How to assemble an excellent platter for food and wine pairing

A snack platter may seem like an easily prepared chaos of snacks, but in fact, assembling an excellent platter for food and wine pairing is a skill. If you want everything to taste incredible, you only need a few simple tips.

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A good place to start is to observe. Wine bars often serve platters with their wines, and you’ll quickly see what works. The shady courtyard at Bonnievale Wines’ tasting room buzzes over weekends when platters are always served alongside diverse wines. 

Good food and wine

If you’re serving a platter, it’s a good idea to serve a few different wines. Making a good food and wine pairing experience means you should have diverse flavours, from sweet to savoury, and textures. Your food choice should be influenced by the types of wine served. Consider the grape varieties, too – for tips about red cultivars, go here and whites here.

An after-dinner platter might have a heavier concentration of cheese, chocolate, and fruit. A lunchtime platter could have more vegetables and fresh salad leaves. Breakfast platters can also be served with a Mimosa cocktail of Bonnievale The Vale Sauvignon Blanc Brut, and orange juice.

The right cheese to serve with wine

Who doesn’t know the cheese-and-wine combo – the most famous of food and wine pairing? Here’s a guide to wines and their best cheeses:

For sparkling wine like The Vale, white wines such as The River Collection Sauvignon Blanc and dessert wines, go for creamy, delicate cheese like brie and camembert.  

Sparkling wine and light-bodied whites also go well with salty cheeses like halloumi and feta. These also pair wonderfully with rosés like this River Collection Cinsault Rosé.

Bold, aromatic specimens like blue cheese or gorgonzola match with equally aromatic wines that provide a yin to their yang – so, sweet wines. Muscadel-based wines, like the Nature Dusk Sweet Rosé Perlé is an excellent option for a food and wine pairing.

A nutty, hard cheese also pairs well with sparkling wines, white wines like the Bonnievale Limited Release Chardonnay and light to medium-bodied reds like The River Collection Pinotage.

When the cheese has a tang, like sour cream, cream cheese, and ricotta, it’ll swing with sparkling wine, light whites, and most lighter reds too. 

For full-bodied reds, like the Bonnievale Limited Release Cabernet Sauvignon or River Collection Shiraz, try them with cheeses like gouda and good old cheddar. 

And finally, dry and salty cheeses like parmesan and pecorino will perform well with everything in a food and wine pairing except dessert wine. 

Ingredients of a great snack platter

While cheese is a typical ingredient of platters, you can also add a variety of savoury biscuits, artisan bread and breadsticks, for example 

• Cured meats, like biltong, droëwors, pancetta and chorizo;
• Slices of melon, dried fruits, figs, grapes and strawberries;
• Olives and nuts;
• Preserves and pickles like sweet, orange skin curls, peppadews, or gherkins;
• Dips, such as hummus, aioli, pesto, tomato jam and chutney; and
• Olive oil, honey and even balsamic reduction for drizzling.

The essentials of a great platter

Remember, the greatness of a food and wine pairing lies in the detail. So, assemble the board just before serving so everything’s fresh. Feel free to add a touch of decoration, such as rosemary sprigs or parsley. Provide knives, spoons and toothpicks for dishing up, side plates, and napkins.

Once prepped, all that remains is to arrange the glasses and chill the wines. Now, you’ve got your food and wine pairing sorted!