Dear Readers,

This past weekend brought me to one of my favorite cities in the world, Charleston, SC. I repeatedly acclaimed all weekend that the Charleston Wine and Food festival will be one of the top in the country within 3 years; to me, it has reached the level of the Aspen Wine and Food Festival.

Some of the top chefs in the country are already in attendance (as a matter of fact, I was sipping bourbon with Daniel of Restaurant Daniel out of NYC on Saturday night-what an experience), and I guarantee we’ll see more top chefs in years to come. More on this wine and food festival at a later date.

Now to two great news pieces Spanish Vines has just received: this past weekend we landed two features on two of our wines: Cinco Joses and Spanish Vines Crianza Tempranillo. Cinco Joses was featured in a top NYC wine blog and can be seen by clicking the following link http://www.examiner.com/x-3233-NY-Wine-Examiner~y2010m3d6-Wine-of-the-Week-Cinco-Joses-Spain–999?cid=examiner-email.

Then, the Spanish Vines Crianza was featured at Terra restaurant in Charlotte, NC as their monthly find. Great values, as we are seeing, are truly triumphing these days! Lastly, we launched our new and improved Spanish Vines website this past week. If you haven’t already, please head over to spanishvines.com to check it out!

Enough on company news and to the real reason we’re here tonight: Basque Country cuisine!

Food is a central part of Basque life. Bilbao and the region have earned their status as a culinary destination point. The area is home to some innovative up-scale restaurants pushing the creative limits of international fine dining, but they all rest upon and incorporate a foundation of superior local products, historic recipes, and Basque traditions.

One of my favorite restaurants in the region is located right next to the Guggenheim Museum and is located within the Gran Hotel Domine. In fact, on our recent trip to Spain with Divya Gugnani’s Behind the Burner, we recorded an incredible episode with this restaurant’s chef, highlighting our Enate Rosado (found at the following link: http://www.viddler.com/explore/BehindtheBurner/videos/115/).

Basque cuisine is influenced by the abundance of produce from the sea on one side and the fertile Ebro valley on the other. The mountainous nature of the Basque Country has led to a difference between coastal cuisine dominated by fish and seafood and inland cuisine with fresh and cured meats, many vegetables, and freshwater fish.

More specifically for seafood dishes, squid in its own ink sauce is very popular. The ink is toxic when fresh but becomes harmless when cooked (quite a sight when you meet this dish for the first time). Shrimp, langostino, and crab are common additions to fish soups. Basques enjoy tuna, salmon, trout, cod, spider crab and eels. A savory dish, bacalao, features dried salted cod (as seen in the behind the burner video).

As far as meats are concerned, favorites include beef (preferably of young animals), sheep, lamb, pork, and fowl (chicken, quail, partridge, woodcock). A common Basque sausage, chorizo, is made from meat and pork fat, seasoned with paprika, salt, and garlic. It is then stuffed into casings and dried. An example of a common vegetable includes peppers, widely grown throughout the region. Used green, ripe, and dried, they are a key ingredient in the well-known Basque egg dish Piperrada. Garlic is another favorite, prized in cooking not only for its taste, but also for its ability to trap oils in meats and gravies, thus enhancing the flavor.

And a recipe for breakfast straight from the Basque Region!

Basque Shepherd’s Pie

Serves: 4

4 slices bacon

1 ½ finely sliced onions

3/4 tablespoon of salt

A dash of pepper

3 medium sized potatoes

1 tablespoon of snipped parsley

1/8 tablespoon of dried thyme, crushed

4 large eggs

4 tablespoons of milk

In 8-inch skillet cook bacon until crisp; drain, reserving 2 tablespoons of drippings. Crumble bacon and set aside.  In same skillet combine reserved drippings, peeled, thinly sliced potatoes, onions, parsley, salt, thyme and pepper. Cover tightly; cook over low heat until potatoes are barely tender, 20 to 25 minutes, stirring carefully once or twice. In small bowl beat together eggs and milk; pour over potato mixture. Cover and continue cooking over very low heat until egg is set in center, 8 to 10 minutes. With a wide spatula, loosen sides and bottom and slide potatoes out onto serving plate, or serve from skillet. Sprinkle crumbled bacon atop. Serve hot.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed our tour of Basque cuisine and a perfect breakfast / brunch recipe for Saturday afternoon. See you next Monday!

Entender es Disfrutar,

~Josh