Roasted radicchio with beans

This rich yet light dish combines smoky radicchio with garlic-infused beans and sweet toasted hazelnuts, pairing perfectly with structured whites and earthy reds

- KATE LEAHY

When I cooked professionally in the Napa Valley in the early 2000s, wine pairings mostly consisted of matching dishes with a glass of either white or red – mostly Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon – with an occasional sweet wine to finish a meal. Today, though, it’s just as easy to find wines that are pink, orange, or fizzy. Plus, we have more access to wines that leverage the sheer diversity of wine grapes grown all over the world. But while variety is exciting, it can also make it hard to make sense of it all.

In my book Wine Style, I encourage exploration by starting from the lightest wines up to big reds and dessert wines. To avoid getting lost in all the variety, I lean on a few key guidelines when pairing wine with food. If a recipe is acidic, such as a green salad with a shallot vinaigrette, I pair it with a high-acid wine so the wine doesn’t taste flat. I avoid tannic wines with spicy recipes, as they become astringent next to the heat of the chilies. And if I’m truly stumped, I turn to the ‘what grows together, goes together’ adage, looking at wines from the same region as the recipe. Within those principles, though, there’s flexibility.

Radicchio can be bitter when raw, but roasting it gives it a smoky sweetness. In this recipe, the beans provide a rich backdrop to the radicchio, while toasted hazelnuts offer a nutty, sweet accent.

THE RECIPE

ROASTED RADICCHIO WITH BEANS