What food goes with Bordeaux?

Start from the structure

A pairing works when the food meets what the wine is built from. Red Bordeaux is built from tannin, the drying grip that comes from skins, seeds, and oak, and tannin softens against fat and protein. Dry white Bordeaux is built from acidity, which cuts through salt and richness. Sauternes (opens in a new tab) is built from sugar and acidity together, and it needs food salty or tart enough to stand up to it.

The 3 structures and their 3 partners: fat for tannin, salt for acidity, salt or tartness for sugar.

The same structures tell you what clashes. A tannic red turns metallic against oily fish and harsh against a sweet dessert, and a dry red fights chocolate. Sauternes with blue cheese, by contrast, is the classic match.

The Left Bank eats lamb and beef

The lamb that carries Pauillac’s name comes from the same land as the wine. Agneau de Pauillac is a protected geographical indication (PGI), a protected name that works like an appellation for food, from the Gironde, the département (roughly a county) the vineyards share. It is a milk-fed lamb raised with its mother, never weaned, and no more than 80 days old.

The other Bordeaux standard is the entrecôte à la bordelaise, a thick rib steak grilled, by tradition, over vine cuttings, the sarments. It is served with a sauce of red Bordeaux, shallots, and beef stock, finished with beef marrow. iDealwine’s recipe pairs it with a Médoc, a Saint-Émilion, or a Castillon Côtes de Bordeaux (opens in a new tab). The dish is generous enough for either bank.

The Right Bank sets a wider table

Merlot gives softer tannin, and the Right Bank reds take a wider range of food. The estates themselves reach well beyond lamb: Château Nénin (opens in a new tab) in Pomerol has paired its wine with kung pao chicken, and Château Figeac (opens in a new tab) in Saint-Émilion with a tomato soufflé.

Lamprey belongs to neither bank

The dish of the rivers is lamproie à la bordelaise. The lamprey, an eel-like fish, is caught in late winter on the Garonne and the Dordogne, cut into pieces, and cooked in red Bordeaux with leeks. The sauce is bound with its own blood. The usual partner is a young Bordeaux Supérieur, still marked by red fruit.

Dry white wants salt and the sea

The dry whites of Entre-deux-Mers, Graves, and Pessac-Léognan are the Bordeaux answer to a table of oysters, grilled fish, and shellfish. Their acidity does to seafood what a squeeze of lemon does, and the rule of thumb follows from it: whatever you would squeeze a lemon over, a dry white Bordeaux can go with.

Sauternes is not only for dessert

Sauternes goes further than most people expect. Elsa Ginestet, writing for iDealwine, lists roast chicken, lobster and scallops, a lamb curry, and Thai-style shrimp: dishes with marked acidity or spice. At dessert it wants something with acidity of its own (a lemon tart, rhubarb, passion fruit) rather than something heavier and sweeter than the wine.

Foie gras is the classic partner, and blue cheese is the other: Roquefort, Fourme d’Ambert. The salt of the cheese and the sugar of the wine hold each other in place.