The most common phrase I hear when I bring a wine home for my girlfriend Cecilia to try is, "Yeah, it's OK." I might be absolutely crazy about a particular bottle and all I get for my enthusiasm is lukewarm acknowledgement. It can be frustrating, especially for people like me who truly get their pleasure in life from seeing other people enjoying similar tastes. I realize that once in a while, when I go gaga over a wine, it's because I can imagine it paired along side the appropriate meal. For example, when we taste 20 Bordeaux side-by-side, we get a sense of what the wines are about, but we won't really understand how great they are until we sit down with a piece of beef on our plate. The importance of food with wine was something that I use to think was a bunch of over-hyped phooey before I started working here, or at the very least overstressed (much like I thought that different glass shapes for certain wines was a commercial scam; I was wrong about that, too).

However, when I first took home the leftover Bordeaux bottle that we had tasted earlier in the day, cooked up a steak, and sat down at my table to enjoy the conjunction of two great partners, I realized what I had been missing. It really dawned on me after that point that there were probably hundreds of wines that I had tasted and not fully understood or appreciated because I had sampled them without that idea in mind. It is definitely a finely-tuned skill (one which I do not yet fully possess) to be able to identify potential in a wine— either for its ability to age or to bring out the flavors in a particular meal and vice versa.

The next time I went wine-tasting with my parents I was excited to tell them about how much better the right food could make their wine taste, seeing that they are also big wine drinkers. They kind of laughed at me and teased me for being so serious about the subject of food pairing (much like I tease people who only listen to vinyl records or only buy organic products). I was taking it way too seriously, they said. In their opinion, wine was something fun that shouldn't be analyzed in depth or obsessed over with such scrutiny. I didn't entirely disagree with that idea, but I was annoyed that they didn't take the idea of wine pairing seriously, especially because I knew they would really enjoy their wine so much more if they took only a little interest in doing so.

The subject of wine pairing is really a point at which one's interest in wine begins to merge with interest in food and cooking. For some people a bottle of wine is nothing to fuss over and represents little more than something easy to consume after a long day at work. In that case, it's more of a "pick your poison" type of scenario. That's fine, however, there is more to wine if one allows there to be and it has nothing to do with pretentiousness or snobbery. It simply follows certain patterns much like other aspects of our society. Some people are serious about always looking good and take the time to dress up before leaving the house, while others simply wear exercise pants and flip-flops no matter where they go. Some people are satisfied with microwave meals, while others will only eat the finest home-cooked fare.

With fashion, black pants and brown shoes are a no-no, or at best, very difficult to pull off. You wouldn't wear a tie with a tank top just like you wouldn't eat filet mignon with pancakes and grapes with mayonnaise. I mean, you could, but most people wouldn't find it appealing. The same rules follow with the primary color wheel and the connection between flavors. There is a special relationship between turkey, gravy, stuffing and mashed potatoes, much like there exists a certain electricity between dough, tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese. Wine should not be seen any differently. It can be a great aperitif, but its potential for greatness lies in its associations. I love mustard, but I never squeeze it straight into my mouth, and who wants just a plain hot dog bun without the sausage?

Certain varietals and certain styles of wine can also taste less than exciting on their own. Nebbiolo for example is one of my favorite grapes from Italy that, like almost all Italian wines, needs a hearty plate of food to balance out its acidity, heavy tannins and earthy undertones. Muscadet is another wine where pleasant transforms into heavenly if given a plate of raw oysters or a mild piece of fish. Traditionally made Rioja can be very dusty and gritty on its own, but with some rustic Spanish cuisine, the fruit tends to be a bit juicier and the oak a bit toastier. The fact that these three examples are all European in origin is not a coincidence. Italy, France and Spain all sit down to meals more often than Americans generally do and their wines are therefore made to accompany regional specialties.

On the contrary, it seems to me that many domestic wines these days are produced with the idea that the consumer will not necessarily be sitting down at the table while consuming. Everybody loves Rombauer Chardonnay, for example; it is by far our top selling white wine. But, while its thick, rich and buttery texture makes it a tasty treat for parties, it is a difficult match for most foods. Wines with big fruit, high alcohol and loads of toasty oak are sometimes so powerful that they wipe out any of the flavors imparted on the tongue by the previous bite of food. They can be, however, delicious when sipped on their own around the patio table, rather than the dinner table, and this seems to reflect a culture that rarely finds time to cook these days.

In turn, I tend to think that the lack of excitement regarding the regional wines of the world can stem from the fact that these wines are often sampled or drunk entirely on their own, or in a party setting without the right food readily available. Imagine if you were trying French fries for the first time and you found that they tasted pretty good—crispy and salty—but still a bit bland. Then one day someone pours some ketchup on a plate and puts a hamburger next to it, suddenly French fries become the bee's knees. Many of today's great wines are enjoyed much like plain baked potato, or a single bowl of white rice. Like these examples, wine is also a food and its strengths are usually highlighted when paired along side the right dish or added to the right combination of flavors.

I think it's important to address the subject of wine pairing because I think it thoroughly enhances the dining and drinking experience. There is a middle ground, however. You don't have to run out and find a guide to wine pairing in order to truly enjoy the flavors of wine. A grilled piece of filet mignon is not requisite to opening a bottle of Bordeaux and foie grois and blue cheese are not the only partners for Sauternes. Simply taking the time to think about the structure, the acid, or the sugar levels within a wine can help to make some easy decisions about which foods will not work with a specific bottle, rather than which foods will. Bordeaux can pair well with pizza as long as the right wine is paired with the right toppings. And there are always knowledgeable salespeople willing to put their two cents in.

I opened a bottle of the 2006 Ruggeri Corsini Nebbiolo the other night and I was very excited for Cecilia to taste it. We decanted it and tried a sip before dinner. "Eh," she remarked after trying it. Twenty minutes later we sat down to a plate of risotto with cannelloni bean bruschetta—nothing too fancy. After a few bites, she said, "Actually, this wine is really good."

—David Driscoll