Why Thai Food Is Hard to Pair: A Kitchen View

Key facts

Core Thai tastes

sour, salty, sweet, hot (some dishes bitter)

What decides the pairing

the dominant taste, not the meat

Sour dishes

wine at least as acidic

Sweet dishes

wine at least as sweet

Hot dishes

high alcohol and tannin raise the heat

A Thai kitchen balances several tastes in one dish

Most Thai dishes are built so that several tastes sit together, rather than one leading. A bowl of tom yum carries lime sourness, fish-sauce salt and chilli heat at the same time.

The cook uses one taste to hold another in check. Palm sugar softens lime, fish sauce deepens sweetness, coconut milk rounds off chilli. The result is a dish that is already in balance.

That is the problem for wine. Wine has its own acidity, sweetness, grip and alcohol warmth, and when it lands on a balanced dish it pushes some of those tastes out of line.

Find the dominant taste before choosing a wine

The dominant taste is the one still on your tongue after the first mouthful. A simple test: remove one seasoning in your head and ask whether the dish would lose its identity.

Som tam without lime is no longer som tam, so its lead tastes are sour and hot. Green curry without coconut milk becomes a jungle curry, so its lead is richness and gentle sweetness against the chilli.

• Sour (lime, tamarind, vinegar): makes a less acidic wine taste flat
• Sweet (palm sugar, fruit): makes a dry wine taste sharper and more bitter
• Hot (chilli): amplified by high alcohol and by tannin
• Salt and fat (fish sauce, coconut, pork): soften a grippy wine

Pair by the dominant taste, not by the meat

Red wine with red meat, white with fish comes from European cooking, where the sauce supports the meat. In Thai cooking the meat often carries the flavour, and the flavour itself comes from the chilli paste, the curry paste and the dipping sauce.

The same chicken in tom kha, in larb, or grilled with jaew sauce needs three different wines. The lead taste moves from rich and mildly sour, to sour and hot, to smoke and salt.

Three working rules follow. The wine should be at least as acidic as the dish, at least as sweet as the dish, and the hotter the dish, the lower its alcohol and tannin should be.

Three dishes, read by their dominant taste

The table applies the same rules to three dishes with different leads. The styles are directions, not the only answer.

Pork or chicken could sit in either the curry or on the grill. What changes the answer is the coconut milk and the charcoal, not the meat.

Coconut milk also explains why two equally hot dishes want different wines. Its fat coats the tongue and tames the chilli, so green curry can take a wine with more body. A clear tom yum has nothing to buffer the heat, so the wine has to be lighter and lower in alcohol.

Questions people ask