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Paella Plonque
| Author: Bill Hughes | Published: 27th November 2012 13:43 |
We had our Iberian friends (he Portuguese, she Spanish) over for Sunday lunch, and it seemed only polite to serve a whomping great paella in lieu of the usual roast beast. They brought some Portuguese custard tarts and Portuguese wine to balance the Spanish bias, and I had the daunting task of preparing a paella in front of a real live Spanish mujer who knows exactly how these things should be, not to mention their kids who know a good paella when they taste it.
So what do you drink with paella? It depends on the paella of course, but as it's a feast of many colours you can mix and match quite nicely. We tend to think of seafood, but depending on the region or the season there's not much you can't add to a paella - rabbit is popular in paella valenciana, along with chicken and snails, while seafood belongs in paella de marisco, and paella mixta is a free-form style combining anything you like. As long as you stick to wine from the Iberian Peninsula you can't go far wrong.
Can Feixes from Penedes
My favourite Spanish white of the moment is Can Feixes Blanc Sellecion from Penedes in Catalonia, comprised of Parellada, Macabeo, Chardonnay and Malvasia. Parellada is the primary grape of Cava but works well in still wines from this region. This is a dry, flinty wine with integrated citrus flavours (lemon and lime, not grapefruity like sauvignon blanc) and is a shoo-in with seafood paella. Hard to find locally but you can buy it via the wonderful Vinissimus website.
Marques de Caceres
Marques de Caceres is a fantastic Rioja and would be a blast with flesh or fowl paellas. It's a modern, up-front style of Rioja with plenty of fruit and subtle (French) oak. The Crianza (12 months in oak, 14 in bottle) is smooth and easy to drink, with plenty of cherry fruit and cinnamon, and Majestic have it at £10.99, or £8.49 if you buy 2 or more. The Gran Reserva 2004 would be perfect for a special occasion - two and a half years in barrel then further aging in the bottle produces a smooth, spicy concoction that'll leave you believing that splashing out £22 (£17 for 2 or more at Majestic) is a bargain. Honestly.
Tinto da Anfora from Portugal
Our Portuguese friend brought a bottle of Tinto da Anfora from the Alentejano region of Portugal. This is a blend of Tempranillo with another five or so indigenous Portuguese grapes and has the distinctness that Portuguese wines have from their Spanish neighbours. There's a little oak, some structured tannins, and red berries and chocolate on the nose and palate - there's also a slight pear drop smell / taste, which I wasn't too crazy about, but it settled down after a while. Worth a punt at £6.79 (Waitrose)
We cooked a seafood paella and the red wines worked well, so there aren't any hard and fast rules - the paella spices are so rich that they can easily overwhelm a lighter white wine, so just experiment and enjoy. The paella recipe can be found in my blog 'Cuisine de Pompey'.
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