Harrington Shares Expertise for Wine Documentary

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Bob Harrington, professor and 21st Century Endowed Chair in Hospitality in the Bumpers College, is an expert on food and wine pairing.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Bob Harrington, an expert in the pairing of food with wine, was interviewed in early June for a documentary about his system on food and wine pairing.

Harrington, professor and 21^st Century Endowed Chair in Hospitality in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences at the University of Arkansas, was filmed for the project by Ferran Centelles, associate member of the Institute of Wine and Spirits.

The documentary focuses on the evolution of current thoughts on wine and food matching. Harrington is one of four key contributors interviewed for the film and was selected based on his systematic food and wine pairing approach, which he presented in his book, Food and Wine Pairing: A Sensory Experience, published by John Wiley & Sons in 2008.

“There are several competing approaches to the wine and food pairing process,” said Harrington. “Most are based on anecdotal notions of wine and food that go together. The approach that I have proposed is based on empirical relationships that seem to drive a feeling of match and is based on 12 main interacting relationships of wine and food elements.”

Centelles is a freelance sommelier, a trained wine professional, based in Barcelona, Spain. He regularly contributes to JancisRobinson.com, a site devoted to wines, and collaborates with WineIsSocial.com and Outlook Wine: The Barcelona Wine School, where he teaches. Centelles was the sommelier at elBulli, a world-famous Michelin three-star restaurant in Spain, from 2000 until it closed in 2011.

“Robert Harrington’s systematic food and wine matching approach provides an important process in the evolution of food and wine pairing, providing a systematic method to evaluate and predict level of match,” said Centelles. “His contribution to food and wine matching is significant and is used in training industry professionals around the world. I was thrilled that he was available to be interviewed and included in my upcoming documentary on food and wine.”

Centelles was named Spain’s Best Sommelier in 2006 by Ruinart and received a National Gastronomy Award in 2011.

The documentary, which has not yet been titled, is scheduled for release at the end of 2014. It will be produced and distributed in both English and Spanish versions.