Pairing wine with spicy, piquant dishes remains a divisive issue. The answer has never been as straight as the tenet of “red meat with red wine’. Spice creates varied nuances in cuisines, so it is natural for the pairing question to lead to an equally multi-layered answer.
Asian meals, ranging from Thai, Chinese and Korean to Indian, Malay and Singaporean, are often found on communal sharing tables with a smattering of condiments to fill out the missing flavours. Lemon offers acid; sambals amp up the heat, and soy sauce adds umami. The incongruent harmony delights the palate but wreaks havoc on wines, overwhelming their flavours.
Consider the western meal, which is usually a staged affair: a coursed meal which calls for wine to fill out the
