Quotes from Andrew Dornenburg

TIP: Adding a splash of the wine you're drinking to the sauce can build a bridge between the food and the wine.

TIDBIT: We interviewed so many Chicago sommeliers that we had occasion to learn that Oprah Winfrey's favorite Champagne is Cristal.

Pair fruity dishes with wines from New World regions. Pair earthy dishes with wines from Old World regions. How do you distinguish Old World from New World? If it had a king or a queen in the 1500s (e.g., France, Italy, Spain) it is Old World; and any place they sent explorers (e.g., United States) or prisoners (e.g., Australia) is New World. — GREG HARRINGTON, master sommelier

If your wine is more acidic than the dish you're having with it, consider adding a squeeze of lemon or a drizzle of vinegar to the dish to balance the pairing.   If your dish is more acidic than your wine, consider adding salt (e.g., either from a salt shaker, or another salty element common to your dish's region of the world — say, soy sauce for an Asian dish, or anchovies for a Mediterranean dish) to balance the pairing.

TIP: Desserts should never be sweeter than the wine served to accompany them—and nor should savory dishes.

South Indian lassi is made with chilled yogurt and a bloomed oil of curry leaves, mustard seed, red chile, cumin seed, and coconut. This goes perfectly with salmon or halibut with a South Indian coconut mint chutney. It gives you a spicy flavor with cooling yogurt, which provides great balance in the stomach for digestion.

If you're a Cabernet Sauvignon loyalist, you might want to consider ordering your steaks rare or medium-rare.

One of the best pairings we've ever done was of Champagnemarinated strawberries with Kyoto Cherry Rose tea.

Tea is much more delicate than wine… The people who respond best to the intricacies of tea are people who enjoy wine. — JAMES LABE, tea sommelier/owner, Teahouse Kuan Yin (Seattle)

pleasure is just as often a function of our emotional associations as it is of our physical sensations — and for this reason, there can be psychology as well as physiology at play when it comes to pairing beverages with food.

Assam tea goes very well after white wine. —MICHAEL OBNOWLENNY, Canada's first tea sommelier

Of our desires, some are natural and necessary, others are natural but not necessary, and others are neither natural nor necessary, but due to groundless opinion. — EPICURUS

TIDBIT: At dinner with one of his daughters while researching this book, we learned that Bruce Willis drinks "nothing but Opus One," a Cabernet Sauvignon-based Bordeaux-style blend from Napa Valley.

TIP: In Japan, green tea is steeped for one to two minutes, while in China it is steeped for three to five minutes.