Americans are Discovering That Spanish Wine & Food Pairing Possibilities are Limitless
GerryDawes
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(Note: A version of this article, directed at an American professional chef and food aficionado audience, is featured on the new Culinary Institute of America’s Worlds of Flavor Spain-dedicated website www.worldsofflavorSpain.com, which debuted in December 2008. This is the first time that The Culinary Institute of America, widely regarded as the world's premier culinary college, has launched a Web site dedicated to the food, wine and culture of a single country. The CIA’s Worlds of Flavor Spain website offers exciting sponsorship opportunities for Spanish companies seeking to reach the vital American culinary and wine communities, a large, affluent, very active demographic. For more information about sponsorship opportunities contact author Gerry Dawes, [email protected].
Click on text box for captions or click to turn off captions. All photographs copyright by Gerry Dawes 2008.
Several years ago Spain’s cocina de vanguardia movement vaulted into the spotlight on the international culinary stage and, along with two decades of striking advances in business, architecture, fashion, cinema, etc., the country’s full-fledged status as a great modern European nation was assured and so was world-wide awareness of things Spanish, including Spanish wines and how diverse and versatile many of them are with, not just Spanish, but a wide range of cuisines and cooking styles.
Foreign Visitors to Spain, New-wave Cuisine and American Tapas Bars Create Demand for Spanish Wines
Some 60,000,000 people, including more than 1,100,000 Americans (2007), visit Spain each year and become acquainted with Spanish food—much more the traditional and creative traditional food than the new-wave cooking of Ferran Adrià, Juan Mari Arzak and their avant-garde cuisine disciples. Many of these visitors become enamored of Spain, its unique culture, its wide range of regional cuisines and its wines that are sometimes so beautifully matched with local dishes and have transcendent culinary and wine experiences. In the United States, the fame of the Spanish vanguardia chefs generated a tsunami of favorable raves from American food writers and thus a second wave of interest in Spanish wines and Spanish food products. And the proliferation of tapas and small plates bars and restaurants in the United States (there are more than 70 establishments in New York City alone) in recent years have all combined to create a heightened interest of historic proportions in things Spanish. These tapas bars and restaurants with their by-the-glass sales and adventurous Spanish wine lists has helped introduce a multitude of new consumers to the jewels of the Spanish wine world.
Likewise, savvy sommeliers around the country, once attracted by price, now by the quality levels of Spanish wines are giving them places of prominence on the wine lists of a broad range of restaurants, including the mostly highly regarded chef-driven restaurants in the country. This has also been spurred by the rocket-ride of Spanish cocina de vanguardia, which has propelled Spain into the culinary stratosphere, attracting many American chefs and foodies to Spain to see the fireworks, where the discovered the wide gamut of Spanish wines in the process.
Importers of Spanish Food & Wines
American Importers of Spanish food products and wines such as New York’s Despaña Brands (www.despanabrands.com), Tienda.com (www.tienda.com) in Virginia and The Spanish Table (www.spanishtable.com) in Seattle, Berkeley, Santa Fe and Marin County are all prospering, as are a number of Spanish wine importers, so that more and more consumers have access to ingredients and wines. The scores of tapas restaurants that have opened and prospered in such places as New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and even in suburban Connecticut, where Barcelona Wine Bars is opening its sixth tapas bar-restaurant, have greatly expanded the possibilities for Americans to experience Spanish wine and food matches. And, since these tapas and small plates establishments often have creative chefs who often quite purposefully depart from straight-up interpretations of Spanish cuisine, diners often find Spanish wines paired to dishes drawn from much broader, more diverse cooking influences.
In this article, I will make some broad sketches of the different Spanish wine types and equally broad recommendations about some the foods they might pair with. With some tasting and experimentation, chefs and restaurateurs will find a whole new world of exciting new possibilities within the range of Spanish wines now available in many markets.
