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ChangeMe
Grape Fermenter
Posts:442
 | | 04/05/2005 1:42 PM |
| While you wouldn’t pick Granada as the Mecca of fine dining in Spain, by mid-March astronomers spotted an unusual number of stars in the firmament above the Alhambra. Against the famous Mahatma dictum, the mountain didn’t have to go anywhere because the chefs came gladly to participate in this most unusual of events. It is not every Monday that I rub elbows with the likes of Abraham García, Manuel de la Osa, Dani García, or Quique Dacosta. But if rubbing elbows is cool, eating their creations is some damned privilege, let me tell you. Dani García (former of Tragabuches and now at the luxury Meliá Hotel network), and Manuel de la Osa (of Las Rejas, Cuenca) came with their respective teams, all with their sleeves rolled up: hard work awaited them.
While we all gathered in the hotel lounge Jesús Barquín’s eyes periodically checked a suspicious-looking van parked outside. For us in the know it was the most precious vehicle in town those days. It contained an indecent amount of top-quality sherry shipped from Jerez by the president and director of the C.R.D.O. Jerez-Xérès-Sherry y Manzanilla de Sanlúcar. This most dynamic duo had also come to join the list of stellar guests, soon to be rounded up by a number of other prestigious professionals in the biz.
The how and why of this once-in-a-lifetime event is a little story in itself.
CSI Granada
That’s what you get when the Director of the Criminology Institute and the Chair of Pathological Anatomy organize a two-day academic seminar on fine food and sherry. To be honest it’s their “other” interests that link them, but the compulsive joke floated before me like a dagger, the handle toward my hand…so I had to go for it. Actually a good many of you already know that Jesús is mad about sherry, but may not know that the course co-organizer, Raimundo García del Moral, as Chair of Pathological Anatomy at the University of Granada, is constantly experimenting with food textures and in fact assesses avant-garde chefs such as Dani García in their research. Cryogenation—as we shall see in the course of the following eight pages—is the last cry in cooking techniques.
In any other academic seminar in Spain you pay 60€ and get a file, a cheap ballpen and possibly a pin with the university blazon. Here for the same money you got 100€ worth of food and wine served by two culinary geniuses, two academic credits and the one other-than-sexual indelible experience of your university years. For those of us well beyond student ages it was no less: press and guests had access to an impressive number of mindblowing extra meals and Sherries.
Sympathy for Fortunato
My father often reminds me of the first time he read “The Cask of Amontillado” to me. Myth has it my reaction was “So you mean that in the end there was no Amontillado at all?” The devil couldn’t have guessed then that I’d live to hold a PhD in American literature, but of course at seven I couldn’t “tell Amontillado from Sherry” either; it was the Mcguffin I was interested in. I’m glad to say things have changed…
Sunday night was Amontillado night to be sure. We all met at the bar of a small family-type tapas bar called “FM” where the most outrageously fresh seafood I’ve tried is served every night. We were in for sixteen different seafood dishes, unbelievably tasty tomatoes, and utterly sinful dessert, accompanied by five superb Sherries. For lack of translation and likely meaninglessness of Latin names I’ve tried to provide links to pictures online. Most of them, but not all, are pop-up free.
A warming-up wine sets the tone of the evening. It is meant to make your mouth water. We all know that. Like it or not, whatever you choose as starter creates expectations. The starter here was a 70€ amontillado, a regular 97-pointer in my book, the superb Fino Imperial by Paternina. Although officially an Amontillado VORS this is born as a Fino and simply allowed to age beyond the death of the layer of ‘flor.’ I mean it never received a second fortification, which is why this is 18% alc. and not 20%. The wine appeared rather closed but a second bottle was as good as expected: extremely profound, complex beyond belief, unforgettable (96).
