Glorioso Reserva with Grilled lobster
Glorioso Reserva
Winery Palacio
www.bodegaspalacio.es/
D.O.C: Rioja
Grapes: 100% Tempranillo
Ageing: 16 months in French oak barrels, 20 in the bottle.
Price: 9,50 €
Excerpt from the book “Pairings of spanish wines with exotic cuisines”.
Click to see the preparation of these dishes, in American recipes.
The profile of the wines from this winery has gradually changed in recent years, so, if you have not tried it for some time, taste it carefully and you will find fruity aromas that did not exist before.
Even the wood itself has changed. That taste of Rioja that was so characteristic in most of their wines has given place to memories of liquorice, vanilla and cedar, more typical of author wines than of classic ones. Nevertheless, the change has been made without losing the winery personality, which has always been very Rioja Alavesa, a wine from Laguardia, as local people boast.
Grilled lobster
Despite the common image we have of Americans as meat-eaters, they are actually great consumers or certain seafood, mainly prawns, crabs and lobsters, although their taste is somehow different from ours: We Spanish like the clean flavour from the animal, while Americans tend to mask it with varied preparations, even when it is simply grilled.
This is a traditional dish, not only in places where seafood is bred and fished but throughout the country, where thousands tons of seafood are consumed.
Its origin is French, the famous Homard au beurre persillé, but without garlic and with some more spices from the cold Europe. The ideal blend consists of chive, sorrel, coriander and tarragon.
Pairing.jpg "Grilled lobster")
In Spain we have the bad habit of always eating seafood with white wine, which is a great mistake. Most seafood tastes better with vintage (“reserva”) red wines, even barnacles, and this is beyond dispute when it comes to dishes like this one.
The flavours in the dish contrast strongly, that is why we have looked for a velvety wine, “done” as popular language puts it. If we had used one of those new-generation reds, with an overwhelming generous taste of ripe black fruit and very toasted wood, we would have spoiled the dish, and that is not the goal of pairing.
Despite the fact that it is a vintage wine, I advise serving it at cellar temperature, that is, about 15ºC. It will be brighter that way, to counterbalance the cloying butter.