Rules for successful combinations:

Ηarmony in flavors
Harmony in taste makes the perfect match between a wine and a meal or dish. It is the creation of a delicious whole whereby neither the wine nor the food prevail. For this to happen and to allow for a harmonious combination, taste and aroma should be similar both qualitatively and quantitatively. This results in maintaining the balance of flavor in the mouth.

Complementary flavors
This is a parameter based on empirical rules. So a sweet flavor may complement a bitter (sugar with coffee) and a sour (lemon with sugar), while a salty sour (salt with lemon). The same goes for the flavor of wine with the flavor of the food. Each of them is poised to be complementary flavors, which taste sweet to balance the bitter and salty to balance the sour.

Taste intensity
Wines can be classified based on the intensity of their taste, i.e. the strength of the taste and to what extent this overpowers other flavors. Therefore, it is appropriate to combine foods of great taste intensity (such as spicy sauces) with wine of equal taste intensity like a "fat" and "full" aged Makkas Syrah. Food is classified according to the intensity of taste: appetizers, seafood, fish, fish in sauce, cured meats, poultry, white meats, red meat, red meat in sauce, winged game, hunting venison, soft cheeses, hard and sweet cheeses.

As we already said, the sensory effect of a combination of wine and food should be characterized by harmony. The importance of such coexistence is that it should not create an unpleasant sensation of taste. Consequently, neither one nor the other should prevail. So you should look for intense flavors combined with strong tasting wines and soft with soft, respectively. In short follow the rule: the like are combined. Therefore, a food rich in aromas should be accompanied by a wine with equally intense aromas as to avoid a sense that leaves the food and us disharmonious of senses. The same rule applies for the other flavors.

The "enemies" of the wine
When choosing a wine to accompany our meal, we must seriously take into consideration the "enemies" that can destroy their flavor. The number one enemy is, vinegar.  A salad with vinegar will make the wine seem like vinegar. Equally dangerous is the acidity found in oranges, lemons and grapefruits. The combination of wine with these fruits has resulted in the wine having an unpleasant taste.  In addition, there are foods such as oily fish, which give the wine a metallic taste.

Another combination to be avoided is that of wine with soup. Apart from the difference in flavors, the simultaneous presence of two liquids is unpleasant to the palate. These foods, which are rightly called "enemies” of wine, affect to a very large extent the senses the wine should leave us with. We would like to emphasize again that there are no 100% taste rules and that a very important role in the success of a delicious combination are the perceptions and taste of each and everyone of us.

Moreover, the ultimate goal is for us to enjoy the wine the way we like it. The purpose of the rules is to propose to us that which is the most harmonious, what connoisseurs have judged  brings out the flavor of food and wine together, without the one overlapping or destroying the other.