Welcome to Pairing wine with Vietnamese food, the ultimate guide for those who want to make the most of drinking wine with Vietnamese food! In this book you will find the basics about wine and food pairing, to then move into the particulars of the worldwide awarded Vietnamese cuisine. After having lived several years in Vietnam, the author, still living in Ho Chi Minh City, and a member of the Society of Wine Educators, will take you through the particulars of the most popular Vietnamese dishes and which wines will not only go well with them, but even enhance the experience of both eating the dish and enjoying wine. Vietnamese food is very diverse, as you can imagine considering that Vietnam is the 13th most populated country in the world, and over 1650km in length, benefiting from seaside, different climates and flat as well mountainous terrain. This book covers many of the most popular dishes from North, South and Middle of Vietnam, and how can they be better paired with different types and styles of wine. The first two chapters cover the basics of food and wine, as well as a fast course on pairing food and wine: this will not make an expert, but will give those readers wanting to learn more, the basic tools to pair food, however the work has been done for you already! The core of the book covers 100 of the most popular Vietnamese dishes divided in four groups: salads and starters, rice and soups, fish and seafood and meat and poultry Each dish and its ingredients are described briefly with suggestions for wine pairings. The book does not recommend wine brands, but the likely grapes and/or grapes and regions which will pair better with the food: a dish pairing may be a Marlborough (New Zealand) Chardonnay rather than a Villa Maria. The reason for this is that different brands are available in different countries, hence is more practical for everyone to match food with grapes and styles rather than brands. There are regional variations when preparing Vietnamese food, but in most of the cases the wines selected don't change, unless otherwise stated. A very useful feature of the book is the three indexes at the back: -The first index in alphabetical order for the dishes in Vietnamese names, useful if you are in a restaurant and the menu is in Vietnamese. -A second index with the name of the dishes in English. -You have the grape, here are the matching dishes. We hope you will enjoy the experience of discovering Vietnamese food, and pairing it with the right wines!