After that came the every-man-for-himself dynamics of a tapas bar, but there was no shortage of seafood, believe me. What follows is a most indecorous frenzy of brain-slurping, leg-stripping, and antennae-spitting, all in the pursuit of scientific knowledge, that is. 100% CSI. As an illuminating experiment two different dishes of Quisquillas de Motril http://rds.yahoo.com/S=96062883/K=quisquilla/v=2/SID=e/l=IVI/SIG=12v9aeop4/EXP=1112345088/*http%3A//www.lasprovincias.es/valencia/ocio/restaurantes/Media/quisquilla.jpg were served: one with raw pieces, the other one cooked. The raw ones were extremely unctuous, with an eminently spreadable texture, sweet and fresh from the sea at the same time. The cooked pieces offered a totally different resistance to the bite; they had muscular fiber (exquisitely tender, but different nonetheless). This tasty contrast led toward the first reflection on textures—a theme that would eventually dominate the conference.
Next came a dish of Santiaguiños on the half, short of—if not completely—raw, fleshy and powerfully evocative: http://www.demarisco.com/images/santiaguinho.jpg These came with bottles of chilled Manzanilla Aurora, a personal favorite and prodigious example of complexity as well as freshness (93). At age nine it ran as fresh as the seafood itself, maybe just a tad light having to take over after the unreal Fino Imperial, but that’s an unfair responsibility for almost any wine in the world.
Equally fresh were the camarones that followed http://www.itepa.com/images/secciones/camaron.jpg
together with a Gamba blanca de Motril, grilled in this case, with coarse salt on it http://www.animalesmarinos.com/images/gamba_blanca1.jpg . Again the idea was to contrast textures, but let me tell you I’ve been through LOTS of contrasting work that had little to do with this. Wish all empirical research were like this, as the rectal thermometer tester said a week after being promoted to crash-test dummy.
Cheers at my back greeted the arrival of two heavyweights: monstrous cigalas that fortunately were no longer alive to fight for their life http://www.pedramol.com/mariscos/cigala.jpg
http://www.el-maragato.com/images/Cigala%2000.JPG , and the celebrated Fino Inocente, a robust fino from Valdespino, from vines planted in the Macharnudo district that produce unusual body. Elegance is not at odds with power, as we could see (92). It matched the intensity of the cigalas beautifully.
Percebes and oysters arrived next—or so I seem to remember—together with one of the night’s revelations: Amontillado Botaina, outperforming itself (95). While a few of the vines resented the road trip and showed unusual reticence in the nose, this was just glorious in both nose and palate. What’s more, it went beautifully with both dishes. We also learned to open the percebes in order to find the crunchy part.
Enough? Uh? Remember this was a “no prisoners” night! Dried octopus (pulpo seco) against pulpo a la gallega http://www.galinor.es/galeria/gif/pulpo.jpg
http://www.baiona.com/org/imaxes/pulpo_a_feira.jpg
http://www.sidreriaamets.com/SUBWEBS/Carta/GaleriaCarta/pulpo%20a%20la%20gallega.jpg http://www.boqueroneslevante.com/imagenes/productos/pulpogallega.jpg
came next. Truly a stellar dish, the pulpo seco was just plain superb! A tad smoked too IIRC. Delicious on its own, and with the Botaina indeed a match made in heaven.
This alone would have justified the trip, but next came another secret weapon: “ortiguillas coulant” (a sort of fried anemone:
http://canales.laverdad.es/gastronomia/fotos/rincon091204a2.jpg
wildly charged with sea flavors, served hot enough to burn your tongue (ask me) with a crusty fried envelope but the interior running with juice. I had never even heard of these. I had heard of—but not tried—“espardeñas” (the stomach of the sea cucumber: the pic shows the whole animal http://www.allthesea.com/img/sea-cucumber-01.jpg ). These are chewy instead.
