02/08/07 Salads & Red Wine

Welcome to Vine to Wine this is your host Linda Moran. Today is food and wine pairing day. Recently, and by coincidence, I had the pleasure of having side salads which were exquisite when accompanied by red wine. We do not often think of red wine to accompany the salad course. Even though I know better I admit to usually letting the appetizer white wine sort of spill over so to speak to the salad course. However, I recently had a two salads and was reminded of another all of which go very well with red wine. The first was a basic wild greens tossed in a roasted tomato dressing. It was heavy with the smoky intense richness of the roasted tomatoes and the acid was in perfect balance making it an attractive partner to the red wines poured for dinner. The next was a salad big on spinach and arugula tossed in a fig and balsamic dressing and topped with crumbled blue cheese. I never would have imagine how well it paired with Syrah and Merlot. Finally much to my pleasure was the grilled Caesar Salad. It is by far one of my favorite salads. The half head of charred romaine lettuce tossed with the creamy garlicky dressing is too good for words and it is tremendous with many red wines. So consider creating salads that are truly made for red wine! Remember to send your wine questions to Linda at vine to wine dot net and thank you for joining me on today's Vine to Wine.