Depending on your priorities in life, the matching of food and wine usually goes one of two ways. Either you start with the food, then look for a bottle with a range of attributes that will bring out the best in ingredients, or at least not clash with them, casting the wine in the role of condiment. Or you start with the wine, worrying more about avoiding anything (spice, sugar, acid) that will prevent the precious liquid from displaying its charms.

Either direction can result in one of those moments when wine and food elevate each other in blissful harmony. The most perceptive dispensers of wine and food matching advice – Fiona Beckett, Joanna Simon and Victoria Moore – are equal parts wine and food lovers who are happy with either route. Moore’s The Wine Dine Dictionary is all about cross-referencing ingredients and wine styles in joyously creative but practical and flexible ways.

But there’s a third approach, an anti-philosophy that sees specific and elaborate matches as pretentious and unnecessary. It says: “Enough of telling me this grand cru chablis can only work with turbot au beurre blanc! Stop worrying, put a few bottles on the table and let us all have a good time.”

I like my food and wine matching advice the same way I like my recipes – the more precise the better. If I’ve paid attention to balancing flavours in a dish, why would I fill my glass with something that jars like morning orange juice after toothpaste?

Fortunately for the “just bung the bottles on the table” school, the wine lists of our better restaurants increasingly have their backs. It’s striking how many sit near the centre of a Venn diagram of particular vinous styles. There are fresh, lower-alcohol, higher-acid reds, either from cool climate areas or from warmer regions where the grapes have been picked earlier for freshness; white and orange wines with a spine of acidity but a fuller body (and maybe some tannins) from extended contact with the skins during fermentation or the dead yeast cells during ageing; structured, fuller-flavoured and deeper coloured rosés.

These are wines that offer the greatest range of possibilities, that can be shared with meals of multiple small plates, or on tables with many guests and orders. They make matching easy, all the while reminding us that a wine that is not up to drinking with at least some foods doesn’t really qualify as wine at all.

Six versatile wines for food matching

Di Lenardo Gossip Pinot Grigio Ramato
Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy 2017 (from £14.95, dorsetwine.co.uk; corksofbristol.com )
While most pinot grigio is made as a white wine, the skins have a grey-purple tint. In the Italian ramato style, the juice spends more time with the skins, bringing colour and, in this case, a charming red-fruited richer rosé style.

Badenhorst The Curator White Blend
South Africa 2015 (from £9.50, greatgrog.co.uk; frontierfinewines.co.uk; symposium-finewine.co.uk; ampswinemerchants.co.uk)
South African white blends based on chenin blanc such as this from the great new wave producer Adi Badenhorst get their foodie versatility by combining bold richness and weight of exotic and orchard fruit with a tangy cut of acidity.

Pheasant’s Tears Rkatsiteli
Kakheti, Georgia 2017 (from £17.50, slurp.co.uk; corksofbristol.com; buonvino.co.uk; lescaves.co.uk)
Giving the juice of white rkatsiteli grapes an extended time on the skins in a clay amphora brings an orange-coloured food all-rounder with a slightly chewy red-wineish grip and flavours of quince, dried herbs and blossomy honey.

Domaine des Carabiniers Lunar Apogé
Tavel, France 2017 (from £14.95, tanners-wines.co.uk davywine.co.uk)
The rosés of the southern Rhône region of Tavel are more darkly powerful and densely fruited than the pale pinks of Provence, with weight enough for meaty fish and white meat, and freshness and red-berry flavours for gentle spice.

Paolo Petrilli Motta del Lupo
Puglia, Italy 2017 (£10.50, bat.wine)
While much of Puglia’s red wine output is densely, sweetly rich, this gem of a blend is all about briskness of plum-skin tanginess, light alcohol and fragrant fresh berries, making it a thirst-quenchingly great match with a range of dishes.

Domaine de la Charmoise Gamay Touraine
Loire, France 2017 (from £13.99, smilinggrape.com; corksofbristol.com; virginwines.co.uk
Gamay, whether from Beaujolais or, in this vividly red cherry-juicy example, the Loire Valley, is a favourite of sommeliers because it has enough gently grippy tannin and body for minute steak, but enough juicy acidity for salmon.