It's not just culinary etiquette to pair red wine with red meat not fish with a Japanese research team finding there is a scientific explanation.

    Researcher Takayuki Tamura and colleagues from the product development research laboratory of Japanese wine producer Mercian Corp. have found that wine connoisseurs established the rule of thumb because of the flavor clash between red wine and fish.

    Until now, nobody could consistently predict which wines might trigger a fishy aftertaste because of the lack of knowledge about its cause.

    But Tamura and his team found that an unpleasant, fishy aftertaste noticeable after drinking red wine with fish resulted from naturally occurring iron in red wine with some wines having more iron than others.

    "Strong positive correlations were found between the intensity of fishy aftertaste and the concentration of both total iron and ferrous ion," the researchers said in a statement.

    Their study, published in the American Chemical Society's Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, was based on studying 38 commercial red wines from a list of countries, 26 white wines, two sherries, and one each of port, madeira and botrytized wine.

    The components of all of the wines was analyzed.

    Wine samplers then tested the wines while dining on scallops.

    They found that wines with high amounts of iron had a more intensely fishy aftertaste. This fishy taste diminished, on the other hand, when the researchers added a substance that binds up iron.

    They said the findings indicate that iron is the key factor in the fishy aftertaste of wine-seafood pairings but this also meant that low-iron red wines might be a good match with seafood.

    日本科學家研究小組發現紅酒與肉配一起，不和魚搭配吃，不僅僅是烹飪禮節，而是有其科學的解釋。

    來自日本一家酒制造商Mercian 公司的產品發展研究實驗室的研究者Takayuki Tamura 和他的同事發現酒行家們是出于紅酒香味會與魚腥味混淆，從而確定這個缺乏科學依據的規定。

    至今，沒有人能夠始終如一地預測哪種酒會發出像魚腥一樣的味道，因為缺乏相關的知識。

    但是Tamura和他的團隊發現紅酒有自然存在的鐵，有些紅酒鐵含量比其他的酒要高，導致在同時喝紅酒和吃魚后像魚腥一樣的難聞的氣味特別的濃。

    研究者們聲稱"他們發現魚腥味的濃度和鐵與亞鐵離子的含量存在著強而有力的聯系。

    他們的研究發布在美國化學協會的農業化學與食品化學雜志。論文基于研究38瓶來自很多不同國家的商業紅酒，26瓶白酒，2瓶葡萄酒以及波爾特酒，馬德拉白葡萄酒各一瓶。

    每瓶酒的組分都經過分析。

    酒取樣器在貝扇里正餐時檢測酒。

    他們發現鐵含量高的酒有更重的魚腥味。另一方面，當研究者加入一種能凝固鐵的物質后，魚腥味減輕了。

    他們說研究發現證明鐵是海鮮-酒搭配產生魚腥味的重要因素，但是這同時也意味著含鐵較低的紅酒很適合與海鮮搭配吃。