What is the stigma about pairing dry red wine with salmon?
The big picture is that this is a shibboleth[1]. Humans, or some humans, seems to delight in finding ways to define the in-group and the out-group. Signs marking you as an outsider can be anything. Where i have grown up wearing the wrong kind of shoelaces in your boots meant that you are not a “real” rocker but a wannabe. Listening to the “wrong” bands, or listening to the right bands “wrong” can be a similar signifyer. Or wearing socks with your sandal, or asking for ketchup in a high end italian pizza place, or eating pineappe on your pizza. They all signal that you don’t belong to some group because you don’t behave according to some arbitrary norms the group made up for this very purpose.
1: funnily the word itself acts as one. There is of course the biblical story where soldiers where able to tell undercover enemies apart from the general population based on how they pronounced the word shibolleth. But also the fact that someone knows this story can signify that someone is “cultured”, or at least classically read or whatever. (Or as is the case with me had the pleasure of integrating with the authentication system of the same name.)
Or in my case, watched “West Wing”. :)
Indeed, and we all do it. vi-vs-emacs or tabs-vs-spaces (or bsd-vs-linux, apple-vs-microsoft) aren't any less arbitrary than the other groups you mentioned.
Some would say a dry red wine with grilled salmon is like highlighting with a black sharpie. But, as parent said, if those are flavors you like... it's your tongue you're trying to please, mate!
Same reason I gave people zero pushback at ice in wine at weddings. It's 90+ F (32+ C) outside! Do what makes you most happy.
Two flavours can coexist, they can complement, or they can conflict. Generally speaking, red wine conflicts with fish dishes (exceptions to every rule of course). It's a whole thing: