Ripping up the rulebook of food and wine matching

I’ve recently started a series on my social media platforms called Fridge Roulette: Pairing Random Food & Wine Combos. Admittedly, it’s not the most thrilling title, especially for someone who puts words together for a living, but the excitement (hopefully) comes from the anticipation: will this combo be a disaster or a delight? 

In one of the early episodes, potato waffles and ketchup were the cuisine du jour, paired with whatever wines happened to be chilling in the fridge (a Côtes du Rhône and a Chilean Chardonnay, if you were wondering). No great revelations were had, but I’ll say this: those golden slabs of delicious starch might just be the future of wine pairing. 

I’ve written several pieces about the need to decolonise our flavour references and move away from Eurocentric benchmarks when it comes to wine pairing, but if we truly want to create a more inclusive wine space, we also need to consider another often-overlooked group, one that I too am in; the culinary-inept. 

Because here’s the thing, traditional food and wine guidance assumes you’re cooking. As in, actually cooking; selecting recipes, prepping ingredients, plating with intent, but many of us (the cooking-averse (me), the convenience-led and the occasional I’m-just-too-tired) don’t eat like that anymore. 

You only have to glance at TikTok or Instagram to see the rise of girl dinners, picky bits, and grazing platters to realise that this is more than a fad, it’s a genuine cultural shift. It’s intimate, low-stakes and crucially resonates with another group the industry seems to be struggling to connect with: younger generations. 

It might seem like a silly little lifestyle quirk, but this way of eating reflects something bigger. It signals a changing relationship with food and pleasure. One that’s less about perfection and more about flexibility, and if this is what food now looks like for many, then wine needs to catch up too. 

The problem is, wine pairing has historically been based on order and structure. A composed plate. A protein, a sauce, a side etc, but what happens when dinner is a handful of olives, half a falafel, a wedge of cheese and some crisps? The old logic breaks down. You’re not pairing wine with a dish anymore, you’re pairing it with a vibe. 

This is where the industry’s opportunity lies. We don’t need to dumb wine down, after all consumers can fully understand the difference between extra virgin, cold-pressed olive oil and a cheap supermarket blend, or why you’d use Maldon sea salt instead of table salt. Instead wine needs to become more emotionally intelligent. 

We need to shift the conversation from what to pair with, to why. Using the olive oil example, consumers might not know every detail about polyphenols or processing methods, but they get that one is for finishing and one is for frying. It’s about function, feel and intention and wine should be the same. 

When we speak to tone rather than ingredients, mood rather than menu, we allow wine to re-enter everyday life in a way that feels natural and effortless. This isn’t just good for the consumer, it’s a win for the industry too because this is a demographic that wants to enjoy wine. They’re already engaging, just look at the number of followers that wine communicators have on social media, but not if it means memorising flavour wheels or being shamed for liking Prosecco with Pringles. 

If we stop gatekeeping wine through the lens of ‘proper food’, we open the door to a whole new wave of drinkers. Not because they don’t love wine, but because no one told them they were allowed to love it like this. 

So no, potato waffles might not be the apex of gastronomy, but they represent something meaningful; an invitation for all wine lovers to take a seat at the table, or on the sofa or the bean bag. If we can embrace that, not as a compromise but as a cultural reality we can future-proof the wine industry for the next generation of fridge-raiders, snack-board stylists and culinary rebels.