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

Followers of The Vine,

In continuing with our journey around Spain and its diverse cuisine, I’d like to write this week about the region of Aragon:

Home to both our Enate and Cinco Joses brands, Aragon has a lot more to offer than just incredible wines. I’ve been very fortunate to have the opportunity to taste some incredible meals throughout this region- lamb quite honestly my favorite, and considered by some to be the best in Spain! Now, let’s dig deeper and learn more of what this region has to offer.

The autonomous region of Aragon has inherited its rich gastronomy from many different cultures that have passed through over the past several centuries. Many of the region’s most typical dishes come directly from within the region. Generally, Aragonese cuisine is based on popular stews and meats.

Also within the region are a great variety of fruit, vegetables and pulses, including the thistle and borage (to simplify, pulses are legumes like black eyed beans & lima beans). Due to their increasing popularity, these ingredients are often seen on menus throughout Spain, not just in Aragon. Some of the most typical are Haricot beans, onions from Fuentes, asparagus from the banks of the River Ebro and the oils from Lower Aragon.

The autonomous region of Aragon is a land of hearty dishes frequently containing meat, especially lamb, and bursting with aroma and flavor. Ternasco with D.O. or Denominacion de Origen (a strict regulatory council which sets quality standards) is very delicious (the Spanish word ternasco comes from the word tierno – tender – and refers to the suckling lamb) and has been exported to other autonomous regions in Spain. Watch this Behind the Burner clip for a delicious lamb recipe: http://www.behindtheburner.com/video/watch

Chicken is also very popular and years ago used to be eaten at festivals, giving rise to a very admired Aragonese dish, pollo al chilindrón, a chicken stew which is prepared with onions, tomatoes and red peppers. Also worth highlighting are the wonderful sausages and salted meats, such as cured ham or Jamon Serrano from Teruel and arbiello and longaniza sausages (made from tripes; definitely an acquired taste).

There is one product which can only be found in this region: fardeles from Calatayud and Daroca, which are made with pork liver and spices. Rabbit and hare stewed in their own blood (known as civet), partridge, deer, and wild boar, though completely unusual and perhaps very foreign to us Americanos, are excellent examples of typical gamey meats throughout this region.

But not all Aragonese cooking is based on meat. This region also prepares dishes using river ingredients. Trout, eel, even frog can be used to make natural well-seasoned dishes. Bread is another basic component of this cuisine, which adopts many forms and names depending on the region. Fruit is often eaten at the end of a good meal such as frutas de Aragón (sugar-candied fruits covered in chocolate), but there are also excellent and traditional local desserts. Chestnut is used in the preparation of many sweets. Almond is used to make guirlache, made from toasted almonds and lots of caramelized sugar. Almojábanas (cheese flavored rolls), tortas de alma made with pumpkin, honey and sugar, trenza de Almudévar with nuts and raisins soaked in liqueur, and many other dishes which make this region a paradise for the sweet-toothed traveler.

And now for this month’s Aragonese-inspired recipe! I figured the chicken route would be best rather than some of the foreign dishes mentioned above…

Pollo al Chilindrón

As mentioned above, Pollo al chilindrón is one of the most typical Aragonese dishes. Let’s learn how to make this incredible Aragonese dish that’s pretty easy to put together!

Ingredients:

- 3 1/2 lbs. of chicken – use your favorite cut of chicken

- 1 onion, chopped

- 2 cloves garlic, minced

- 1/2 tsp. paprika

- 2 large tomatoes, chopped

- 1 red bell pepper, chopped

- 1 green bell pepper, chopped

- 6 pimientos (try to find imported ones from Spain)

- Salt and pepper at your leisure

- 2 tbsp. jamon serrano or prosciutto di parma, chopped

- 1 shot of cognac

- Extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

Heat oil on a large saucepan. Add onion, garlic and chicken and fry until the chicken is browned and the onion is golden. Pour cognac over the chicken. Add prosciutto and mix. Add paprika and mix. Add tomatoes, peppers and pimientos and mix. Cover and simmer for about 45 minutes or until done.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed my blog on Aragonese cuisine. Next week I’m going to write about the cusine of Pais Basco. Spanish Vines made its NYC debut this past weekend at the NYC Wine Expo, and I met some people who just loved San Sebastian, a city within Pais Basco. I too am a big lover of this enchanted city, so next week’s blog will center on this region’s cuisine. So until then, have a great week, and enjoy this awesome recipe!

Entender es Disfrutar!

-Josh

Dear readers,

Because last week I wrote about the immense diversity of Spanish cuisine, I’d like to take the next few weeks to focus specifically on some of the most interesting regions in Spanish cuisine. As we give you some quick facts on each of these regions, we’re also going to provide you with an easy and quick at home recipe. Please let us know if there’s any particular region you’re interested in learning about, and we’ll definitely incorporate it into our series.

This week: Galicia!

Galicia, otherwise considered as part of Spain’s “Pais Verde” or “Green Spain,” is located in the extreme northwestern corner of Spain (analogous to Oregon of the USA). Galicia’s west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean while the north coast is on the Cantabric Sea. It is a cold, wet climate, with rugged terrain and over 700 miles of rocky coastlines. Small family farms of an acre or two exist growing vegetables; however, many families live from what fishermen catch. The people of Galicia are descendants of Celtic people, whose myths, legends and belief in the mystic are strong even today.

Galicians (or Gallegos, as they are called in Spanish) are not rich people and because of the rugged landscape and rough weather, they use every bit of what they grow or catch, including using shells as fertilizer for the soil.

All sorts of fish are caught and eaten in Galicia, including gooseneck barnacles, called percebes (one of my personal favorites, also found in Asturias, though they are very dangerous to collect. Check out this incredible video from Jose Andres, a famous Spanish Chef   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPYv6Rt8Ktw ), oysters or ostras, scallops or vieiras, mussels or mejillones, clams or almejas, razor shell clams called navajas and heart clams (berberechos) to name a few.

Because scallops are a relatively easy dish to prepare (for those of you who are home-cooking enthusiasts), scallops are the featured recipe today. Vieiras, or sea scallops, are abundant on the shores of Galicia (in fact, pilgrims on the Way of St. James, who make the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, wear their shells).

First, a mixture is made of onion, parsley and breadcrumbs. Then, the scallop, still in its own shell is covered with the mixture and baked. Finally, it is served in its own shell.

And now the recipe!

Ingredients: (Perfect for 3 people)

- 6 scallops

- 1 clove of garlic

- 1 large onion

- ½ a cup of white wine (go authentically Galician, and use an Albarino from the DO Rias Baixas)

- 2 spoons of fried tomato

- 1 spoon of chopped parsley

- 2 spoons of breadcrumbs

- 1 spoon of sweet paprika

- 5 spoons of olive oil salt pepper

Preparation:

Open the scallops, remove the blackish ribbon inside and wash them to remove any sand. At the same time, peel and chop the onion and the garlic and cook them in a frying pan with extra virgin olive oil. Then add the paprika and the wine. When it has reduced a little, add the fried tomato and season. Finally, brown the scallops in their shells in the oven, covered with the fried vegetables. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and parsley. Pour on the dish a little dash of oil and serve.

Please enjoy this week’s featured recipe, and let us know how it turns out. Next week we’re going to be diving into Aragon Cuisine. An interesting fact from this region of Spain is that it’s the birthplace of Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, born March 30^th, 1746 in the town of Fuendetodos – current population of 170! Over 25,000 people visit this small town each year to pay homage to Goya- rather amazing if you think about it!

Entender es Disfrutar!

-Josh