Spanish Wine and Food Synergy

Recently, I opened up a bottle of the 2004 Bodega Luzdivina Amigo Viñademoya that I purchased a while back. ($13.99, Garagiste; available elsewhere from $7-$18) When I first tasted it, I wasn't that impressed.

It was just a simple, rustic red with aromas and flavors of boysenberries and a little bit of earthy funk. Nothing memorable, nothing to spend time writing about.

But I corked it with some inert gas, and tried it again a few nights later. This time I paired it with a traditional dish from Rioja: patatas a la Riojana. A cross between a soup and stew, it's full of earthy potatoes, has some spicy kick from the inclusion of chorizo and peppers, and lots of flavor from the garlic and onion. I used Anya von Bremzen's recipe from her fabulous cookbook, The New Spanish Table. Here's a slightly different version that's available online.

Wow. What a difference the right food made to this wine.

Sipping it along side the soup, with its smoky pimenton and potatoes, made the flavors of boysenberry expand out to include blackberries an cherries. The earthy funk turned into a pleasant background note that kept the wine from becoming too fruity and flat. A wine that I had mixed feelings about was transformed into a good QPR bottle.

Wine and food synergy--that moment when you realize the combination of what you're eating and drinking is greater than the sum of its parts--happens all too rarely. When it does, it can result in a memorable meal and make you glad that you gave the wine a second chance.

Catavino June Virtual Tasting: Wines from Bierzo

This month, Catavino's Virtual Tasting focused on a region rather than a varietal and after some searching I managed to find a wine that fit their brief to try something from the Bierzo DO. For someone like me who likes wine adventures, this was a great assignment. First, I didn't know where Bierzo was. Second, once I found it the list of indigenous grapes planted there took my breath away, since I had only had one or two.

Bierzo is in the northwesterly part of Spain (Ryan and Gabriella have posted a great map, if you're still unsure of precise locale), and is home to 48 wineries. It used to be an area known for its mining industry, but with the mountains protecting the viticultural areas from some of the most severe weather coming off the Atlantic Ocean, Bierzo has become a growing and increasingly popular wine region.

I wanted to try a Bierzo white, but had a hard time finding one, so I ended up with a red made from the indigenous mencia grape: the 2004 Pucho Bierzo ($15.99, Whole Foods; between $9 and $14 from many merchants). I bought this on impulse, with no advice or advance research, and in retrospect I have not been happy with a single Whole Foods purchase I've bought in this fashion. This was no exception. It was a red wine with old school style, with a rich plummy color and the fruit taking a decidedly back seat to the acidity and minerality. As the wine warmed up, it was possible to taste plummy fruit, accented with smoke and spice. The finish was fairly short, and not even the smoke and spice lingered. Though I've never had a mencia wine before, I felt like it was in the same varietal ballpark as cabernet franc (with its acidity and minerality) and sangiovese (with its acidity and plummy fruit flavor). For the price I paid at Whole Foods, I would have to say this represented poor QPR, but had I spend $8.99 for it at K&L I probably would have said good QPR. Still, it was sad to have my first ever poor QPR Spanish wine--the country has had a perfect track record so far!

I'm going to do some more research among the postings in Catavino's forum and see if I can find more examples of Bierzo wine. I'd certainly like to give mencia another shot, and would love to try a white from the area if I can get my hands on it. Until then, I'm off to rummage in the wine storage to find a Spanish wine for WBW #35.