There's a particular kind of chagrin that only wine people know.

Mine happened at a dinner party, thankfully, a long time ago. I'd spent a week thinking about what to take, landed confidently on a big, oaky Chardonnay, turned up rather pleased with myself, and watched it disappear into the kitchen while the host opened something else.

The something else was a crisp, unoaked Chablis. The food was a whole baked salmon with a herb and lemon crust, spring peas, and asparagus. It was one of the best combinations I've ever tasted, and the wine I'd brought, opened later as an afterthought, was perfectly nice on its own but would have trampled every delicate flavour on that table.

I drove home slightly deflated, but educated. The lesson wasn't about knowing more about wine. It was about understanding what actually happens when wine and food interact - and why getting it right, or even almost right, makes such a disproportionate difference to the whole experience.

Spring is the season that makes this easier to get right than at any other time of year. The ingredients are lighter, more delicate, more clearly defined. The pairings tend to follow naturally once you understand a few principles. So here's what I've learned - with help from a few more dinner party lessons along the way.

The Golden Rule: Balance is Everything

Every food and wine pairing conversation comes back to the same thing in the end: balance. The balance of flavours, the balance of body, the balance of intensity. Everything else is detail.

The most useful way to think about it is this: wine is liquid seasoning. You wouldn't pour a rich, meaty gravy over a fillet of lemon sole - it would obliterate the fish completely. And you wouldn't serve a delicate lemon butter sauce with a thick ribeye, because the steak's fat and char would overwhelm it before you'd tasted anything.

The same logic applies when you're choosing a wine.

It's the Sauce, Not the Protein

The old question - "should I drink red or white with this?" - is actually the wrong question.

The right question is: "what's the dominant flavour here, and what does it need?"

Consider chicken, which appears on spring menus in about fifteen different incarnations. Chicken in a creamy lemon and tarragon sauce is a completely different pairing proposition to a coq au vin, which is itself nothing like a Thai green curry.

And then there's the first barbecue of the year - optimistic weather forecast, someone in a woolly jumper, charcoal lit regardless. Barbecued chicken is a fourth incarnation entirely: the smoke and char push the flavour somewhere more robust, and that's when you reach for a dry Provençal rosé or a lightly chilled Grenache instead.

All are chicken dishes. All want entirely different wines.

The same principle applies to salmon, to pasta, to most things. The pasta is irrelevant - it's the sauce. Salmon poached in a light broth is completely different from salmon in a rich cream and dill sauce, which is different again from salmon grilled over charcoal. Each wants something different. Not because of the salmon, but because of everything around it.

Asparagus: The Beautiful Problem

Asparagus deserves its own section because it's simultaneously one of the great joys of the British spring and one of the more awkward pairing challenges on the plate.

The difficulty is a compound called asparagusic acid - something that makes a lot of wines taste metallic, flat, or slightly bitter when paired with asparagus. Tannic reds are particularly affected. Sweet wines suffer too. It narrows your options considerably.

The solution, almost universally, is Sauvignon Blanc. Its high acidity and those characteristic green, grassy notes are a natural match for asparagus's herbal intensity. A good Loire Sauvignon (Sancerre or Pouilly-Fume at the top end, a simple Touraine for Tuesday evenings) works beautifully. So does a New Zealand Marlborough Sauvignon, though the style is noticeably riper and more tropical.

If you want to venture beyond Sauvignon, Austrian Grüner Veltliner - with its distinctive white pepper and green herb character - is genuinely excellent with asparagus, and still slightly under the radar in the UK (which, selfishly, I think is a good thing as that means there's more for me!)

Asparagus with hollandaise? The richness of the sauce gives you a little more flexibility. You can stretch to a fuller-bodied white here, but you still want that acidity cutting through the butter.

Spring Lamb

Lamb is where spring meat cookery shines, and the pairing options are some of the most satisfying in the entire wine world.

The classic match - Rioja with lamb - is one of those "if it grows together, it goes together" combinations that simply works. Spanish lamb and Tempranillo-based Rioja evolved alongside each other, and you feel that when you taste them together. The wine's red fruit and savoury earthiness are exactly what a roast leg of lamb or a lamb chop with herb crust needs.

