What kind of wine should you serve with food? The old rule of "red wine with meat" and "white wine with fish" is somewhat limiting, and what about pasta or chicken or pork, etc? Do you have to follow any absolute rules, or is experimentation and flexibly allowed? What if you serve the wrong or an incorrect wine, then what? The basics are simple.
Whatever wine tastes good with food is good.
In general you want big bold flavorful wines with big bold flavorful foods.
That's why a big red, say a Cabernet Sauvignon, goes well with prime rib.
Wines with more delicate flavors go well with more delicate wines.
For example chicken goes very well with most chardonnays.
Salmon, a pinkish and medium bodied tasting fish, goes extremely well with pinot noir, which matches its flavor profile.
There really are no rules however other than your taste.
For example, old red Bordeaux do go well with chicken dishes, or so do many people think.
And surprisingly, Champagne goes very well with everything.
The basic rule, the bigger in taste the food, the bigger in taste the wine, is a good general rule.
But rules are made to be broken and whatever tastes good to you is good by definition, as it's your taste that matters most.
And it is common in elaborate multi-course meals to serve a different wine with each course as well.
There are some classic matches.
Red Bordeaux or Cabernet Sauvignon with steak or prime rib, pinot noir with salmon and other full bodied fish, Corton Charlemagne (a Chardonnay from Burgundy) with lobster, and Champagne with eggs including chicken eggs and fish eggs (caviar).
But there is not wrong wine and experimentation is the rule.
Worst case you have a great wine and great food that don't match perfectly so you have them separately.
Not perfect but not too bad on the big scale of things either!