A super dish for Spring and Summer lunches and good for weight-watchers too! I’d treat this the same way that many Spaniards treat their Paellas and order a chilled rosado to accompany it.
Chicken is happy with most styles of wine but the flavour of bacon, despite its often salty nature, can be overrun by bold white wine flavours and tannic reds. A lightly coloured rosado (in Spain rosé wine comes in all shades of red) made with Tempranillo or with Syrah will complement this dish nicely, adding to the overall taste but not overpowering the salad.
A wonderful traditional dish served all over Spain and one of the reasons that I emigrated here in the first place! The combinations of the various different ingredients mean that this rice dish can go happily with various different wines.
Red wine drinkers will be pleased with wine from Navarra, often made with Garnacha and or Tempranillo – a blend of these two would be super, Crianza or Reserva style as well.
White wine drinkers will find it a little more difficult to obtain
Presenters, Noelle and Bob, outside HQ with glasses in hand!
the perfect match – but an old style oaked white Rioja will be good (though such wines are something of a rarity these days as tastes have changed).
So let’s go for a compromise and one that you’ll see many times in restaurants where the Spanish are enjoying their rice dishes – a lovely dry rosado!
Spain is the spiritual home of rosado wines where you can find many different shades and flavours. Coincidentally I was co-presenting a wine tasting on Friday night where we enjoyed a super Navarra rosado, Castillo de Javier, made exclusively from Garnacha, which for me will be the perfect match for Arroz al Horno!
A white wine required here I think. Nothing too aromatic or fruity, just a fresh and clean inexpensive whitewine with some flavour. I think I’d go for a wine from Rueda – Verdejo is the native variety here and it’s this grape that will give the wine the flavour and that ever-so-slight steely edge.
However if we add the fairly bland (in comparison) Viura to the blend we’ll have a little more body to stand up to the tomato and onion.
Fortunately, such DO Rueda wines are generally the most economic too!
Bay Radio's Sunday Brunch presenters, Noelle and Bob
As we’ve said before, Noelle, the much lamented Keith Floyd used to say that if the wine isn’t worth drinking, don’t cook with it! Well the same applies here for me with the olive oil in this tasty tapas recipe – and didn’t we enjoy the two excellent examples of First Class Extra Olive Oils from Bodegas Roda, who also supplied such wonderful wines!
Aubocassa and Dauro are super un-refined Extra Virgin Oliva Oils made respectively in Mallorca and Empordá (Nr. Girona) – like the wines we also taste they speak of place, of terroir and it’s no wonder they are award winners!
The wines that we enjoyed with this and also the Cheese and
This should be enough for Bob and Noelle!
Garlic Filled Mushrooms are from the eponymous Bodegas Roda, Do La Rioja. The first with the tell-tale red coloured foil is Roda 2006 Reserva, using 97% Tempranillo and 3% Graciano for a touch of extra elegance and opulence.
The foil colour indicates that this wine is full of red berry fruit aromas and flavours – think loganberry and strawberries as well as red cherries, but supported by roughly 20 months in French Oak which adds dept of flavour and complexity. It’s a sensuous full wine and well worth it’s 30€ a bottle!
The next wine the Roda 1 Reserva has the same thistle motif on the label (as have the oils and Roda’s new Ribera del Duero wine, Corimbo), but a black foil, and yes you guessed it this indicates that the fruit this time is dark. Black cherry, blackberry and a little damson in there too again with a depth of flavour and complexity as well as tannin and acidy enough to let the wine mature for probably 5 – 8 more years.
The wine reflects it’s terroir with a touch of earthiness, Autumn leaves and minerality. A wine for the dinner table where it really comes into it’s own.