The “bacalaílla seca” was just as impressive, full-flavored not salty, almost elegant for such a rustic dish. A couple of fried specialties: pijota and salmonete, followed, very good too, but what stunned me was the succession of RAF tomatoes from Almería http://www.euroresidentes.com/imagesTv/alimentos/tomates_raf.jpg
, chipirones (http://www.lareira.net/images/recetas/chipirones_so.jpg
http://www.elportondejavier.com/fjavier/chipi.jpg
and sliced caracola http://www.azti.es/castellano/imagenes/caracola+.jpg
http://www.granpesca.com/images/cebos/caracola.JPG
The tomatoes are ugly as sin…and just as tempting! I mean would you have guessed that you’d walk out of a place like that waxing sublime about tomatoes? And I thought I knew tomato. I’ve polished three or four kilos on my own since then. It came with superior AOVE (EVOO in English) and sea salt, but at home I add a generous dollop of Sherry vinegar too (and half a pinch of freshly ground pepper and oregano). The chipirones were simply delicious, short of spreadable, and I tried to fork them with some tomato. Mmmmm. The caracola was a true surprise because my father—the one who traumatized me for life with premature Poe readings—did a lot of scuba diving in his youth, so I learned to walk in spite of the strategic disposition of shells “bigger than me” around the house. But I’d never actually eaten the contents; and let me tell you, decorative as the shells may be…this is some delicious bite! I overindulged seriously while other participants missed a drop of Sherry vinegar with it. By the time they returned to the plates I bet they found something else missing…
At some point Raimundo opened a bottle of Albariño, but probably because of the contrast with too much superb Sherry I didn’t really find it an attractive match for the food (odd, because in theory they’re made for each other).
Given the general frugality of the session, we “only” had Tarta de la monjas for dessert, as well as THREE Piononos de Santa Fé made by Casa Ysla http://diofantico.homeip.net/images/livejournal/pionono.gif
The pionono is a cylindrical piece of pastry wetted (borracho) with syrup and topped with egg cream that’s caramelized to resemble the head of Pope Pío IX (hence the name). To say it went well with the superb PX Rey Fernando de Castilla would be a gross understatement. Dense, charged with toffee, toasty-sweet but profound, serious, long (95+).
You won’t be surprised to read that some of us decided to actually walk to our hotel… A not-too-quick shower put me to bed well after 1 am.
Monday morning began at a very reasonable 9:00 for breakfast. The official opening of the course saw many familiar faces together: local friends as well as friends arrived from as far as peninsular Spain will allow (or almost). Last night’s perpetrators are still alive? Good! First thing in the morning César Saldaña—Director of the C.R.D.O. Jerez-Xérès-Sherry y Manzanilla de Sanlúcar—introduces an intrigued audience to the history, elaboration and typology of Sherry. Why the hell didn’t somebody inform ME when I was at college? Enough theory for today: very appropriately this is followed by a formal tasting of the full range of wines (or almost) selected by the CRDO on the basis of typicity. These are bottled under the CRDO “white” label, to avoid conflict while ensuring a number of wines ready for promotional and educational purposes. There is more and it’s not so evident: they’re actually pretty solid efforts.
The tasting half-filled a huge classroom. The glasses had already been served and the fino was inevitably at room temperature but this was secondary. The important thing is that this was probably the first tasting officially held in a Spanish university (the first Sherry tasting to be sure?) as part of an academic event of this sort. This sounds like—actually is—a very important achievement only minimized by the superb festival that was to take place that very evening! Let us hope other institutions follow the example.
The wines tasted offered little surprise other than their sheer quality. The tasting was directed by César Saldaña with spontaneous support from Jorge Pascual—President of the CRDO—and Jesús Barquín. About the Fino he emphasized the absence of fruit (or rather the secondary role it plays if at all), and described it as bone-dry, pungent, deep, with evocations of dough, almond, sea breeze, perfect palate teaser before a meal, etc.
The Amontillado was almost too good to be “generic.” Pretty nose, warm, denser, hazelnuts all over, spicy, very dry but rounder in a way, long (91).
The Oloroso had an even warmer, velvety feel to it, in both nose and palate, with nuts and notes of old ‘solera’ plus a certain sweetness of the alcohol (90).
Next we came to the “Medium.” That’s a sweetened Amontillado. The market demands it. Let ’em have it all.
The PX was pretty good too. Young but serious, with raisiny notes in a pre-toffee stage, warm and round, unctuous, fairly deep for its age (91).
From there we headed for lunch to “Antonio Pérez” with a survival-not-satisfaction mission. Carry on dreaming. I mean we knew the food-and-sherry matching session would begin at six, but there’s no questioning the wild bunch like their knife and fork, if you know what I mean. The lunch session had another devilish choice of “can’t keep my hands off them” wines: the resurrected Manzanilla San León (now called “Reserva de la Familia” but actually the authentic San León that was discontinued last spring) and Paternina’s 12-year-old Oloroso Bertola. The menu was Lomo de Orza (sliced pork loin preserved in olive oil), Parrillada de Verduras (grilled vegetables), Tortilla Sacromonte http://www.balay.es/comunidad/recetas/balay/img/tortilla_sacromonte.jpg
and I remember the carnivores had some meat too. The Manzanilla performed beautifully (94-96), with excellent nose. Incidentally, the Tortilla Sacromonte—for one who doesn’t eat chicken with his hands—is a real torture: in theory the traditional recipe is an omelet with lamb brains, assorted innards, and bone marrow. Beautiful idea, no doubt of a sick mind… (to top it all it’s pretty good…served blind, I mean). The Oloroso behaved pretty well (90) especially with the meal. Jesús liked this better than I did.
The evening session…uh…the evening session was a see-to-believe event. I believe the university diner at the Campus de Fuentenueva will always remember it. I certainly will. Cenital camera broadcasting the elaboration from the kitchen to the dining-room behind a wall, the whole thing commented by the creators of the dishes, pretty efficient service, and truly superb food. The idea was to try the food first so that the surprise factor wouldn’t be spoiled. That made us begin at six. Needless to say it was my best ‘merienda’ EVER! These were the dishes:
Gamba cruda de Motril con emulsión de miel y aceite de oliva, mantecado manchego y sorbete de tomillo, romero y mejorana (Manuel de la Osa), with Manzanilla:
We expected the raw shrimp to be spreadably unctuous and semisweet, the emulsion of honey and EVOO crossed the square bowl in a dense, thick line, adding sweetness, but the whole thing was refreshed by a fantastic sorbet of Mediterranean herbs (thyme, rosemary and marjoram) that went beautifully with the Manzanilla. A soy sprout I found redundant in its bitterness. The dish was beautifully balanced though so many sweet elements offered some difficulty for the Manzanilla (which incidentally was pretty fresh and served chilled). The general opinion was that the match ranked among the best. Dish 92+, wine 90, pairing 90.
“Tasted twice, with consistent notes” (Really: an empty seat to my right was served and it’d have been a real pity to waste it…).
Sémola helada de aceite de oliva picual con aromas de arbequina (manzana, almendra y lichi) (Dani García), with Amontillado:
Here’s where technological innovation entered the show. Pity that the name of the dish betrays the cold touch of the Picual EVOO, because otherwise it would have been truly stunning. Because EVOO cannot be served in liquid form (a spoonful of plain oil has an unpleasant mouthfeel and weird aftertaste) it’s poured over liquid nitrogen at -160ºC after which it takes the aspect and touch of semolina. Of course this is served a while later, at about -16ºC (ice-cream temperature) so that the moment it touches the tongue it melts naturally. It’s terribly curious to see how this sort of ground bread turns out to be cold and immediately goes liquid and oily. Moreover, because it’s frozen it doesn’t give off Picual aromatics, but the accompaniment (apple, almond and litchi) are the typical aromas of Arbequina EVOO so the play with our expectations is complete in both texture and aromas. The fruit balances and refreshes the oily touch. The match with Amontillado is good enough, given the similar mouthfeel. Dish 91, wine 92, pairing 90+.
