Garbure is a heart French soup featuring beans, potatoes, turnips, peas, onion, and garlic, as well as one piece of meat, such as duck confit, goose confit, pork confit, ham, or sausage. Sometimes it’s all served at once, and other times Garbure is broken into two meals, where first you have essentially the broth, and the second part mostly containing meat, along with some juices and a mix of veggies.
Beaujolais Cru & Garbure Pairing
For Garbure served in its entirety (the soup with the meat), I’d go with a Beaujolais Cru, or Beaujolais Villages (if you can’t find a Cru). Beaujolais Cru is like a discount Pinot Noir, where you pay 20% of the cost and get 85% of the value. Expect notes of cherry, raspberry, strawberry, earth, black pepper and flowers, all embodied in a dry, light-bodied red. High in acidity, Beaujolais Cru is quite versatile, which is something you need, as recipes for Garbure have so many regional variations (roasted chestnuts, leeks, chili flakes, and fava beans can easily make an appearance).
Some folks, in a ritual called Faire chabrot, even add red wine to their Garbure when the bowl is nearly empty, and slurp the remains directly out of the bowl. Beaujolais Cru again, will do wonderful in this situation as the acidity is wonderful at highlighting the flavours of all the delicious ingredients as well as keeping you refreshed against the saltiness of the broth.
Off-Dry Riesling & Garbure Pairing
If you prefer white wine, an off dry Riesling makes for a great choice as, again, it’s a versatile white wine that is going to come across as refreshing. As Garbure can sometimes contain chili flakes, the slight kiss of sweetness Riesling delivers aromatic flavours of green apple, apricot, citrus, lime, peach and pears, all which jive well enough with the meat and vegetables. While far from a perfect pairing, the soup somewhat thins out the heartier meat flavours (duck confit, ham, sausage, etc), the lighter flavours of this white wine are completely destroyed. I’m also not a huge fan of cold wine paired with hot soup (as it hurts my teeth).
Rosé & Garbure Pairing
For similar reasons, Rosé isn’t all that bad with Garbure either. You get some nice red berry flavours, along with notes of herbs and citrus, which make Rosé not too shabby of a pairing. High in acidity, you’ll get that refreshing quality along with lots of versatility. There are a lot of Rosé wines out there, and they are all pretty good. Pick one you love, and give this pairing a try.
Garbure Broth Only
If I were in a situation where I was served the broth first, followed up by the actual meat, I might do Riesling as my first pairing, and then one of the reds listed below in the chart, depending on the region and/or ingredients the Garbure contains (although most likely I’d pick a Cahors if the meat was duck confit). With countless variations Garbure out there, there are a lot of options, and the food pairing chart below should help you get a good head start for your homework if you are looking for that perfect pairing.