Steer Bar and Grill Boot Camp | Food and wine matching and more

As a lover of fine wine I was very excited to step into some sommelier shoes and learn the tricks of the trade from Manolo at Steer Bar and Grill.

If you haven't read about the restaurant boot camp I've been involved in at Steer Bar and Grill, you can read all about it here.

Steer has an extensive wine list which includes many European wine varieties and over 21 wines by the glass and 31 half bottles. This seemed liked a lot to me, but it makes so much sense to match a wine to a dish, rather than just quaffing a bottle of your favourite variety over dinner. My husband and I have been doing the wines by the glass thing a lot more recently, when dining out, and usually end up spending and drinking less (particularly if we stick to just 2 courses).

Here's a few basic tips that will help you match wine to a dish:

• Pair light-bodied wines with lighter food and more delicate dishes i.e. dishes that have been poached or steamed. Pair fuller-bodied wines with heartier, more flavorful, richer and fattier dishes.
• Very hot or spicy foods such as some Thai dishes, or hot curries for example, often work best with sweet desert wines. Opposing flavours can play off each other, creating new flavour sensations and cleansing the palate.
• It's tough to match ingredients like onions, asparagus and artichokes with wine, if you're dish is dominant on these things you're better off sticking to sherry or beer. 
• Red wines go well with mild to sharp cheese. Pungent and more intensely flavored cheese is better with a sweeter or fortified wine. 
• Sweetness in a dish will increase the bitterness and astringency qualities in the wine, making it appear drier and less fruity. 
• High amounts of acidity in food will decrease sour qualities in wine, making it taste richer.
• Bitter flavours in food increase the perception of bitter, tannic elements in wine. 

Here's another thing, a sommelier should taste all the open bottles of wine by the glass before service. I had to take a break, seriously, I should have been spitting as I went, but I felt that I couldn't get the full feel for the wine. So many restaurants don't taste the wines and it should be an essential practice. I've had countless glasses of wine by the glass served to me that has been sitting in the bottle way too long.

And, to put some of my new knowledge into practice I was given the opportunity to do some wine/cider matching to some of the new dishes at Steer. Tough job but some one had to do it.

Oysters with salsa fresca & finger lime (Magners Irish Cider)    

Steak tartare, jalapeno bone marrow croquette & oregano toast (Cuvee Marianne 2008) and a mixed plate of jamon (Ca del Bosco Cuvee), anchovies & olives (Sanleon Spanish Sherry), cheese, Henriques Madeira Verdelho and bread.

And, to finish my training, I sipped on a 100 year old Sainte Croix Rivesaltes fortified and realised I probably shouldn't have driven to work.