Customer Reviews

What to Drink with What You Eat: The Definitive Guide to Pairing Food with Wine, Beer, Spirits, Coffee, Tea - Even Water - Based on Expert Advice from America's Best Sommeliers

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(3 1/2 stars)

After reading the slew of five-star reviews for this volume, today I drove to Barnes & Noble fully ready to purchase it. After spending a fair amount of time in the aisle surveying its contents, I ended up not getting it, and thought I would explain why not for the sake of those Amazon readers whose considerations might be similar to my own.

I think the issues of relevance are 'who you are' and what you're looking for in a book like this. I certainly understand why great wine aficionados (presumably with money and time), critics, sommeliers, restaurateurs and the like would desire and benefit from a work of such sophistication and scope. But for the hobbyist (like myself), it was just too much. A little 'highbrow' for me -- and I suspect I'm not alone. I didn't find it nearly as accessible as, for example, Karen MacNeil's Wine, Food, and Friends (which I bought). MacNeil's book has a seasonal presentation, and, while evidencing an expert's range of knowledge, seeks not to lose sight of practical concerns (such as $$). In a nutshell, What To Drink . . . has a more encyclopedic approach (and does include beverages beyond wine), while MacNeil's is user-friendly and more what I was looking for. I wish it were possible to buy chapters 5 & 6 of Dornenburg & Page's book separately, because they comprise a tremendous resource for ongoing reference. The one surprise regarding Dornenburg & Page was that in a product of such erudition, it lacked an index.

So, bearing in mind the two questions I started with, I hope some of these thoughts will be helpful in informing your purchasing decision.

Wine lovers, from the casual sippers to professional Sommeliers, will find solid, clear advice here, in a well organized format. I worked for many years as a Sommelier and served as Education Director for the Sommelier Society of America, and I can say that no one had done as good a job of making it easy for you to choose a wine that will not only "match" with your meal, but will make your dining (and drinking) experience more enjoyable. This book is bound to become one of the indispensible food and wine books that I keep at hand: a classic in the making. I cannot recommend this book more highly.

Are you curious about what wine to order with your cheesecake? Intimidated by five-hundred page wine list at a top restaurant? Downright scared when the sommelier comes charging toward your table?

Relax. Authors Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page have created a resource that helps even the `average Joe or Jane' understand the principles of wine and food pairing. They take the conventional, canned, old-school advice of "red wine with meat, white wine with fish" to an entirely new level, based on insights learned from their previous books on cuisine, as well as interviews with America's top, cutting-edge sommeliers.

In many ways, the format of What to Drink with What You Eat resembles a substantial wine/food pairing encyclopedia specifically designed to be quickly skimmed before heading off to a restaurant or purchasing wine for a dinner party. For example, let's say you are entertaining clients at a steakhouse, and want to sound intelligent about wine. You know red wine typically goes with red meat, but which red? Old world or new? And what are the virtues of each? By spending just five minutes with this book (and perhaps jotting down some notes) you will be able to help your guests order a Shiraz, Barbaresco, Barolo, or good old Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon based on the elements of the sauce and cut of meat they choose.

In a similar fashion, let's say you want to dazzle your friends and show off your new kitchen with a fabulous dinner party. Spend a few moments with this book and you will be able to pair every element of your menu with an exciting, unusual wine. No need to consult a professional wine expert, as you have this knowledge at your fingertips.

Sommeliers interviewed for this book are mostly young and more free-thinking than sommeliers of years past. They are enthusiastic about wine, regardless of it's an exciting, new world find of exceptional value, or a fine-aged Bordeaux worth hundreds of dollars. As a group, they see their mission as helping you find a good wine to accessorize your meal within your price range. And the individual quotes from sommeliers are what makes this book so fresh and appealing.

For example, Steve Beckta of Beckta Dining & Wine in Ottawa believes that as a sommelier, it is almost more important to match a wine to a person than to match the wine to the food. Curious thought! "The most important part of being a sommelier is not your ability to taste, but your ability to empathize with the person who is in front of you," he explains in the book.

