True or False?  White wine can only be drunk with white meats and fish, red wine goes with beef, and sweet wines go with desserts. If you match food and wine any other way is courting a visit from the Wine Police.

The answer is False, but the truth is that until a couple of decades ago this is how people decided what to drink with dinner. Thankfully, our minds have broadened. The current thinking is that since food can be every bit as complex as wine, the options for creating rich pairings are staggering. And it cannot be stressed enough: a successful pairing is one that you find pleasing -- maybe nobody else on the planet likes Champagne with that onion bhaji, but you happen to find the combination irresistible, however this may explain why your friends are not so keen to come around for dinner!

As a rule of thumb it would be either to go for complementary flavours or to contrast flavours. Flavour intensity is probably the most critical factor as the last thing you want to do is to overwhelm the flavour of the food with a strong tasting wine with the converse also true. For example, a dish with a pronounced citrus flavour would complement a fruity wine; a hearty stew would go well with a full-bodied wine; and a delicately flavoured dish, such as Dover sole, would be best accompanied by a dry, crisp wine. Pasta dishes combine nicely with more acidic dry wine; and a simple snack of bread and cheese can improve immeasurably when paired with a complex full-bodied red with tannic wines combining well with meat dishes. The best advice of all is to experiment.