This line is the provocative lead-in on the cover of April’s Decanter magazine, and before I’d even got to page 46 it had my mind racing. Where would you start? What an absurd – no, disturbing idea! You can’t pick a favourite wine any more than you can pick a favourite child, I tell anyone that asks the question!

But interestingly, let the question sink in for a bit and it does trigger an enlightening series of questions into your deepest wine-drinking preferences. What’s particularly provocative is that it’s not the classic ‘what’s your desert island wine?’. It’s much more profound than that. If you could only drink one wine. Ever again.

Firstly, red or white? Or rosé or sparkling? Or sherry, or port, or another fortified wine? Dry or sweet, or somewhere in between? New World or Old World? Do you have a country of origin that you could spend the rest of your wine-drinking life in? Or a single grape that you could pick over any other?

What was fascinating was the variety of responses from the Decanter contributors to whom the question was posed. Of 16 experts, not one chose a Bordeaux and only two plumped for Burgundy, despite the magazine constantly having to defend accusations of bias for the world’s two most famous wine regions.

Only half of the panel selected wine in the traditional sense – red or white – five red, three white. As many chose Champagne as chose red wine, with the final three opting for fortifieds, two for sherry, one for a personal favourite of mine, Madeira.

My own process of deduction took me through, in order:

• Colour – white, just. The finest wines I’ve ever tasted have been red, but the wine I couldn’t live without most is white.
• Grape – it just has to be Riesling. Chardonnay offers variety, Sauvignon Blanc gets my juices going, I love good Chenin, Pinot Gris, Marsanne, Roussanne, Albarino, Viognier… but Riesling has the structure, the sweetness, the finesse, the ageing capacity, and the ability to match with so many foods, that I feel it’s the one I’d miss most.
• Region. Oh dear. I mean, it’s not like Riesling can be grown anywhere, so the choice is actually relatively limited. But you’ve the homeland of Germany and the Mosel, neighbouring Alsace, fabulous New Zealand, Australia, Austria, Oregon…

OK, I’ve decided. If I could only drink one wine ever again it would be delectable, adaptable, majestic Riesling from Alsace.

So what’s yours? Give us a country, a region, a grape, even a specific label – go on, if there was only one…

In our second contribution to the Look and Taste wine blog this week, we took a step back from our five wine tips to enhance your dining forever to assess the fundamental taste components of both food and wine.

Classic teachings describe four basic taste sensations:

1. Sweetness: Generally the first thing you taste as there are sweetness receptors on the tip of your tongue. Sweetness balances acidity in food and wine.
2. Sourness: The taste that detects acidity, hence the balance to sweetness. Acidity provides refreshment or crispness, and causes the mouth-watering sensation you’ll get from citrus fruit and many white wines.
3. Saltiness: A vital component as a flavour enhancer in food and, although rarely detectable in wine, an important influence in complimenting the two.
4. Bitterness: Often unpleasant if unbalanced – think of bitter coffee, unripe olives or raw broccoli – but rarely attributed to wine. Related and often confused with bitterness is astringency, defined as dryness or roughness, and attributed to tannins in wine.

How these different senses interact is vital to how we experience and enjoy, or dislike, food. So, food that is too sweet or too bitter will taste overpowering and unpleasant, whereas food that triggers multiple senses in harmony will be balanced and more interesting.

This to me is the essence of how wine can accentuate food, and vice versa.

I commented last week that barring disastrous pairings, most wines won’t spoil most meals. However, get a wine-match right and you can experience true gastronomic heaven.

I noted with interest how, in the last week, Lar Veale of Sourgrapes.ie and Frank O’Brien of Robertfranciswine.ie took different attributes from similarly styled Rieslings to increase the enjoyment markedly different foods. Lar described the cutting acidity of New Zealand Riesling being “perfect for slicing right through the creaminess of goat’s cheese”, whereas Frank matched the delicate fruit of Australian Riesling with fish skewers.

As one of the truly great food wines – one that can compliment and accentuate all of the taste senses – there’s more to come on the greatest white grape of them all from this fan.