How very true. In one instance, Beckta recalls three `big businessmen' sitting at a table. One wants lamb, one wants halibut, and the other guy wants scallops. They tell him they want the "perfect" wine that matches all three, dissimilar dishes. By carefully listening to the subtext of what they are telling him, Beckta realizes they are after a wine that fits into their comfort zone, not necessarily the best match. To him, that means a "big red" from Australia and as it turns out, the businessmen love it.

Sommelier Alpana Singh, formerly of Everest in Chicago (now with the Lettuce Entertainment Group) agrees that comfort is important. She likes to serve California wines on big holidays like New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day, because people who dine out only a few `special nights' a year want something they can recognize and appreciate.

If you entertain or dine out frequently, What To Drink with What You Eat is a dynamic desktop resource and wine and food pairing primer that will stimulate you to learn more about wine by further reading or classes. If you like oaky Chardonnay, for example, this book will also motivate you to try unoaked Chardonnay wines and realize the difference, especially when paired with food. Yet what works best about this book is the way you can take advantage of the authors' extensive research and with just a few minutes of skimming, come across as a credible wine expert in front of clients, colleagues, family and friends.

I may run out of superlatives in the course of this review, so I'm just warning you now. What to Drink with What You Eat is absolutely the most spectacular book ever written about pairing food with wine. It will turn you instantly into a world-class sommelier, confidently able to pair virtually any cuisine with a compatible choice. What's more, the recommendations extend far beyond wine to include beer, sake, spirits coffee, tea and different types of water, so even a teetotaler can derive some value. There isn't a food- or wine-lover on the planet who wouldn't benefit from having the book always on hand as a resource.

The secret sauce here is that the authors, who have great credentials themselves, have also enlisted the input of dozens of top sommeliers and other authorities to create an uber-reference, one that gains considerably from its generous tendency to be more rather than less inclusive in offering up suggestions. Think of the principle of "the wisdom of crowds," but here the crowd are all experts and have the chops to back up their opinions. The list of foods, cuisines and beverages that are explored is truly encyclopedic, so odds are pretty good whatever you want advice on will be covered. For example, speaking of secret sauce, you'll even get suggested pairings with a Big Mac.

The crowning glories of the book are chapters 5 and 6, which really should be turned into a searchable database online and made available via PDA. These chapters are mirror images, one that starts with the beverage and suggests foods, and the other that starts with the food and matches the drinks. I'm telling it to you straight: if you've ever had a moment's hesitation about what to bring to a dinner party or just flat out what might go best with your frozen pizza, the answer is at hand. Wanna build the meal around a special bottle of wine? No problem. In fact, I'm not sure this book isn't subversive in the sense that it does such a great job of simplifying a complicated subject and making it accessible that it renders real-life sommeliers unnecessary.

Of course, that's a ridiculous notion; I'm just stating it for effect. You still need a sommelier to put together a wine list, add a personal perspective, precisely match the cuisine of a restaurant to its wines and gauge the "readiness" of any particular client to explore new territory. But if you live in New Jersey, where the only advantage of archaic, Prohibition-based liquor laws is the plethora of BYO restaurants and thus there are very few sommeliers period, this book is like manna from heaven.

I don't mean to imply that What to Eat is prescriptive to the point where you aren't allowed to express yourself and exercise free will. Quite the contrary. The book does a splendid job in the first few chapters of breaking down various pairing conventions developed over the past 20 years (plus of course the most classic matches) and providing guidelines that anyone can build on, and the authors encourage imagination and experimentation.

