A Slice, and a Relaxed Wine or Beer Pairing I'm reading a new book, "Tastebuds and Molecules: The Art and Science of Food, Wine and Flavor"" by François Chartier, an extraordinary high-wire wine-and-food pairing equivalent of molecular gastronomy. Not surprisingly, the book is endorsed by Ferran Adrià and Juli Soler of El Bulli, with whom Mr. Chartier, a French-Canadian wine and food writer, worked closely for several seasons at their restaurant. Without offering too much detail, "Tastebuds and Molecules"" goes astoundingly deep into the science of flavors, offering advanced techniques for matching foods and wines. Sometimes, the advice is counter-intuitive and, indeed, counter-experiential. To Mr. Chartier, California zinfandel is a better match than beer for spicy Sichuan food, although he doesn't really explain why, other than to suggest that vanilla, a flavor that often comes from aging in new oak, counters the heat of capsaicin, the active component in hot peppers. But he also says that once the alcohol level of a wine exceeds 14.5 percent, it tends to amplify the heat rather than counter it. Try finding a zinfandel below 14.5 percent! And while Mr. Chartier says the carbon dioxide in carbonated beverages like beer also intensifies the heat, I'll take the beer. I don't mean to discuss the book here, though, and I certainly don't mean to dismiss it. I just want to make the point that in-depth, detailed explorations of the minutiae of food and wine pairings have their place - in the laboratory-like kitchens of restaurants like El Bulli, where the technology and level of analysis are in a different universe from the one occupied by more casual home cooks and wine consumers. For most people, the aim is not to get more detailed and scientific in considering what to drink with what you are eating, but to become more relaxed and instinctive about pairing wines and foods. The perfect dish to experiment with happens to be the focus of the dining section this week - pizza. My column this week is about what to drink with pizza, a pleasant subject to tackle because so many wines and beers are good choices. I make this point only because it's easy and wholly unnecessary to get overly caught up in the intricacies of wine and food pairing. Rather than worry about finding a perfect match, which is a little like obsessing about drinking a wine at the perfect moment of maturity, it's important to understand that most foods go well with lots of different beverages. The probability is far greater that you will be right and happy than wrong and miserable, especially if you like the beverage you are serving in the first place. That's the most important point of all.