Sweet and savoury glazes, flavouring profile

Sweet and savoury glazes, flavouring profile

A glaze puts sugar on a savoury plate, and a wine that is drier and leaner than the glaze will taste thin and sour, so the wine needs ripe fruit or a touch of sweetness, scaled to the meat underneath.

The compounds that matter. Sugar from honey, maple, mirin, hoisin or brown sugar is the first constraint, because sweetness in food makes a dry wine taste sharper and more bitter. Heat caramelises the sugar and browns the meat, giving toffee and roasted notes that a lean, green white cannot match. Soy and miso add salt and glutamate, which make tannin taste harder, and many glazes carry chilli, which alcohol makes hotter.

What it demands of a wine. Fruit at least as ripe as the glaze is sweet, and a little residual sugar where the glaze is very sweet. Acid to keep it fresh. Soft tannin and moderate alcohol, especially where soy or chilli is involved. Body scaled to the meat, from light with fish to full with ribs.

Seek

With fish and vegetables, such as miso cod, teriyaki salmon or glazed carrots, reach for Riesling from New Zealand in an off dry style, whose lime and peach fruit and gentle sweetness meet the glaze and cut the salt. For a bone dry glass, Pinot Gris from Oregon has ripe pear and melon fruit that fills the gap without sugar. With pork, duck and chicken, such as char siu, sticky pork belly or duck with plum sauce, Pinot Noir from the Russian River Valley, California, has the ripe cherry fruit and soft tannin to suit the sweetness and the soy. With honey glazed ham, Vouvray in its off dry style brings quince and honey of its own. With beef short rib or sticky barbecue ribs, Zinfandel from California has the ripe, jammy fruit and the body to match the glaze and the char.

Avoid

Lean, bone dry, high acid whites such as Muscadet or Picpoul, which the sugar makes taste sour. Nebbiolo, Cabernet Sauvignon and other firm reds, which soy and sweetness turn hard and bitter. High alcohol wines where the glaze carries chilli, which turn up the burn.

Three to reach for. For glazed fish and vegetables, Riesling, off dry, New Zealand. For glazed pork, duck and chicken, Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley, California. For glazed beef and ribs, Zinfandel, California, USA.