Let's go with a real life example, my first since I bought the book, and quite an "acid" test at that. I was asked by a hostess to suggest something that might go with roasted sea bass served with a Mediterranean ragout of red peppers, tomatoes, olives, and capers. My first instinct when approaching anything Mediterranean is to go with the "territory," which means for me clinging to the coastline from Provence to Sicily. Here I would have gravitated toward a white because a tannic red wouldn't go anyway and it's summer now and a chill is definitely welcome. Besides, I'm not sophisticated enough to figure out what to do with capers to begin with, so why not let a thousand years of local experience do the hard work for me? Then, I turned to chapter 5 and looked up sea bass. There were 16 suggestions, but nothing related to a Mediterranean ragout, which would clearly provide the dominant flavors to the dish. So with a little trepidation (are they going to whiff on my first challenge?), I looked for "Mediterranean" and sure enough found the following entry: "Mediterranean Cuisine (eg anchovies, olives, peppers, etc) Champagne, rose; Chateauneuf-du-pape, white; Pinot blanc; red wine, esp. tart Old World; rose; verdicchio, esp with onion-based dishes." Not feeling wholly comfortable yet, I cross-referenced the pesky caper and found: "Beaujolais, high acid; beer; Muscadet; Pinot Grigio/ Pinot gris, esp. dry; Pinot Noir, esp from Russian River Valley." That's enough breadth for anyone to find an appealing option.

The genius of the book is the exhaustive number of dishes and international cuisines covered. I'm sure there are some things you can eat that aren't paired here, but I'm not sure why you would want to! Also, while it wasn't true for my sea bass, many if not most of the listings actually go a step further and provide recommendations specific to the actual method of preparation. It's not just one size fits all. Pasta with artichokes? Check. Pasta with sardines? Check. You get the idea.


I haven't been this excited about a wine book in a couple of years, maybe since reading Andrew Jefford's The New France The New France: A Complete Guide to Contemporary French Wine (Mitchell Beazley Wine Guides). If you have even a passing interest in drinking wine with your meals you'd be crazy not to buy this book. It has the potential to enrich every dinner (and the occasional lunch/brunch/breakfast?/snack) you eat for the rest of your life, and if that isn't enough hyperbole, I don't know what is.

I bought this book for help in selecting ten wines to keep on hand for all occasions. And it worked! Now, whether I'm roasting a chicken or ordering in Thai food, there's always a good bottle to go with dinner. The bonus is the all the fascinating info (why Ph matters) and anecdotes (chef Patrick O'Connell on how easily he turned his whole staff into wine enthusiasts). Beautiful photographs, beautifully written. A great gift for the holidays or for engaged couples.

I've been a fan of Dornenburg and Page's work since I acquired "Culinary Artistry," and I applaud this volume for its approach and content. Being a food and drink fan and an enemy of wine snobbery, I am glad to see works such as this one that show people that no serious wine education is needed to begin appreciating the sensual pleasures of the table. At the same time, the case is clearly made that educating yourself through tasting is not only enjoyable in itself, but also imparts knowledge and experience that will better guide future choices.

I think the book is accessibly written for a general audience, and although I only have had it since Christmas Day, 2009, I've pored through it extensively and consulted it for suggestions, including for the French sparkler and Chinese dumplings with soy sauce I enjoyed for my just-concluded evening meal.

All this being said, the work is quite badly edited. It is replete with typographical errors, including spelling (the most common) and missing accents. As well, the wrong terms are used for some wines. For example, a Spanish wine that has the legal term "Reserva" in its name is, in the book, termed a "Riserva." That's the Italian spelling and legal term, not the Spanish. There are sometimes multiple typos on a single page, some for more obscure terms, but others a bit more obvious ("Burdundy" for "Burgundy"). In an award-winning food/drink industry book that has been published by a larger house there is simply no excuse for this level of editorial malpractice. After all, can readers trust content that has so many basic mistakes? Dornenburg and Page have provided us with an enjoyable and useful book, and their work doesn't deserve to have a loss of confidence because of these errors.

An older review on Amazon has pointed out other sorts of mistakes, such as a reference to Cab Sauvignon shining in Pomerol, in Bordeaux. Not really, since that region is the home of Merlot in excelsis. I don't think content errors such as these are nearly as common, but they are also present. The work has gone through multiple printings--why have these errors not been corrected in a new edition?

All in all, I look forward to Dornenburg and Page's works, and I do recommend this one. However, I can't help but add, caveat emptor.

This book is both a great learning tool for the novice as well as a great reference for the more experienced wine enthusiast. The authors don't provide a list of specific vintages of wine, but rather a guideline for selecting particular types of wines from various locations to pair with general food categories or specific dishes. With this kind of guidance, you have the knowledge to select a wine from any price range to go with a special meal and have reasonably good results.