Vinos de Jerez - Sherry Pairing
Spain’s great classic wine, sherry, has long been pigeonholed as a wine to be served with Spanish tapas or perhaps, in its sweeter versions, sipped in front of a fireplace, accompanied by quiet conversation or a good book. Relatively few people understand that sherry and its nearby cousin, montilla, range in style from bone-dry to richly sweet, which makes them excellent matches for anything from Japanese (especially sushi and tempura) and other Asian cuisines to fried foods to a broad range of artisan cheeses (sweet sherries matched to blue cheeses are spectacular). Among the dry sherries, all of which should always be served chilled, crisp, fresh, salty, appley manzanilla is a great match for shrimp, oysters, scallops clams and a variety of shellfish; it is the quintessential accompaniment to tapas; and offers a refreshing counterpoint for cheeses, especially Spain’s aged ewe’s milk cheeses. Fino, from inland Jerez, is also bone-dry and a bit weighter, gutsier and more alcoholic, but is still a good match with many of same foods as manzanilla and is also a good substitute for sake with Japanese food. Amontillado, which is some of the best version are also dry, but many have been sweetened for broader market appeal. The drier versions are longer aged and more complex than manzanillas and finos are splendid with richer dishes like game, duck risotto, and organ meats, as well as being superb companions to cheeses. The sweeter amontillados also go well with cheeses and especially foie gras.
Olorosos come in both dry and sweet versions and can be among the most monumentally great and emblematic sherries. Dry oloroso, it is often said, are best in front of a fireplace with a serious contemplative attitude, a good book and a dish of nuts, but these wines are also superb when sipped as a course match on a tasting menu, especially with a game bird offering or a dish with cheese in the sauce. Sweet olorosos and cream sherries make for lovely sipping, are good matches for foie gras and game courses and may just be the perfect match for sipping with espresso, late or café con leche. Super sweet, syrupy Pedro Ximénez sherries, redolent of orange peel, raisins, prunes, figs and baking spices can be sipped alone, but are used by many chefs to sauce foie gras and game dishes, but can also be poured of ice creams as a fabulous sauce, especially when blended with chocolate. There are also some delicious, exotic sweet sherries made from moscatel, for which the Atlantic sherry country town of Chipiona was once famous.
Cava Pairing (Spanish Sparkling Wine)
Cava, the Spanish equivalent of champagne, made mostly in Catalunya by the same exacting standards as in France, is very versatile; it can be used as an ideal, inexpensive by-the-glass aperitif and in bubbly drinks such as mimosas, but its palate-refreshing qualities also make it ideal with not only with Spanish tapas; all kinds of seafood--especially mollusks and crustaceans; and American appetizers. With the fiery picante qualities of many Mexican dishes, cava can serve as a cold, refreshing counterpoint to the heat and it is delicious with a broad range of Asian cuisines (sushi, Chinese food and even spicy Thai dishes). Cava also marries well with modern cuisine dishes with complex flavors and multiple ingredients. After all the Catalan stars of Spain’s cocina de vanguardia pour cava liberally with many of their creative cuisine tasting menus.
Spanish Vinos Blancos (White Wines)
Albariños: The Great Galician White Wine Star
For a very long time Spanish white wines were in the shadows, especially when compared to the great white wines of France, the lovely Riesling-based wines of Germany, many American Chardonnays and Northern Italian wines. That is a thing of the past. Rías Baixas whites from northwestern Atlantic Spain, including the now famous Albariños, are so readily delicious and versatile both for stand-alone sipping and as companions to a wide variety of dishes. Albariños have had great success recently: They are fresh, lively, well-balanced and delicious—often with lovely lime, pear and mineral flavors--and are very versatile, both for stand-alone sipping and as companions to a wide variety of dishes. Albariños suit cooking styles that range from the supernal shellfish and fish of northern Spain to contemporary American chef-driven cooking to Asian cuisine or any food that calls for a crisp, fruity, often mineral-driven white wine. Because of their versatility and consumer acceptance of these wines, American restaurant wine directors consider Rías Baixas wines a must on wine lists, so much so that the United States is now the region’s most important export market.
Other Surprising Galician White Wines with Potential
But versatile, high quality white wines in Galicia don’t stop with Rías Baixas. There are a number of superb whites emerging from Galicia, many of them exhibiting surprising, terroir-driven character, wines that show a distinct sense of place due to native grape varieties married to a fortuitous combination of rainfall, sunlight, altitude and, above all mineral-laced soils (granite, pizarra slate, calcareous). Many of them are reminiscent of great French white wines from Burgundy, the Loire Valley and Alsace. Wines from the denominaciones de origen (D.O.) Ribeiro, Ribeira Sacra, Valdeorras and Monterrei are showing the potential, and food pairing affinity, that will soon place some of the best Godello- and Treixadura native variety blends among the world’s greatest white wines.
