02/10/05 Food and wines - Garlic

Welcome to Vine to Wine this is your host Linda Moran and today is Food & Wine pairing day. We are going to take a look at garlic and pairing it with wine. Garlic seems to be the sweetheart ingredient of many home cooks. When it comes to pairing wine with a dish that contains garlic there are a few things to consider. First of all; I recommend that you don't use garlic that has begun to sprout. This garlic will give your dish a bitter flavor. Using fresh juicy garlic filled with lots of oil is the most desirable. Roasting your garlic heads whole in the oven, and then using the paste created, will give your dish the slightly smoky and nutty flavor of much milder garlic. If you mince it or smash it and add it raw to a salad dressing it will retain most of the volatile oils and have a much more pungent flavor. Depending upon the quantity that you use, adding it to a dish that is being sautéed will find you somewhere in the middle of those two extremes. Garlic in the raw state pairs best with a red or white wine that has a good crisp acid. If you are using richer but milder roasted garlic dig into the cellar for a nice smooth but forward fruit red wine or a rich buttery Chardonnay. Garlic also pairs well with herbs and one of my favorite recipes is a Garlic and Herb Soup. I love it with Fume Blanc or a lighter style of Merlot. You can find that recipe this week on our website at vine to wine dot net and thank you for joining me on today's Vine to Wine.