This is truly spectacular aid to matching food with drink. We all are creatures of the tried and liked comfort zone of doing this. Found something, stay with it. Don't change a winning game.

Tough to venture out when don't know the lay of the land. But here in this rich, well done, nearly 350 page compendium are the helps to move us into new food/drink heavenly combos. In the similar style as their classics: Becoming Chef and Culinary Artistry, authors talk with famous chefs and drink experts and then combine all this into workable format for such expansion to happen among us. There are many sections to this, but one that takes off on same tangent as Culinary Artistry is alphabetically by various subjects listing of what goes well with what, e.g. Crayfish = especial winners as New World Chardonnarys, chablis, and white burgundy, with some other suggestions as well. Or one can go the other route of what goes with Chardonnay and we find crayfish, but super special combos recommended include: Crab and cream sauces, chicken in cream sauce, lobster and veal. There are minute details here, which is superb value of this. Reminds me of my first exposure to wine/food pairings. I would go to this wine store where this expert would make recommendations. He would ask what's the food to match: I would say lasagna. He would ask, what are the herbs and how much garlic, tomato sauce, etc. Never forget when he recommeded a French rose for a steak with complex butter. Hated rose till made that combo. THIS BOOK GIVES THAT KIND OF ADVICE AND DETAIL.

The writing is superb, e.g. this overall desription of its objective which it easily meets: "Sampling new beverages is typically a low-risk proposition--with a high potential payoff."

The richness of the paperstock, photos and printing are perfect stylistic choices to this wonderful, useful resource. Not only for wine and food pairings, but also waters, beers, teas, etc. Their are tips on how to taste, how to start with something you like and move on to others one probably will enjoy discovering, etc.

Renown chefs and sommeliers provide their pairing favorites along with some recipes. Haven't found it yet, but what I have found so valuable is my dossier that I keep on food/drink pairings, when possible removing label off drinks to put in this diary. Would have been nice to find sample of this. Maybe I'll discover it already included, or maybe for second printing?

You can't go wrong on securing this for yourself or as gift.

If you are looking for a book to relieve you of any insecurity you might have about what to open with a packet of Oreos or a Domino's pizza, then look no further. It's not, however, what I was looking for. It has recommendations for what you might drink with braised rabbit, without considering what exactly the rabbit was braised in, and it provides suggestions for what you might eat with a rosé, without discussing what sort of rosé you might be drinking (would that be a Bandol or an Alsatian Pinot Noir?), speaking of which, while it provides recommendations for what you might drink with an 'Italian garlic Aioli' it mysteriously fails to say anthing about what would be appropriate with, say, Italian _cabbage_ Aioli. It even has suggestions for what might go with ketchup ('slightly sweet wine', apparently, though I cannot say that I am convinced: I was actually drinking a 'slightly sweet' Riesling as I flipped through this, and I can confidently state that tomato ketchup would not have improved it).

In spite of all this, there are actual real interesting suggestions buried in the text about what you might want to drink with a meal, though I think you would probably have to have some idea of what you are doing to identify them. It doesn't help that these suggestions are more or less mappings food -> drink and drink -> food, there isn't much, if any, accompanying discussion (there is actually a fair bit of discursive text, but it is is not attached to the specific suggestions, and it varies in quality - we get to learn from a senior vice-president of Starbucks that East African coffees have floral and berry notes).

Other oddities: they say at one point that 'Sauternes-swigging Frenchmen of the 1800s drank Sauternes with almost everything since only sweet wines could be made in the pre-refrigeration days of winemaking' I don't even know what I should say about this, but I now have this bucolic scene in my head of french peasants sitting around on a hillside drinking, sorry swigging, warm d'Yquem from the bottle.

I've really enjoyed referencing this book. I am a catering sales manager and it's so nice when the sommelier isn't in to be able to make some great recommendations for my clients. I would highly recommend this book to anyone - not just someone in catering! It makes it so nice to have dinner and know that you made a good selection with the wine pairing.