More White Wines From Rueda, the Basque Country and Navarra
Other excellent Spanish whites are from Rueda, south of the historic town of Tordesillas near Valladolid, where wines based on the native verdejo grape are versatile and affordable; from the northern Basque country, whose “green,” fresh, crisp flavors of Txacoli are so palate refreshing; from the Atlantic-influenced and Mediterranean Contintental climates of Navarra east of La Rioja, where well-balanced whites based on chardonnay are are some of the most food-friendly white wines in north central Spain; and from La Rioja itself, which, in additional to its stellar red wines, has some oak-aged viura-based wines of distinction.
The Mediterranean White Wines of Cataluña
Cataluña also has a broad range of superb Mediterranean-influenced whites, including some chardonnays from Conca de Barberà (Tarragona) and Penedès that rank among the best in Spain; native variety xarel-lo, macabeu (viura) and parellada mono-varietal and blended whites from Penedès; and some surprising, unique, full-bodied garnacha blanca whites from Montsant and especially, Terra Alta, south of Priorat. Alella, virtually on the outskirts of Barcelona makes a lovely, crisp fresh white from pansa blanca (the local name for the xarel-lo variety). This wines marry well with traditional local dishes such as arròs negre (black rice flavored with squid ink), Catalan mar y muntanya (surf and turf) dishes such those using seafood and goose and suquets (fisherman-inspired seafood stews). These wines are also proudly served in Catalonia’s famous star chef restaurants paired to cutting edge cocina de vanguardia dishes.
Spanish Vinos Rosados (Rosé Wines)
Among the most refreshing, delicious and versatile of all of Spain’s wines are its rosados, a beautiful collection of rosé wines that range in La Rioja from the ethereal, pale, onion-skin garnacha-and-viura blends in the southern part of Spain’s most famous wine region to fuller-bodied, strawberry-esque, tempranillo-based rosados from the north. Nearby Navarra also produces some fine rosés, especially those based on garnacha grapes, which can be among the best rosé wines in the world, and they also make rosado blends that include merlot and cabernet sauvignon.
Other regions producing notable rosados include Cataluña, whose rosats, as rosados are called in Catalan, tend to be deeper and darker in color and consequently more intense in flavor and aroma; Valencia, which produces some unique rosados from the native bobal; and Cigales, the Castilla y León rosado zone that traditionally has been famous for its tinto del país (tempranillo)-based rosés.
All these wines are delightful and, for the most part, quite dry. Although some rosado producers make market concessions by leaving residual sugar in their wines, most are excellent companions to a broad range of foods-- seafood, pork, Asian cuisines, American barbecue, Mexican and South American cuisines and of course, with a wide variety of Spanish dishes from patatas a la Riojana (potatoes with chorizo), pochas con codornices to seafood- and land-based ingredient paellas.
Spanish Vinos Tintos (Red Wines)
Spain is best known for its red wines, offering a broad range of options for food pairings. Reds run the gamut from Galicia’s lovely, lower alcohol Ribeira Sacra and Valdeorras, to medium-weight reds from Bierzo in the north of Castilla y León, all made from the mencía grape. Tempranillo-based wines from La Rioja range from lighter, well-aged reservas and gran reservas to the winemaker stars--dark, concentrated wines made from single vineyards or old vines. Depending on whether they come from the cooler up-river Duero Valley Ribera de Burgos area, or from the muy caliente downriver areas in Valladolid province, Ribera del Duero’s tinto fino (tempranillo based) wines have drawn rave reviews in the past decade and are staples on many American wine lists. Because of their balance, these wines go with a wide range of food from by-the-glass tapas bar fare to the most sophisticated modern cuisines. They are great with just about anything that calls for glass of good red wine, including pizza, pasta, steaks and game dishes.
Powerhouse Reds
Big, powerful, voluptuous extracted wines, some of them among the most highly rated wines in many popular wine publications, but often not as food friendly as more restrained, better balanced wines, come from Toro (west of Ribera del Duero) and its tinto de toro grapes; from Jumilla in the Mediterranean Levante where the monastrell grape is a revelation; from Castilla-La Mancha, where there are a number of high-powered notable estate reds; from Penedès in Catalonia, where a number of first-rate cabernet sauvignon, merlot and syrah blends and 100% varietal wines are made; and from Cataluña’s Tarragona province, where the quality of Priorat’s licorella slate soil adds unique nuances to its old vine garnacha- and carineña-based wines. Often blended with varying percentages of cabernet sauvignon, merlot and syrah, the wines of Priorat are among the greatest red wines of the Mediterranean. Neighboring Montsant uses the same grapes, but has a wider variety of soils and offers a more affordable approximation to the wines of Priorat.
