Charcuterie and salumi

Assuming a shared board of cured pork: coppa, salami, prosciutto, perhaps a fennel finocchiona, with bread and pickles alongside.

Cured meat brings three things at once, and only one of them is a problem. The salt actually helps, softening tannin and making a red taste rounder than it would alone. The fat needs acidity to keep the palate moving from slice to slice. The savoury depth of the curing is the difficulty: it sharpens the perception of tannin, so a big structured red turns hollow and metallic against exactly the food people most often serve it with.

Pairs Perfectly

Lambrusco Secco, Emilia-Romagna, Italy — from a serious producer. Pairs Perfectly. The category is unreliable enough that the producer matters: most of what reaches export shelves is sweet mass-market stuff, so seek a serious dry secco bottling. The bubbles scrub the fat between slices, the acidity answers the salt, and there is almost no tannin to be sharpened by the cure. It is also what they drink where the best of this food is made, and it costs very little.

Pairs Well

Fino Sherry, Jerez, Spain. Pairs Well. Bone dry, saline and nutty from ageing under flor, with enough savoury weight to stand beside cured pork where a lighter marine style would disappear.

Cru Beaujolais, France. Pairs Well. Gamay from the named hills gives bright red fruit at low tannin and high acid, which is the shape a charcuterie board wants from a red.

Worth Seeking Out

Poulsard, Jura, France. So pale it can be mistaken for a rose, almost weightless, with cranberry and undergrowth and next to no tannin. It is one of the few reds that can sit beside a delicate prosciutto without flattening it.

Avoid

Young structured reds with firm tannin. The savoury depth of curing sharpens tannin until the wine tastes metallic and hollow, which is the opposite of what the board deserves.

Failing That

A Verdicchio, Marche, Italy.

If All Else Fails

Picpoul, Languedoc.

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