Carrillera de cerdo ibérico en manteca colorá con chorizo, pasas y pan crujiente (Dani García), with Oloroso:
I’m not much of a carnivore, but this was truly great. The pork cheeks (of Ibérico origin and quality) were simply glorious: true essence of meat in ‘manteca colorá’ with chorizo and crunchy ‘migas’ with a mildly sweetish air of stewed meat and red paprika that went beautifully with the oloroso fat. Best match of the evening, hands down. Dish 95, wine 92, pairing 97.
Leche y cremas suaves de queso con germinados, flores, hojas silvestres y frutos secos (Manuel de la Osa), with Cream:
This came served inside stemware. From bottom upwards one could see two different densities of creamy substance, and a tiny salad on top with mixed greens and nuts. Most of us immediately took it to the nose where the playfulness was evident: the predominant aromatics were truffle (nowhere mentioned in the dish name) and some salad leaf. Because one was supposed to dip and take all three textures there would be creamy and crunchy in each spoonful. The crunchiness of the truffle was baffling—another playful note: ground hazelnuts and cocoa beans had been mixed in. The cheese used was 60% Manchego with the balance Parmesan and something else. The tomato purée offered a refreshing contrast. A complexly aromatic dish. The match with Cream Sherry was OK but the wine itself had little to say. Dish 93+, wine 88, pairing 91.
Because all this seemed insufficient and newly arrived guests deserved a proper welcome (VS for example) we headed for “Chikito” where an indecent amount of food awaited us. I was constantly besieged by the never-ending succession of dishes filled with Quisquillas de Motril (to my left) and Ibérico (not just any jamón but “Joselito”) to my right. After that I didn’t need any proper dinner. Lustau Fino Puerto (86) went well with the quisquillas but proved too light against the ibérico. The following wine was the excellent Manzanilla Pasada Pastrana (93) to help us eat…another especially unctuous Tortilla Sacromonte (now the real thing).
The cod dish was the house recipe: “bacalao Chikito” with Pedro Romero’s Amontillado El Álamo (90), good fish dish and versatile amontillado. And the following piece de resistance found me completely incapable of playing the game any more. One can only commit so many carnivorous transgressions in one day. I did of course dip bread in the sauce, which was truly tasty, and followed with Garvey’s Oloroso 1780 VOS which was a good match, a tad cloudy and elusive in the nose, faintly abocado in the palate (92). A murderous dessert assortment would be the coup de grace that night: tarta morisca with an almond base and red berries, another pionono, ice-cream and of course “fried milk” (a popular sort of custard flan). I cleaned the plate with the help of God and Gutiérrez Colosía’s Moscatel soleado, which managed to accomplish the difficult match (89-90).
The shower that night was memorable.
But this is roughly an aperitif. The real thing would come Tuesday… | | | |
| Winetex
Austin, Texas
Master of Wine
Posts:10573
| | 04/05/2005 3:14 PM |
| Gastronauta - thanks for the account. It sounds like an assault on your palate with all of the sherry and delicious food. | | | |
| ChangeMe
Grape Fermenter
Posts:442
| | 04/05/2005 4:31 PM |
| Hi, don't desmay: it will get worse! (after Tuesday I was "extremely fragile" for three days)  | | | |
| ChangeMe
Barrel Sampler
Posts:2098
| | 04/09/2005 4:33 AM |
| | Gastro - have I just not been in the correct threads, or have you been absent from VC for a while? | | | |
| ChangeMe
Grape Fermenter
Posts:442
| | 04/09/2005 9:34 AM |
| A HELL of a while, to tell the truth! I've been horribly busy for such a long time I've begun to think this life is "normal". You all met me unemployed so I always had plenty of time...
