Social Media Widget for Food & Wine Pairing 3.0

Food & Drink Pairing Goes 3.0 at NatalieMacLean.com

New Drinks Matcher Widget Offers Thousands of Pairings Online

New York, March 10, 2009 - Which wine tastes best with pork chops in a maple glaze? Does rosemary-marinated grilled halibut invite red or white wine? Are there also great food pairings for beer, spirits, cocktails, coffee and tea?

To answer these questions and thousands more, the web site NatalieMacLean.com now offers a new Drinks Matcher widget, a portable version of the site's existing food-and-wine pairing tool. You can download the free Drinks Matcher widget in just three clicks to your computer desktop, web site, blog or social media page like Facebook, MySpace or iGoogle from www.nataliemaclean.com/matcher.

"The variety of food-and-drink combinations has exploded in the last five years," says Natalie MacLean, publisher of North America's largest wine e-newsletter. "Chicken isn't just chicken anymore: Now we eat it stuffed with pancetta and fresh herbs, rubbed with curry spices or sautéed in an orange balsamic sauce. We're looking for more interesting flavors, both on the plate and in the glass-and we want them to work together."

During the eight years that Natalie spent testing the combinations for her Drinks Matcher, she found two extremes when it comes to food and wine pairing: "Some people say that it's complete nonsense, while others insist that there's only one perfect match for every wine. Neither approach helps wine lovers."

"People want some guidance, even though the pairings are subjective. It all comes down to balancing flavors and textures. I'm a thoroughly hedonistic researcher. Of the thousands of combinations I tried, some were delicious, others were a disaster. I share the ones that worked in the Drinks Matcher."

You can search the matcher for drinks to pair with meat, pasta, seafood, vegetarian dishes, pizza, take-out, sauces, herbs, cheese or dessert; or you can find dishes to go with wine, cocktails, liqueurs, beer, spirits, cider, coffee, tea-and yes, even water. The Drinks Matcher is meant to be a springboard to help you discover the matches you prefer. The perfect pairing, of course, is between you and the wine you like.

Who will use the Drinks Matcher?

- Food and wine lovers can use it as a handy desktop tool to plan dinners and parties
- Bloggers and wine clubs can add it to their sites to keep visitors coming back for pairing suggestions
- Liquor and gourmet stores, wineries, restaurants and culinary schools can use it to help customers, staff and students

Get the Drinks Matcher:

- Post the Drinks Matcher widget in just 3 clicks: http://www.nataliemaclean.com/matcher
- Two compact sizes to fit any computer desktop, site, blog or social media page
- Mobile format for Blackberries, iPhones and SmartPhones works in liquor stores or restaurants

What can the Drinks Matcher do for me?

The Drinks Matcher will help you discover mouth-watering pairings, like these that Natalie selected for her Top 10 comfort foods:

1. French onion soup with Chilean Chardonnay
2. Irish lamb stew with Irish Stout
3. Spaghetti and meat balls with a Bloody Mary
4. Roast chicken with Burgundian Pinot Noir
5. Shepherd's pie with Australian Shiraz
6. Macaroni and cheese with Argentinian Malbec
7. Roast beef with Californian Cabernet Sauvignon
8. Pork chops and applesauce with Washington Late Harvest Riesling
9. Toffee pudding with Colombian Dark Roast Coffee
10. Chocolate cake with Kentucky Bourbon

You'll also find Natalie's favorite green food and wine matches for spring and summer vegetables on her web site: http://www.nataliemaclean.com/view.asp?id=246. When you visit the site, check out the other handy online tools she offers:

- Free e-newsletter, recipes, blog, wine glossary, podcasts, articles, wine links, events, Twitter updates, RSS feeds
- More than 50,000 wine reviews searchable by price, score, cellar maturity, food matches and recipes

About Natalie:

Natalie MacLean is an independent journalist and author of the bestseller Red, White and Drunk All Over. For Google searches on popular terms like "food and wine matching," Natalie's site is often on the first page of the results as it has become a go-to resource for food and wine lovers. Natalie has won four James Beard Journalism Awards, including the MFK Fisher Distinguished Writing Award. At the World Food Media Awards in Australia, she was named the World's Best Drinks Writer.

Rex Pickett, author of Sideways, says that Natalie "writes about wine with a sensuous obsession," and is "laugh-out-loud funny." Eric Asimov of the New York Times calls Natalie's approach "a winning formula," describing her as "the disarming Everywoman . . . she loves wine, loves drinking." The Financial Times of London observes: "Natalie MacLean is a new force in the wine writing world-a feisty North American answer to Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson."