For those struck by wine-pairing paralysis, the white is a cakewalk compared to the many perceived pitfalls of red wine. It is very easy to make a mistake that reduces both food and wine to much lesser than the sum of their parts – opening a young, tight Nebbiolo with an aged steak cooked in mountains of butter would be sad indeed, with the meaty, rich butter and the lean tannins of the wine clashing very unhappily. But as alluded to above, there is perhaps more fear going around than is necessary. The best advice we can really give is not to second-guess how your wine is going to match your food, but to make sure it’s a grape/region/producer that you like. Once you have a glass of something delicious in hand, you should find those worries about wine pairing magically melt away. Some favourite matches from our menu have been Rhône reds with a Sunday roast (in winter try a Syrah-dominant Northern Rhône; when spring and summer roll around, a Grenache-dominant bottle from the South) and red Sancerre with game birds. Ultimately, however, the most important match is between you and the bottle, not the bottle and the food.