A good rule of thumb when pairing wine with cured meats is to choose a young, low-tannic red wine that is able to accompany the dish without covering its flavors. But there are many other aspects to consider:

• Salty food stimulates your taste buds. The perception of salty will be higher in long-aged cured meats, such as raw ham. It will be less in fatter ones, such as salami or mortadella, where the taste buds will instead perceive a sweeter tendency. When flavors and spiciness increase, wines with greater aromatic persistence are recommended. As for fat cured meats, it’s advisable to choose a more structured and persistent wine.
• Even white wine can be paired very well with cold cuts: with its minerality it cleans the mouth from fattiness, enhancing other characteristics and aromas of meat.
• When the food gets more complex in flavor, so should the wine. To accompany the rustic flavors of game cured meats we will need, for example, a full-bodied red wine with a good amount of tannin.