How often at a summer barbecue do you serve wine? When you shop for wine, do you look for wines from Mexico or from Thailand? Chances are, you answered all those questions with "never." Natives of hot-climate countries have not developed wine cultures or foods that go well with wine. For one thing, grapes don't do well in year-round hot weather. For another, traditional spicy dishes like curries and chilies evolved in days before refrigeration and were used to disguise the taste of tiring meat or vegetables. Tea and beer became the natural beverages for such foods.

The above is an example of problems with food-wine matching. For the record, as one who uses wine every day, I tend to look for a co-existence between my food and wine. If neither dominates the other, I am happy.

However, such a laissez-faire attitude can't overlook that some wines just don't go well with certain foods. Most experts agree that eggs, asparagus and artichokes are among the most contrary foods where wine is concerned. Purists won't serve wine with a vinaigrette sauce. There are lengthy and amusing discussions about matching chocolate with wine. It actually gets down to defining whether you mean dark or light chocolate. The match goes from cabernet to sauternes to no wine.

Most of the old rules we grew up with date to Victorian times when there were fewer wine varieties and less diversified diets. White wine with fish and red wine with meat are still somewhat good rules, but the permutations are many. When that guidance prevailed, most red wines were robust and powerful; most whites were light with the exception of some chardonnays and dessert wines. Still today, the tannins in red wines can cause a slightly metallic taste in fish but dry, acidic white wines tend to marry well with the lemon juice we squeeze on to our fish.

Red wines from Bordeaux and Burgundy are now lighter than they were a century ago. Additionally, we now have a range of red wines in all styles from California and Australia, and high quality wines coming from Spain, Italy, and South America. Among that range will be a perfect match for any brown sauce on white or dark meat. Salmon is a heavy, rich fish, meatlike, so a fruity pinot noir is a good match. Some wines - Beaujolais from France, Dolcetto and Chianti from Italy - are drunk everyday with every meal in their home regions. Italians, of course, use a lot of acidic tomato sauces for which their acidic red wines are perfect and for which white wines are too acidic.

Even though the old rules are no longer in vogue, you are well advised to stick with dry white wines with delicate fish and shellfish and robust red wines with robust red meat - roasts or steaks. Bottom line, though, is to develop your own food-wine matching palate through your own taste memory and preference.