And, surprisingly, the province of Madrid is producing some balanced, very promising reds from native and foreign varieties grown in high altitude vineyards. Because of the low acid, high alcohol and wood component in these big wines, I find them better shared among four people. These wines do well with pizza, steaks and cheeses. They can also work well with Mexican and southwestern American cuisine. Since there is such a wide range of red wines made in Spain, the pairing possibilities are as endless as those using Bordeaux reds, Burgundies, Rhone Valley, Italian Piedmont and Tuscan, Napa and Sonoma, and Australian, Chilean and South African wines.
Vinos de Postre (Dessert Wines)
Except for dessert sherries, Spain has not been famous for dessert wines, but there are an incredible and unique range of sweet and off-dry styles, especially from the warmer, Mediterranean-influenced areas. Besides sweet sherries, Andalucía also has superb Pedro Ximénez-based wines from Montilla and late harvest moscatels from Málaga. The Levante—Valencia and Alicante—produce some luscious moscatels and the legendary monastrell-based fondillón, a rare and unique, off-dry to sweet wine that is on a par with a great tawny port. Always versatile Navarra produces some stunning late-harvest moscatels; the volcanic soils of the Canary Islands produce a superb malvasia; and the warm climate Mediterranean areas of Cataluña produce some old-style garnacha, moscatel and malvasia-based wines that may date to the Roman era. Try some of these wines with egg-based, nut-based and chocolate desserts.
These wines can be wonderful with desserts or just sipped by themselves after dinner. Cream sherries, for instance, marry well with espresso coffee and some like the Pedro Ximénez can be used as sauces with foie gras (for instance) and like all sherries, including those intriguing sweet, dark moscatels from Chipiona, they can be revelations when sipped with cheeses.
As we have seen, Spain produces an exceptional array of wines, which offers a infinite multitude of possibilities for unique wine and food pairings. (For some specific classic Spanish wine and food pairings, see Gerry Dawes’s article on Iconic Spanish food and wine experiences.)
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About the Author:
Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine. He is currently working on Homage to Iberia, an authorized sequel to James A. Michener’s Iberia. For more information, visit the author’s Spain blog at:
Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain
Gerry Dawes can be reached at [email protected]; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): [email protected]
Click on text box for captions or click to turn off captions. All photographs copyright by Gerry Dawes 2008.
Several years ago Spain’s cocina de vanguardia movement vaulted into the spotlight on the international culinary stage and, along with two decades of striking advances in business, architecture, fashion, cinema, etc., the country’s full-fledged status as a great modern European nation was assured and so was world-wide awareness of things Spanish, including Spanish wines and how diverse and versatile many of them are with, not just Spanish, but a wide range of cuisines and cooking styles.
Foreign Visitors to Spain, New-wave Cuisine and American Tapas Bars Create Demand for Spanish Wines
Some 60,000,000 people, including more than 1,100,000 Americans (2007), visit Spain each year and become acquainted with Spanish food—much more the traditional and creative traditional food than the new-wave cooking of Ferran Adrià, Juan Mari Arzak and their avant-garde cuisine disciples. Many of these visitors become enamored of Spain, its unique culture, its wide range of regional cuisines and its wines that are sometimes so beautifully matched with local dishes and have transcendent culinary and wine experiences. In the United States, the fame of the Spanish vanguardia chefs generated a tsunami of favorable raves from American food writers and thus a second wave of interest in Spanish wines and Spanish food products. And the proliferation of tapas and small plates bars and restaurants in the United States (there are more than 70 establishments in New York City alone) in recent years have all combined to create a heightened interest of historic proportions in things Spanish. These tapas bars and restaurants with their by-the-glass sales and adventurous Spanish wine lists has helped introduce a multitude of new consumers to the jewels of the Spanish wine world.
Likewise, savvy sommeliers around the country, once attracted by price, now by the quality levels of Spanish wines are giving them places of prominence on the wine lists of a broad range of restaurants, including the mostly highly regarded chef-driven restaurants in the country. This has also been spurred by the rocket-ride of Spanish cocina de vanguardia, which has propelled Spain into the culinary stratosphere, attracting many American chefs and foodies to Spain to see the fireworks, where the discovered the wide gamut of Spanish wines in the process.
