was "to pair strong cheeses with strong wines," for example, asiago, a sharply flavored cheese, with Zinfandel, a dark red wine with fruit tones. Modern history In recent years, the popularity and interest in food and wine pairings have increased and taken on new connotations. Industries have sprung up with print publications and media dedicated to expounding on the principles and ideals of pairing the perfect wine with the perfect dish. In the restaurant industry, there is often a dedicated individual or staff of sommeliers who are trained to recommend wine pairings with the restaurant's fare. The origins of this recent phenomenon can be traced to the United States in the 1980s when the wine industry began to advertise wine-drinking as a component of dining rather than as just an alcoholic beverage meant for consumption and intoxication. Winemakers started to emphasize the kind of food dishes that their wines would go well with, some even printing pairing suggestions on back wine labels. Food magazines began to suggest particular wines with recipes and restaurants would offer multi-course dinners matched with a specific wine for each course. Today there are multiple sources for detailed guidelines and tips on food and wine pairing. But many wine drinkers select wine pairings based on instinct, the mood of the meal or simply a desire to drink a particular wine at the moment they desire to eat a particular meal. The subjective nature of taste makes it possible to drink any kind of wine with any kind of food and have an enjoyable experience. Wine expert Mark Oldman has noted "Food and wine pairing can be like sex and pizza: even when it's bad, it can still be pretty good" and gives the example of wedding cake with a dry sparkling wine. A very dry wine with a very sweet food is, according to Oldman, "the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard" and is not a "good pairing" according to most guidelines but the atmosphere of the occasion and the subjective nature of taste can trump any rule or guideline. Today, many wine experts and advocates in the realm of food and wine pairing try to focus on the more objective physical aspects of food that have an effect on the palate, altering (or enhancing) the perception of various aspects of the wine. Matching weight In food and wine pairings, the most basic element considered is