Which wine tastes best with pork chops in a maple glaze? Does rosemary-marinated grilled halibut invite red or white wine? Are there also great food pairings for beer, spirits, cocktails, coffee, and tea?

To answer these questions and thousands more, the web site NatalieMacLean.com now offers a new Drinks Matcher widget, a portable version of the site’s existing food-and-wine pairing tool. You can download the free Drinks Matcher widget in just three clicks to your computer desktop, web site, blog or social media page like Facebook, MySpace or iGoogle here.

“The variety of food-and-drink combinations has exploded in the last five years,” says Natalie MacLean, publisher of Canada’s largest wine e-newsletter.

“Chicken isn’t just chicken anymore: Now we eat it stuffed with pancetta and fresh herbs, rubbed with curry spices or sautéed in an orange balsamic sauce. We’re looking for more interesting flavours, both on the plate and in the glass—and we want them to work together.”

During the eight years that Natalie spent testing the combinations for her Drinks Matcher, she found two extremes when it comes to food and wine pairing: “Some people say that it’s complete nonsense, while others insist that there’s only one perfect match for every wine. Neither approach helps wine lovers.”

“People want some guidance, even though the pairings are subjective. It all comes down to balancing flavours and textures. I’m a thoroughly hedonistic researcher. Of the  thousands of combinations I tried, some were delicious, others a disaster. I share the ones that worked in the Drinks Matcher.”

You can search the matcher for drinks to pair with meat, pasta, seafood, vegetarian dishes, pizza, take-out, sauces, herbs, cheese, or dessert; or you can find dishes to go with wine, cocktails, liqueurs, beer, spirits, cider, coffee, tea, and even water. The Drinks Matcher is meant to be a springboard to help you discover the matches you prefer. The perfect pairing, of course, is between you and the wine you like.

Who will use the Drinks Matcher?

• Food and wine lovers can use it as a handy desktop tool to plan dinners and parties.
• Bloggers and wine clubs can add it to their sites to keep visitors coming back for pairing suggestions.
• Liquor and gourmet stores, wineries, restaurants, and culinary schools can use it to help customers, staff, and students.

You just choose a match on your mobile device and then you can find the top drink picks either in your local liquor store or on the restaurant menu. Unlike MacLean’s popular pairing widget on her web site, this new tool doesn’t require a connection to the Internet and so can be used in remote locations.

“There are two trends that are exploding in popularity now: interest in food and wine, and the convenience of mobile apps,” says MacLean. “That makes the Nat Decants Drinks Matcher a natural fit—like Stilton and port. As a wine-loving geek, I love finding ways for new technology to help us savour all of life’s pleasures, wherever we are.”

Drinks Matcher Features

• Start with either a drink or a dish
• Choose Bubbly, White, Red, Rosé, Dessert
• Pair beer, spirits, cocktails, liquor, coffee, tea
• Select from 292 grapes, wines and blends
• 219 cheeses and cheese dishes
• 61 pasta dishes, 118 vegetarian & salads
• 57 chicken, 59 beef, 41 pork, 112 seafood
• 27 types of pizza plus other take-out favorites
• 48 herbs, spices and sauces
• 94 Asian, Indian and Chinese dishes
• 123 types of chocolate and desserts
• More than 380,000 pairings, with new ones added daily

Natalie MacLean is an independent journalist and author of the bestseller Red, White and Drunk All Over. For Google searches on popular terms like “food and wine pairing,” “food and wine matching” and “wine newsletter,” Natalie’s site is often on the first page of the results as it has become a go-to resource for food and wine lovers. Natalie has won four James Beard Journalism Awards, including the MFK Fisher Distinguished Writing Award. At the World Food Media Awards in Australia, she was named the World’s Best Drinks Writer.

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