Importers of Spanish Food & Wines
American Importers of Spanish food products and wines such as New York’s Despaña Brands (www.despanabrands.com), Tienda.com (www.tienda.com) in Virginia and The Spanish Table (www.spanishtable.com) in Seattle, Berkeley, Santa Fe and Marin County are all prospering, as are a number of Spanish wine importers, so that more and more consumers have access to ingredients and wines. The scores of tapas restaurants that have opened and prospered in such places as New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and even in suburban Connecticut, where Barcelona Wine Bars is opening its sixth tapas bar-restaurant, have greatly expanded the possibilities for Americans to experience Spanish wine and food matches. And, since these tapas and small plates establishments often have creative chefs who often quite purposefully depart from straight-up interpretations of Spanish cuisine, diners often find Spanish wines paired to dishes drawn from much broader, more diverse cooking influences.
In this article, I will make some broad sketches of the different Spanish wine types and equally broad recommendations about some the foods they might pair with. With some tasting and experimentation, chefs and restaurateurs will find a whole new world of exciting new possibilities within the range of Spanish wines now available in many markets.
Vinos de Jerez - Sherry Pairing
Spain’s great classic wine, sherry, has long been pigeonholed as a wine to be served with Spanish tapas or perhaps, in its sweeter versions, sipped in front of a fireplace, accompanied by quiet conversation or a good book. Relatively few people understand that sherry and its nearby cousin, montilla, range in style from bone-dry to richly sweet, which makes them excellent matches for anything from Japanese (especially sushi and tempura) and other Asian cuisines to fried foods to a broad range of artisan cheeses (sweet sherries matched to blue cheeses are spectacular). Among the dry sherries, all of which should always be served chilled, crisp, fresh, salty, appley manzanilla is a great match for shrimp, oysters, scallops clams and a variety of shellfish; it is the quintessential accompaniment to tapas; and offers a refreshing counterpoint for cheeses, especially Spain’s aged ewe’s milk cheeses. Fino, from inland Jerez, is also bone-dry and a bit weighter, gutsier and more alcoholic, but is still a good match with many of same foods as manzanilla and is also a good substitute for sake with Japanese food. Amontillado, which is some of the best version are also dry, but many have been sweetened for broader market appeal. The drier versions are longer aged and more complex than manzanillas and finos are splendid with richer dishes like game, duck risotto, and organ meats, as well as being superb companions to cheeses. The sweeter amontillados also go well with cheeses and especially foie gras.
Olorosos come in both dry and sweet versions and can be among the most monumentally great and emblematic sherries. Dry oloroso, it is often said, are best in front of a fireplace with a serious contemplative attitude, a good book and a dish of nuts, but these wines are also superb when sipped as a course match on a tasting menu, especially with a game bird offering or a dish with cheese in the sauce. Sweet olorosos and cream sherries make for lovely sipping, are good matches for foie gras and game courses and may just be the perfect match for sipping with espresso, late or café con leche. Super sweet, syrupy Pedro Ximénez sherries, redolent of orange peel, raisins, prunes, figs and baking spices can be sipped alone, but are used by many chefs to sauce foie gras and game dishes, but can also be poured of ice creams as a fabulous sauce, especially when blended with chocolate. There are also some delicious, exotic sweet sherries made from moscatel, for which the Atlantic sherry country town of Chipiona was once famous.
Cava Pairing (Spanish Sparkling Wine)
Cava, the Spanish equivalent of champagne, made mostly in Catalunya by the same exacting standards as in France, is very versatile; it can be used as an ideal, inexpensive by-the-glass aperitif and in bubbly drinks such as mimosas, but its palate-refreshing qualities also make it ideal with not only with Spanish tapas; all kinds of seafood--especially mollusks and crustaceans; and American appetizers. With the fiery picante qualities of many Mexican dishes, cava can serve as a cold, refreshing counterpoint to the heat and it is delicious with a broad range of Asian cuisines (sushi, Chinese food and even spicy Thai dishes). Cava also marries well with modern cuisine dishes with complex flavors and multiple ingredients. After all the Catalan stars of Spain’s cocina de vanguardia pour cava liberally with many of their creative cuisine tasting menus.