Now I'm almost anecdotic at WS (after they began to charge even for downloading the home page I grew a little cold) and all I ever do is turn up at Squires every now and then because there's a bunch of Spaniards.
As for VC the forum ramification has always put me off a little, and the "one wine per post" thing prevents me from just throwing up megaposts so I occasionally answer but do not open threads...
(It's great to have a job at last and be able to complain about minor things like these ) | | | |
| Pool Boy
Laurl, MD (DC suburb)
Master of Wine
Posts:13660
| | 04/18/2005 12:36 AM |
| Quote:
As for VC the forum ramification has always put me off a little, and the "one wine per post" thing prevents me from just throwing up megaposts so I occasionally answer but do not open threads...
So just do some mega-posts, dude, like Florida Jim has been doing. We can handle it!  | |
www.roguefood.com -- www.cellartracker.com | |
| ChangeMe
Grape Fermenter
Posts:442
| | 04/18/2005 8:39 AM |
| OK:
Tuesday morning found me in front of breakfast (Actimel, coffee, grapefruit slices, orange juice) almost worried about what would follow. Life can be so mean…
We attended talks all morning, including those by coorganizer Raimudo García del Moral and Quique Dacosta. Raimundo explained the theoretical principles behind sensorial perception, Quique applies them beautifully from his restaurant El Poblet, in Denia. Víctor de la Serna took us on a trip to the origins of experimentation in modern cuisine, and warned that we should not lose sight of tradition. Immediately after that Jorge Pascual, President of the CRDO Jerez… informed us of the activities of the Aula de Formación (ie: most people who try real Sherry actually love it, or, paraphrasing Jeffs: Sherry is an acquired taste that’s truly worth acquiring). The audience had been warmed up and now it was the turn of Jesús Barquín, who would not let anybody sleep during his intervention on the VOS/VORS categories. This relatively new classification is far more troublesome than it seems. It is not enough for a producer to have the age of a butt certified, the wine must also obtain the approval of a tasting board and eventually the proud owner can only put in the market a number of bottles 20 (for VOS) or 30 (for VORS) times smaller than his reserves of that same solera. And that year after year. No wonder these are getting expensive. And if we are to believe Jesús—who adopted his most apocalyptic St. John the Divine impersonation—sherry will get dearer still. Luckily after that we were relieved by the cheerful wit of Viridiana’s Abraham García, in his distinctively personal style.
It was at this moment that Time stoppeth and we left for Restaurante Velázquez where the truffle on the cherry on the cream on the pastry on the cake awaited us. What happened next no rhyme can tell.
As we walked in a welcome glass of Tío Pepe was a tad lighter than expected, but there had been no such thing as a change in the house style. It turned out that it had been bottled the week before. Not that I’d have guessed but I was lucky enough to share a table with part of the sherry intelligentsia, including Jesús, Paco del Castillo, and Eduardo Ojeda of the Estévez Group. A quick glance at the menu made me salivate until I found myself sitting in the middle of a puddle:
Quisquillas, gazpacho de sus cabezas, Palomitas de tomate RAF y aceite de oliva (Dani García), with Tío Pepe.
The novelty here was not the quisquilla, but the “popcorn” of RAF tomato and olive oil, a wonderful curiosity, a little marvel. We had seen the ‘frozen’ olive oil turning into a semolina; now it had been blended with tomato water and the emulsion siphoned on liquid nitrogen to produce these frozen popcorn-shaped pellets. Needless to say, when these melted in the mouth the taste was more intense and authentic than any tomato I had ever tried. The coupling with the raw quisquillas and gazpacho of their heads—awesome flavors—is sublime. 93+ for the dish, 92+ for the fino, 91 for the pairing.
Jugo de centolla con manzanilla (Dani García), with Manzanilla ‘Saca de Invierno’ (winter bottling) ‘en rama’ (unfiltered) Barbadillo.
