; Amarone; good Rioja, Ribero del Duero or Priorato reds; Zinfandel. These will do very nicely with lamb; beef; game; bean stew; pasta with a rich sauce.
It's not foolproof: sometimes a single ingredient in a dish can fight nastily with a particular wine, even though it's of the right weight. Nor is it detailed enough to point up some of the most exciting combinations, but I reckon it's a pretty useful start. As Matthews says: "Pairing wine and food doesn't have to be rocket science. Of course, you can push the intricacies as far as you want to, but why get carried away? Life should sometimes be complex, and sometimes simple."
Simple means different things to different people, of course. Malcolm Forbes probably thought he had discovered the simplest imaginable route to nirvana when he said he liked drinking Chateau Margaux with a hamburger. For the rest of us, straightforward food on an average evening usually calls for a not-too-expensive bottle of wine. The distinctly unforbesian suggestions below are all under £10.