Many people wonder about pairing the right wine with the right food. Fortunately, we have moved well beyond the simple mantra of white wine with white meat and red wine with red meat. I am willing to try new combinations of wine and food and have attended several educational sessions, which challenged the participants to think outside the box when pairing.

However, I often have a more basic dilemma. We have several bottles in our cellar, which I consider to be very nice bottles. These are bottles that are generally more expensive than our standard house wines and are often somewhat special in their limited production, my sentimental attachment to them or both. The problem is that I am not comfortable in opening these wines to pair with simple food.

Yes, that bottle of Pride Mountain Merlot (purchased at their Napa vineyard) might go well with Italian food, but, if I make spaghetti and open a jar of sauce, am I being disrespectful to the wine? What if I am too lazy to even boil water and microwave a Weight Watchers pizza instead? I wonder how the winemaker might feel knowing that I had squandered their lovely wine by drinking it with a frozen dinner. Would s/he be insulted? Or, perhaps they don’t care, as long as I enjoyed the wine? 

I know I feel guilty to "share" these wines with such base food. Rather, I hoard them until I am ready to make a fancy dinner. But, unfortunately, among work, school and launching a business, I rarely have the time or the energy for grand cooking endeavors anymore. Hence, my nice wines remain in the cellar. Perhaps I am overthinking the whole thing and should simply consider that wine goes with food, period. Is it time for dinner yet?