I feel like a walking Aioli today. It is all I can taste, the garlic aroma oozing out of every pore creating a thoroughly unpleasant whiff all around me. An addendum to all of your conversations is a compulsive

"Apologies...I ate garlic the night before"

in case people think you are simply a sad character with chronic halitosis.

The problem I have is that I blindly walked into the garlic arena last night, having come across a strange looking leaf in my organic veg box. What do you do with unknown foliage? Well in the wild (my local village green) you may well rub it on a nettle sting if you recognised it as say a dock leaf, but you would almost never consider risking eating leaves, even if you half recognise them. Ray Mears (who looks like he really survives on Fray Bentos pies) only appears when you need him least, curled up in front of your TV with a nice meal.

In my case the fact that the leaves were in a box that I would normally consider of edible provenance made me throw caution to the wind, and I ate one raw to try and work out what they were. First impressions were spicy and sharp. Most interesting. I was still alive so I shoved a handful into my pasta dish. After the meal it clicked. The leaves must be a type of garlic. The more I though about garlic, the more I could taste it. Some research and hey presto they were indeed ramsons or 'wild garlic', a relative of the chive.

This inability to taste the 'obvious' is normal. The television series Masterchef is currently conducting palate tests, and a surprising number of contestants cannot identify obvious meats like lamb, mistaking it for beef or duck. The pointers you give people before tasting something really effect immediate perception of taste. Think about it, how many times have you eaten a dish without first knowing what the main ingredient is?

Wine illustrates this extremely well, mainly because the aromas can be both complex and subtle, and also often massacred into submission by 'unbalanced' wines with too much acid or alcohol. If you have the tasting notes in front of you then it all seems obvious. Take them away and all bets are off.

There was some white wine already poured out for me to accompany the 'garlic pasta'.

Another puzzle.

What an odd wine. Hard to describe. I suppose deep yellow, very aromatic, strong and sickly. As I had not seen the bottle I had no pointers. Tricky. My very own blind tasting. All I had to do was open the fridge door and all would be revealed. I was struggling. I went through a few common options in my mind. It was no Chardonnay (often dry, crisp and minerally). Certainly not Sauvignon Blanc (no hint of Old World dry gooseberry or New World passion fruit and also too yellow). Not Reisling (can taste a bit like fly spray at first). More aromatic and bite than Albarino or Chenin Blanc and stranger than Gewurztraminer. It was probably New World due to the strength (riper grapes, more sugar, and so more alcohol). With a full body it was a peculiar combination of rich oily syrup dry.... I gave up.

The fridge revealed a bottle of Oxford Landing 2007 Voignier, a grape I rarely come across.

Voignier is a mystery grape, origins uncertain and difficult to grow. It is full of things called turpines which also effect Riesling and Muscat giving a rich aromatic edge. It is supposed to taste of stone fruit like peaches (there we go I have now preset your mind to expect a certain aroma with the power of suggestion).

The Viognier attacked the wild garlic well in my pasta, but it was a bit too high in alcohol and in your face for me. I would like to compare with Old World French offerings. Apparently the good stuff is grown in Northern Rhone (Condrieu), and the cheaper options are mostly from the South of France ( Languedoc-Roussillon) in the shape of 'ordinary' vin de pays.

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