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Wine pairing, explained

How Cellar Sage matches a wine to your dinner, and the clashes it steers you away from.

Start with the food

Every dish has a weight and a character. A meat pie is rich and savoury; fish and chips is light, salty and served with lemon. For each kind of dish, Cellar Sage sets a target for the wine's acidity, body, tannin, flavour intensity, sweetness and alcohol, then scores every grape and style against it.

Then your palate

In the app you set four dials to describe how you like your wine: Acidity, Body, Tannin and Flavour. Those shift the picks toward wines you will actually enjoy, so two people eating the same meal can get different answers.

Harmonise or contrast

There are two classic ways to pair, and the app asks which you want:

🤝 Harmonise mirrors the dish. A rich pie gets a red with enough body to stand next to it.
⚡ Contrast balances the dish instead. Bright acidity or bubbles cut through fat and salt, which is why sparkling wine works so well with anything fried.

There is a third option, I'm Brave, for when you want the food to choose: your palate steps aside and the dish picks the wine.

The clashes it steers you away from

Most of the clashes Cellar Sage avoids come down to one thing: tannin, the drying grip you feel in a young red.

Fish: tannin reacts with fish oils and leaves a metallic, tinny finish. Salmon and tuna can take a whisper of grip, but not much.
Chilli: tannin scrapes against the heat and turns bitter, and high alcohol fans the flames.
Chicken and turkey: heavy tannin steamrolls a delicate bird.
Salads and greens: grippy tannin tastes harsh against raw greens.
Mushrooms and legumes: their savoury umami makes very heavy tannin taste bitter.
Pies: very heavy tannin fights the pastry and turns harsh against tomato sauce.

Pairing guides

Meat pieShiraz, Grenache, Barbera, amber ales and lagers Fish and chipsBubbles, zesty whites, lagers and pale ales SteakTempranillo, Shiraz, stouts and hoppy pale ales BBQBold reds, Sparkling Shiraz, stouts and pale ales PizzaBarbera, Sangiovese, Lambrusco and pale ales CurryProsecco, Riesling, bubbles and crisp lagers Beer pairing, explainedWhy bubbles do the job acidity does in wine

Get picks for your own palate

Tell Cellar Sage what's for dinner and how you like your wine, and it finds bottles you can buy from Australian shops, with prices.