Drinking wine you like with food you like

IT indicates the degree of development and maturity of the wine culture here that the question asked today is more often: "What shall we drink at dinner tonight?" rather than "Shall we drink wine at dinner tonight?" It has been a gradual maturing, which I think began in the late nineties, gathering speed since the turn of the century.

Growing up in colonial Singapore, my wining and dining practices were naturally influenced by Western, basically British, colonial culture. The British brought with them to Singapore Scotch whisky (naturally!), gin, cognac, port, champagne and French red and white wines. And British dining culture. For readers too young to know what that means, it meant that the evening would generally begin with cocktails, or brandy or whisky with soda, or the ubiquitous gin and tonic, champagne being c…