Question: Why are high acidity wines so good with food?
Answer: Not all high acid wines are everyone’s piece of cake especially if you enjoy a softer style to one that is quite tart and vibrant. However, you are correct in my opinion that they generally work very well when matched with food. Probably the most important reason is that they cleanse the palate brilliantly and refresh it every time before your next bite. This is particularly so when paired with heavier, oily or fatty foods. Compare lemon with fish. They also seem to work better with more acidic items like tomato, asparagus, or even artichoke, vinegar and salad dressings. Less acidic wines can be overwhelmed by highly acidic foods. Oysters with Chablis or Muscadet please! Sparkling wines including Champagne usually have good acidity and therefore work well with many food dishes. So do sauvignon blanc or chenin blanc especially from the Loire or German riesling but all those varieties work from other regions too. Barbera with high acidity is a lovely food wine as are many other lighter reds. As a general rule of thumb a wine produced in a cooler climate is likely to have more natural acidity than one from a hotter climate.
