Why Red Wine Is Not A Good Pair with Seafood

The Scientific Evidence that Supports the Claim

Nov 7, 2009

It's all right to like wine and seafood. Just make sure you have red wine with meat, and white wine with seafood for best results.

Japanese researchers discovered the rationale for the old gastronomique rule of thumb: "drink red wine with meat and white wine with seafood." Dr. Takayuri Tamura and colleagues found that iron (a common constituent in white and red wines) contributes to the unfavorable "fishy" aftertaste when red wine is paired with seafood at the same time. The research group asked a panel of wine tasters to sample 38 red wines and 26 white wines while eating scallops. The wines contained varying amounts of iron depending on country of origin, variety, and vintage.

They found out that wines containing the highest amounts of iron produced a more pronounced fishy aftertaste than wines with lower or the least amounts of iron. They also found that by "chelating" (binding) the iron in the wine, the fishy aftertaste was significantly reduced. In addition, they found that volatile compounds such as hexanal, heptanal-1-octen-3-one, (e-z)-2,4,heptadienal, nonanal, and decanal interacted with iron in the wine which gave rise to the unfavorable aftertaste. Hexanal, heptanal and decanal are aldehydes - highly reactive chemical compounds that are present in foodstuffs. Their presence was detected by gas chromatography and mass spectometry in scallops soaked in wine.Their findings were published in the 2009 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Methods Used for Removing Iron in Wine and Other Beverages

Phytic acid can be used to chelate iron in wine. A salt of calcium is added to bind iron, and the precipitate is later removed by filtration. This process is a safe, inexpensive, and effective technique of removing high levels of iron in wines and other beverages without changing the pH, color or flavor of the product.

What You Can Do to Minimize the Fishy Aftertaste

Wine manufacturers do not list the iron content of their alcoholic beverage, so it is almost impossible for the lay public to check the amount of iron present in a bottle of wine, be it red or white. In addition, research into iron levels in wines are scarce. Apart from the investigation led by Riganakos and Panayiotis, who found out that Greek wines contained approximately 10 mg -100 mg iron/liter of wine, there has been very little research done in this area. What can you do to avoid that "fishy" aftertaste? You can follow the rule of thumb: "have red wine with meat, and white wine with seafood," or keep trying different wines with different seafood. You might just find the right pair.

Tamura T. et al. "Iron is an Essential Cause of Fishy Aftertaste Formation in Wine and Seafood Pairing" Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 2009;57(18):8550-8556

Trela BG & Graf Ernst "Method of Iron Removal for Wine and Other Beverages" Patents Online February 26, 2008

Josephson DB "Seafood" in Volatile Compounds in Seafood and Beverages, Maarse H (editor) CRC Press 1991 pp: 179-190

Riganakos KA & Panayiotis GV "Comparative spectrophotomorphic determination of the total iron content in various white and red Greek wines" Food Chemistry September 2003;82(4):637-643

The copyright of the article Why Red Wine Is Not A Good Pair with Seafood in Nutrition is owned by Alicia Richardson. Permission to republish Why Red Wine Is Not A Good Pair with Seafood in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.