I’ve attended many food and wine pairings, both through tastings and meals. But I’ve never had an experience like this one, which completely changed how I’ll pair food and wine in the future. It was so enlightening, I felt compelled to share what I discovered with Real Food Traveler readers.

Save this article to Pinterest to help you plan an in-person or online class with the San Francisco Wine School. Photos courtesy San Francisco Wine School. Graphic by RealFoodTraveler.com.

I’m betting this holds true for you – you attend a food and wine tasting and the food items are chosen for you, with one food per one wine. Same with a paired dinner. The winery and/or chef have already identified which wine will go with which food to bring out the best of each. Also, we’ve always been told the rules of red wine with red meat and white wine with poultry and fish. Recently, I attended a very unique kind of food and wine pairing, courtesy of the San Francisco Wine School that made me realize how very limiting those previous tastings and rules had been.

I was on a Bayside tour of the San Francisco Peninsula, while attending the IFWTWA (International Food Wine and Travel Writers Association) conference on board the Discovery ship of Princess Cruises. One of the stops on our Peninsula tour was to Filoli Historic House & Gardens where, in the lovely setting of an enclosed side garden, we were introduced to San Francisco Wine School founder, Master Sommelier David Glancy (pictured above) and Chief Operating Officer, Kristin Campbell. Glancy is one of only 12 Master Sommeliers worldwide to hold the distinction of Certified Wine Educator concurrently! I felt so fortunate to be learning from him.

Filoli Historic House & Gardens was a wonderful setting for our food and wine pairings education with San Francisco Wine School. Photo by Courtney Drake-McDonough.

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Glancy had four glasses of wine at each place setting, an Abruzzo Pecorino, a Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, a St. Estephe, and a Mosel Spatlese Riesling. In front of the wine was a plate with four foods aligned with each glass: a triple cream brie, pickled squash, a wedge of sheep’s milk hard pecorino cheese, and spicy eggplant Calabrese. The food had been prepared by San Francisco Wine School’s Resident Chef, Cynthia Bloebaum. Why were such distinct and different foods chosen for our tasting? The brie represented fat. The pickled vegetables represented acid. The pecorino represented salt. And the eggplant Calabrese represented spicy heat. Together, they covered the typical flavor profiles of the majority of foods we eat!

The wines provided by San Francisco Wine School for our food and wine pairing. Photo by San Francisco Wine School.

At first, I assumed we were to try wine #1 with food #1 and appreciate how well they were paired, maybe with some discussion about the accuracy of the pairing. Instead, Glancy asked us to first have a sip of each wine on its own, with no food. He then asked us to try wine #1 with the triple cream brie, then to taste the brie again with wines #2, #3, and #4. Not only did the cheese taste a little different with each wine but the wines themselves tasted different than they had on their own. Glancy asked the group who liked wine #1 with the brie, wine #2, etc. We all had different answers although there was some consensus for certain wines. We moved on to the pickled veggies and again tried a bite with each wine (sip, eat, sip eat). Again, Glancy asked for our opinions.

Let the tasting begin! Here are the wines and foods we would explore in various combinations. Photo by Courtney Drake-McDonough.

As we went along, it amused me how adamantly some people disliked a certain wine with a certain food while others had the exact opposite reaction. One wine kept rising to the top of popularity and it was a big surprise – the Spätlese Riesling, a sweetish wine, was going well with EACH of the foods.

Throughout the process, Glancy seemed to be discovering right along with us. I was sitting near him and heard him talk to himself a bit. Occasionally he’d express his surprise over a pairing that he hadn’t anticipated. It was rather nice, as a participant, to feel that even the expert, was in on the fun and discovery.

Personally, I found it so interesting that certain foods would make the wine take on a completely different characteristic and flavor. And same for a food. It was like someone had slipped me a different wine and food selection.

At the end of our tasting, we circled back around to the topic of choosing the right wine to pair with the right food. And what was the conclusion, which would be our guideline for every dinner party we hosted going forth? According to Glancy, the answer was… there is no answer. Because everyone has a different sense of taste, including a different number of taste buds, and a different frame of reference for flavors (if I’ve never had blackberries, for instance, how can I recognize that flavor in a wine?), the wine/food pairing experience is going to be different for everyone! Mind. Blown.

Our group of travel writers learning and enjoying during the food & wine pairing session. Photo courtesy San Francisco Wine School.

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Tips for Food & Wine Pairing

What does this mean for knowing what wine to choose for what food? Glancy advised us to put out several wines and keep them out for the duration of dinner. Encourage guests to try different wines with each of the foods and see which one they like better. Let people figure out what food and wine pairings work for them! What a concept.

Glancy did give these food and wine pairing guidelines:

• Match intensity – light wine with light food, intense wine with intense food.
• Offer two wines with each course.
• Go back and forth tasting the wine and tasting the food.
• Overall, understand that the acid of wine is magic because it lowers salt, fat, and sour impressions.

There is so much to learn from the San Francisco Wine School and, fortunately, the education is accessible for everyone. You can visit the actual school, join live online, or hire them to come to you. For those joining their hybrid classes remotely, they rebottle into 2-ounce bottles and ship kits of wines all over the US. Their hybrid classrooms allow people in the room and in the Zoom to see and hear each other while tasting the same wines. Or, if you’re outside the US you can save with “skipthewine” and ask for the class wine list to buy bottles of some similar wines in your area. You can also glean a lot just by listening.

I’ve attended wine tastings and wine pairing dinners since my experience with the San Francisco Wine School and it has shown me just how much more interesting and exploratory wine and food tastings can be. I can’t wait to put my new, open-minded approach to the test at my next dinner party.

For more information about the San Francisco Wine School, including their program for team building, classes and training, visit their website.  To learn more about the San Francisco Peninsula, visit their website.

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-Story by Courtney Drake-McDonough, Publisher and Managing Editor of RealFoodTraveler.com

Use our Real Food Travel affiliate links to plan your trip to the San Francisco Peninsula: Hotels.com and Expedia.com. While these links do not, in any way, change your search, reservation or pricing experience, we may receive a small commission on purchases.

Please note: My group of travel writers was hosted for this experience as part of an annual conference by the IFWTWA. However, as is our policy, that does not influence our opinion in reporting to our readers.