The key element in the recommended wines is moderate or low alcohol. Alcohol in wine-and-food combos is like push technology: it slams whatever is in a food right smack in your face.

Simplify pairing wine with food by attending less to the texture, flavor, or weight of each and more to elements such as salt, sweet, acid, and fat.

A spoonful of sugar makes more than the medicine go down; it makes everything taste better. But sweetness can be a bugaboo to tasty wine pairings.

What we have here is a preparation of protein and vegetable that is high in its own native acidity (mustard, white wine, the ferment of sauerkraut) and that, consequently, poses a problem for wine.

Unlike the cow, however, we get to enjoy wine with our asparagus — but there's the rub. Asparagus is high in a chemical called methyl mercaptan and can make wine consumed with it come off tasting bitter.

You won't believe how tender these salmon filets turn out; they become fish pudding. It's also a good reminder that sometimes the best wine simply pairs up with the texture of the food.

Always pair sweet foods with wines that are either as sweet by the same measure, or that give the impression of sweetness, as do rich, fruity reds.

The main element you’ll want to rely on, in any wine you choose, would be a refreshing acidity, to help clean up after the richness of this preparation.

Pair these scrumptious, savory gobbler meatballs with wines, white or red, that do not fatigue. The key element? Fresh acidity.

For certain foods – wings, dogs, spicy eats or, as here, fish tacos - the default beverage is beer, by wide acclaim. What beer does is refresh and cleanse the palate; wine can do that too, especially if it carries bracing acidity.

Lean white wine would be a go-to with this dish, but don’t pass on lighter, leaner reds either. So much goes on in this multilayered preparation that the greater flavors and heft of even a simple red wine merit attention over most any white.

To paraphrase St. Paul: In wine there are acid, sweet, tannin, and alcohol, but the greatest of these is acid. Acidity — that tangy, zesty finale to a sip of wine, that which sweeps the palate clean — is crucially important to delicious, successful wine and food pairings.

The little bit of sweetness from the creamy cheese will ask you for a wine, either red, white or pink, that is itself buoyant with fruit or ever so slightly sweet. Nothing sugary, really; that’s too much.

By and large, the reds of Italy, Spain and southern France sport a bit more acidity and more cleansing tannins than their New World offspring, perfect for taming the oils from the olive and citrus and the fats from meat and dairy in this recipe.

The common element to the wines for this dish is bracing acidity, a textural component that works with or scours away all the many other elements present in the dish.

Lots of wines taste great with foods cooked outside the corral. Go for lighter reds, fuller-flavored whites, even wines that hint at the 'vegetal' themselves, such as some Cabernet Franc-based reds.

You already know tannin: It’s in tea leaves, walnut and almond skins, too-long-chewed Popsicle sticks. Tannin binds with fat and blood protein to make them seem less oleaginous; they in turn soften tannin’s astringency. They need each other and you need tannin.

Any number of dry, off-dry, or sparkling white wines, crisp with acidity and refreshing in character, would do nicely with this preparation’s elements of fat, salt and acidity.

Sometimes simple and clean wines are better, as a yin to the (in this case) crab’s yang. And the unique white from the south of France is the perfect, humble “background” wine to let the dish shine.