Burgundy or Pinot Noir is another excellent option, particularly with more delicate lamb preparations - a rack of lamb, or spring lamb with spring vegetables. The lighter body and earthy complexity of Pinot doesn't overpower the way a bigger red might.

If the lamb is going into a slow-cooked, spiced dish - a Moroccan-influenced tagine with ras el hanout, preserved lemon, and apricots - you want something with more fruit and a touch of spice. Grenache-based wines from the Rhone or southern France, or a Syrah with some warmth to it, will handle this much better than a lean, earthy Burgundy.

Spring Fish and Seafood

Spring brings excellent sea bass, bream, and the beginning of the summer mackerel run. The key - and this is worth repeating - is not "it's fish, so I need white wine." It's about how the fish is cooked and what's around it.

Delicate fish - poached, steamed, or simply grilled - wants a wine to match its delicacy. A good Chablis (which is unoaked Chardonnay from northern Burgundy, with a characteristic steely, almost saline quality) is superb with seafood. So is Albariño from Galicia, which has a natural affinity for anything from the sea.

Meaty fish - swordfish, monkfish, tuna - are a different proposition. Grilled monkfish or a seared tuna steak can absolutely take a lighter red. Pinot Noir, served slightly chilled, works wonderfully. The fish is robust enough; the wine won't overpower it.

The Spring Vegetable Table

Spring is a brilliant time for vegetarian cooking, and the season's produce - peas, broad beans, new potatoes, spring greens, wild garlic, courgettes - pairs beautifully with lighter whites and roses.

Fresh pea dishes (risotto, soup, pasta with peas and mint) have a natural sweetness that suits wines with a little aromatic character - Sauvignon Blanc again, or a Verdejo from Rueda, which has similar freshness with a slightly richer texture.

Wild garlic, which appears in April and May and has an astonishing, pungent flavour, needs something with the backbone to stand up to it. A slightly fuller white with good acidity - an unoaked Chardonnay or a Grüner Veltliner - works well.

Harmony vs. Contrast: Two Approaches That Both Work

When you're thinking about a specific pairing, it helps to decide early on whether you're aiming for harmony or contrast. Both are legitimate strategies. Both can produce excellent results.

A harmonious pairing mirrors the flavours of the food. A creamy sauce paired with a creamy, buttery Chardonnay. A spiced dish paired with a spiced wine. The effect is of one reinforcing the other - a deeper, more unified experience.

A contrasting pairing works in opposition. The same creamy sauce paired with a high-acid Sauvignon Blanc, which cuts through the fat and refreshes the palate. A rich, fatty cut of meat paired with a tannic red, where the tannins literally bind with the fat proteins on your tongue and cleanse the palate.

In spring, you'll naturally find yourself using both. Delicate poached fish with a delicate Chablis is harmony. Grilled lamb chops with a savoury, tannic Rioja is contrast. Both approaches are well-suited to the season.

The Six Tastes You Need to Know

Pairing science comes down to six tastes in food - and understanding how each one interacts with wine properties makes everything else click into place.

One more to add: umami. That deep, savoury richness in slow-braised stews, mushrooms, aged cheeses, and soy-based dishes is notoriously unkind to tannic red wines - it ramps up the harsh, metallic elements and strips out the fruit. With umami-heavy spring dishes (mushroom risotto, aged Parmesan, slow-cooked lamb), choose reds that are juicy and fruit-forward rather than brashly structured. Pinot Noir or a young Gamay (Beaujolais) will serve you far better than a big Cabernet.

The Spring Pairing Cheat Sheet

For those who want the headlines without the lecture:

A Word About Glassware

Getting the pairing right is one thing. Getting it into the right glass is another - and it matters more than most people realise until they experience the difference firsthand.

As I'm sure you know, Riedel's varietal-specific glasses are designed around a simple idea: the shape of the bowl influences how wine reaches your nose and palate, which directly affects what you taste (80 - 90% of "taste" is "smell"). 

For spring pairings specifically, you'll get most use from a good all-purpose white wine glass for everything from Sauvignon Blanc to Chablis to Grüner Veltliner, and a lighter red glass for Pinot Noir and Beaujolais.