As a gift, Ted Allen once received a bottle of Cristal, a champagne produced by Louis Roederer that can easily cost more than $200 a pop.

It would have paired well with a luxurious meal of oysters, or perhaps caviar with brioche and creme fraiche. But Allen, who rose to prominence as one of the "fab five" on the TV show "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," instead chose to drink the champagne with a meal of Popeye's fried chicken. The wine's dry crispness was perfect for cutting the rich fattiness of the food, he recalls.

Allen may be labeled as the food and wine connoisseur on the Bravo show, which is slated to begin its final season this year, but he aims to stay down-to-earth when offering advice to the budding bon vivant.

In town recently for the Boston Wine Expo, where he appeared as a representative for Robert Mondavi Private Selection Wines, Allen offered some simple starting points for pairing wine and food.

Many people still stick to the basic guideline of drinking red wine with red meats and white wine with seafood, Allen says. A big red wine such as a cabernet sauvignon is simply a better match for a steak, which, in turn, could overpower a white such as a sauvignon blanc. "It takes a big, assertive wine to stand up to that flavor," Allen says.

But whites aren't the only wines to drink with seafood. Lighter reds such as pinot noir are popular with fish, says Chris Campbell, owner of Troquet, a Boston restaurant and wine bar. The restaurant also has been serving more Alsatian and German wines such as riesling, Campbell says, which are considered good food wines because they are lower in alcohol and are more acidic. Allen likes some of these wines with Thai or Indian food because they counter the food's spiciness but can offer some floral notes. "It contrasts, but it also echoes," he says. At the Wine Expo, Allen, who has written a cookbook and now appears as a judge on the Food Network's "Iron Chef America" and Bravo's "Top Chef," showed his audience how to make chocolate truffles.

Chocolate is often paired with port wine, but Allen also suggests something like a zinfandel, which can have dark berry or chocolate flavors. He will sometimes use the wine to flavor the truffle itself.

A journalist by training, Allen worked as a food writer in Chicago. He has taken some classes in wine, but says he has learned largely by trying lots of different bottles, and asking questions at restaurants and stores. "When I don't know, I practice what I preach," he says. "I find someone and ask them."

Allen contends that you can find wine to drink with just about every kind of food. He has found that a merlot will often work with hamburgers or tomatoes. He likes zinfandel and syrah with pizza. He briefly considers what type of red he would drink with one of his favorite meals, a meat sandwich from Max's Italian Beef in Chicago, but then decides the wine might be better left at home. "I would probably want a beer with that," he admits.