Spanish Vinos Blancos (White Wines)
Albariños: The Great Galician White Wine Star
For a very long time Spanish white wines were in the shadows, especially when compared to the great white wines of France, the lovely Riesling-based wines of Germany, many American Chardonnays and Northern Italian wines. That is a thing of the past. Rías Baixas whites from northwestern Atlantic Spain, including the now famous Albariños, are so readily delicious and versatile both for stand-alone sipping and as companions to a wide variety of dishes. Albariños have had great success recently: They are fresh, lively, well-balanced and delicious—often with lovely lime, pear and mineral flavors--and are very versatile, both for stand-alone sipping and as companions to a wide variety of dishes. Albariños suit cooking styles that range from the supernal shellfish and fish of northern Spain to contemporary American chef-driven cooking to Asian cuisine or any food that calls for a crisp, fruity, often mineral-driven white wine. Because of their versatility and consumer acceptance of these wines, American restaurant wine directors consider Rías Baixas wines a must on wine lists, so much so that the United States is now the region’s most important export market.
Other Surprising Galician White Wines with Potential
But versatile, high quality white wines in Galicia don’t stop with Rías Baixas. There are a number of superb whites emerging from Galicia, many of them exhibiting surprising, terroir-driven character, wines that show a distinct sense of place due to native grape varieties married to a fortuitous combination of rainfall, sunlight, altitude and, above all mineral-laced soils (granite, pizarra slate, calcareous). Many of them are reminiscent of great French white wines from Burgundy, the Loire Valley and Alsace. Wines from the denominaciones de origen (D.O.) Ribeiro, Ribeira Sacra, Valdeorras and Monterrei are showing the potential, and food pairing affinity, that will soon place some of the best Godello- and Treixadura native variety blends among the world’s greatest white wines.
More White Wines From Rueda, the Basque Country and Navarra
Other excellent Spanish whites are from Rueda, south of the historic town of Tordesillas near Valladolid, where wines based on the native verdejo grape are versatile and affordable; from the northern Basque country, whose “green,” fresh, crisp flavors of Txacoli are so palate refreshing; from the Atlantic-influenced and Mediterranean Contintental climates of Navarra east of La Rioja, where well-balanced whites based on chardonnay are are some of the most food-friendly white wines in north central Spain; and from La Rioja itself, which, in additional to its stellar red wines, has some oak-aged viura-based wines of distinction.
The Mediterranean White Wines of Cataluña
Cataluña also has a broad range of superb Mediterranean-influenced whites, including some chardonnays from Conca de Barberà (Tarragona) and Penedès that rank among the best in Spain; native variety xarel-lo, macabeu (viura) and parellada mono-varietal and blended whites from Penedès; and some surprising, unique, full-bodied garnacha blanca whites from Montsant and especially, Terra Alta, south of Priorat. Alella, virtually on the outskirts of Barcelona makes a lovely, crisp fresh white from pansa blanca (the local name for the xarel-lo variety). This wines marry well with traditional local dishes such as arròs negre (black rice flavored with squid ink), Catalan mar y muntanya (surf and turf) dishes such those using seafood and goose and suquets (fisherman-inspired seafood stews). These wines are also proudly served in Catalonia’s famous star chef restaurants paired to cutting edge cocina de vanguardia dishes.
Spanish Vinos Rosados (Rosé Wines)
Among the most refreshing, delicious and versatile of all of Spain’s wines are its rosados, a beautiful collection of rosé wines that range in La Rioja from the ethereal, pale, onion-skin garnacha-and-viura blends in the southern part of Spain’s most famous wine region to fuller-bodied, strawberry-esque, tempranillo-based rosados from the north. Nearby Navarra also produces some fine rosés, especially those based on garnacha grapes, which can be among the best rosé wines in the world, and they also make rosado blends that include merlot and cabernet sauvignon.
Other regions producing notable rosados include Cataluña, whose rosats, as rosados are called in Catalan, tend to be deeper and darker in color and consequently more intense in flavor and aroma; Valencia, which produces some unique rosados from the native bobal; and Cigales, the Castilla y León rosado zone that traditionally has been famous for its tinto del país (tempranillo)-based rosés.
