Wine: Scientists reveal why cheese goes so well with wine

We all know that food combines best with wine to deliciously complement the flavors of a meal.

Now, French scientists have proved that the reverse is also true – the fats in food interact with the compounds in wine to make the drink tastier.

The researchers explored how lipids – fat molecules abundant in cheese, meat, vegetable oils and other foods – interact with grape tannins.

Tannins are a group of bitter and astringent compounds found naturally in plants, seeds, peels, woods, leaves and fruit peels, including grapes.

Scientists say that tannins increase lipids, accentuating their taste and masking their undesirable bitter taste.

The study was led by Julie Géan and colleagues at the University of Bordeaux, France.

They say they deciphered the interaction between tannins and emulsified lipids at the molecular level for the first time.

“Dietary oils decrease the perception of astringency in grape tannin solutions,” says the team in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

‘Our results highlight that dietary lipids are crucial molecular agents that impact our sensory perception during wine consumption.’

A good wine is already established that can make a delicious meal even tastier, like Cabernet Sauvignon with steak.

Researchers specializing in the science of wine – known as winemakers – have also noticed mutual interactions between food and wine, such as Chardonnay and hollandaise.

Sensory analysis studies have shown remarkably that some foods influence the taste of wines, making them more pleasant on the tongue.

However, these combinations of food and wine “are based primarily on empirical considerations without any scientific evidence,” says the team.

The study authors wanted to investigate how tannins influence the size and stability of lipid droplets in an emulsion.

They also wondered how previous consumption of vegetable oils would affect the taste of tannins from human volunteers.

For their experiments, they made an oil-in-water emulsion using olive oil, water and an emulsifier, called a DMPC phospholipid.

Olive oil provides lipids, which are usually found in the form of fat globules dispersed in liquids or solids.

Then they added a grape tannin, called catechin, and studied the lipids in the emulsion with nuclear magnetic resonance and optical and electron microscopy.

The team found that the catechin was inserted into the emulsifier layer that surrounded the oil droplets, causing larger droplets to form over time.

This caused something called ‘creamy’ – the top of the emulsion (the richest in lipid droplets) became creamy, while the bottom was transparent.

This result demonstrates that tannin promotes creaminess, and these larger droplets of lipids mask the astringent flavor of tannins.

The researchers then tested the effect on the human mouth, using three different sources of lipids.

In taste tests, the volunteers indicated that consuming a spoonful of rapeseed, grape or olive oil before tasting a tannin solution reduced the astringency of the compounds.

Olive oil had the greatest effect, causing the tannins to be perceived as fruity rather than astringent.

In the mouth, tannins can also make oil droplets less available to bind saliva proteins and cause astringency.

The study highlights the importance of oils in the perception of the taste of tannin solutions depending on the variety of the oil.

“Rapeseed and grape oils reduce or even remove astringency from tannin solutions, while tannin solutions are no longer perceived as astringent, but as fruity after ingesting olive oil,” say the experts.

The team concluded that there is a ‘mutual affinity’ between tannins and lipids, as well as components of biological membranes or fatty foods.

They believe that tannin-lipid interactions should be considered by wine experts to find the best association between highly astringent red wines and fatty foods, such as cheese, meat, cold cuts or desserts, for example.