All these wines are delightful and, for the most part, quite dry. Although some rosado producers make market concessions by leaving residual sugar in their wines, most are excellent companions to a broad range of foods-- seafood, pork, Asian cuisines, American barbecue, Mexican and South American cuisines and of course, with a wide variety of Spanish dishes from patatas a la Riojana (potatoes with chorizo), pochas con codornices to seafood- and land-based ingredient paellas.
Spanish Vinos Tintos (Red Wines)
Spain is best known for its red wines, offering a broad range of options for food pairings. Reds run the gamut from Galicia’s lovely, lower alcohol Ribeira Sacra and Valdeorras, to medium-weight reds from Bierzo in the north of Castilla y León, all made from the mencía grape. Tempranillo-based wines from La Rioja range from lighter, well-aged reservas and gran reservas to the winemaker stars--dark, concentrated wines made from single vineyards or old vines. Depending on whether they come from the cooler up-river Duero Valley Ribera de Burgos area, or from the muy caliente downriver areas in Valladolid province, Ribera del Duero’s tinto fino (tempranillo based) wines have drawn rave reviews in the past decade and are staples on many American wine lists. Because of their balance, these wines go with a wide range of food from by-the-glass tapas bar fare to the most sophisticated modern cuisines. They are great with just about anything that calls for glass of good red wine, including pizza, pasta, steaks and game dishes.
Powerhouse Reds
Big, powerful, voluptuous extracted wines, some of them among the most highly rated wines in many popular wine publications, but often not as food friendly as more restrained, better balanced wines, come from Toro (west of Ribera del Duero) and its tinto de toro grapes; from Jumilla in the Mediterranean Levante where the monastrell grape is a revelation; from Castilla-La Mancha, where there are a number of high-powered notable estate reds; from Penedès in Catalonia, where a number of first-rate cabernet sauvignon, merlot and syrah blends and 100% varietal wines are made; and from Cataluña’s Tarragona province, where the quality of Priorat’s licorella slate soil adds unique nuances to its old vine garnacha- and carineña-based wines. Often blended with varying percentages of cabernet sauvignon, merlot and syrah, the wines of Priorat are among the greatest red wines of the Mediterranean. Neighboring Montsant uses the same grapes, but has a wider variety of soils and offers a more affordable approximation to the wines of Priorat.
And, surprisingly, the province of Madrid is producing some balanced, very promising reds from native and foreign varieties grown in high altitude vineyards. Because of the low acid, high alcohol and wood component in these big wines, I find them better shared among four people. These wines do well with pizza, steaks and cheeses. They can also work well with Mexican and southwestern American cuisine. Since there is such a wide range of red wines made in Spain, the pairing possibilities are as endless as those using Bordeaux reds, Burgundies, Rhone Valley, Italian Piedmont and Tuscan, Napa and Sonoma, and Australian, Chilean and South African wines.
Vinos de Postre (Dessert Wines)
Except for dessert sherries, Spain has not been famous for dessert wines, but there are an incredible and unique range of sweet and off-dry styles, especially from the warmer, Mediterranean-influenced areas. Besides sweet sherries, Andalucía also has superb Pedro Ximénez-based wines from Montilla and late harvest moscatels from Málaga. The Levante—Valencia and Alicante—produce some luscious moscatels and the legendary monastrell-based fondillón, a rare and unique, off-dry to sweet wine that is on a par with a great tawny port. Always versatile Navarra produces some stunning late-harvest moscatels; the volcanic soils of the Canary Islands produce a superb malvasia; and the warm climate Mediterranean areas of Cataluña produce some old-style garnacha, moscatel and malvasia-based wines that may date to the Roman era. Try some of these wines with egg-based, nut-based and chocolate desserts.
These wines can be wonderful with desserts or just sipped by themselves after dinner. Cream sherries, for instance, marry well with espresso coffee and some like the Pedro Ximénez can be used as sauces with foie gras (for instance) and like all sherries, including those intriguing sweet, dark moscatels from Chipiona, they can be revelations when sipped with cheeses.
As we have seen, Spain produces an exceptional array of wines, which offers a infinite multitude of possibilities for unique wine and food pairings. (For some specific classic Spanish wine and food pairings, see Gerry Dawes’s article on Iconic Spanish food and wine experiences.)
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About the Author:
Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine. He is currently working on Homage to Iberia, an authorized sequel to James A. Michener’s Iberia. For more information, visit the author’s Spain blog at:
Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain
Gerry Dawes can be reached at [email protected]; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): [email protected]