Another little orgy for the islander in me. The King crab appeared in a sort of stew with meaty chunks, very hot, and the surprise was a cloud of frozen manzanilla floating on the soup. That manzanilla foam can get quite bitter, but once we spooned it with some sweet crab the balance was great. It didn’t take a genius to guess that the pairing with Barbadillo’s ‘En Rama’ would be outrageous. 94 for the dish, 93 for the wine, 95 for the pairing.
Gazpachos manchegos (Manolo de la Osa), with Amontillado VORS Tradición.
Can you imagine me SILENT? Good Lord, this was unbelievable! The Gazpacho appeared as a rather large ravioli in the middle of the most succulent game stew a bowl has ever hosted. Once opened it was full of minced game and ‘galianos’ (traditional flour tortilla slices). Mixing it with the juice in our mouths reconciled us with the world. This is what gastronomy is all about. This dish had a nose that could alone revive a legion of zombies. Add to that the best wine in the course of the three days and there you are! The amontillado exhibited a most impressive nose, deep, warm, exciting, with all the range of nuts imaginable, old solera, cathedral carpentry (you know what I mean), no shyness in the nose at all. In the mouth it was equally fascinating, rich with nuances, endless, a real joy.
98 for the dish, 97+ for the wine, 98+ for the pairing.
Tocino de esturión ahumado, migas, melón y escabeche de bígaros (Dani García), with Fino Amontillado Coquinero.
And when we thought nothing could beat that…uh…almost! This was a true rarity because the smoked sturgeon ventrescas (belly cuts) had been ordered specifically from the Piscifactoría de Riofrío for this meal. What an orgy. The sturgeon was tender beyond belief, these cuts were rich with fat; the melon refreshed and perfumed, the crunchy bread ‘migas’ offered interesting contrast, the bígaros added salty sea notes. Moreover, Coquinero is a wonderful little prodigy of a wine, halfway between the liveliness of the fino and the properly oxidative character of an amontillado. Imagine what a Botaina could have done there!
97 for the dish, 92+ for the wine, 96 for the pairing.
Cordero confitado en leche a las especias (Manolo de la Osa) with Oloroso Dos Cortados.
Totally oblivious of my fishetarianism, I enjoyed this a great deal too. Exquisitely tender and juicy, the lamb confit in milk had been touched with herbs and spices and again the nose was superb. The meat was firm but tender, aromatic and delicious. The oloroso pairing was pretty good, but because the wine was clearly superior we asked and got another pour of Amontillado. 94 for the dish, 92 for the oloroso, 94 for the pairing (96 for the amontillado match).
Cerveza, naranja y chocolate (Manolo de la Osa) with Venerable PX VORS.
There’s little I can add about Venerable, really, except that it was extraordinarily expressive even fresh from the bottle. The concept behind the dish was as solid as the table it was served on, and I’m no beer drinker. Funny, though, the beer was the best part of the dish (it appeared as a sorbet that both balanced and refreshed the unctuous chocolate and the orange foam). Textbook combination. 94 for the dessert, 98++ for the PX, 97 for the pairing.
Chocolate, galleta y merengue de leche fresca (Dani García), again with Venerable (like one could get tired).
Germán by my side nailed this: “this is an Oreo deconstructed!” The chocolate appeared in two textures, the biscuit had been ground to a sort of semolina (not frozen now, just crunchy), and the only ‘but’ is that the milk meringue is refreshing to be sure but a tad insipid to be on par (for example against the wine). 92 for the dish, 98++ for the PX, 93 for the pairing.
After this indescribably sinful experience we simply crowned the meal with a dry Oloroso Covadonga VORS that was extremely dry and austere (and appropriate for the moment). Let’s say 94 for a certain shyness in the nose at the moment. It needed lots of air and we only had so much time. We drove (or rather we took a leap of faith in our new friend and driver Pepe Ferrer) back to the conference venue for more lectures on physics in the kitchen and the interventions by Eduardo Ojeda and Paco del Castillo on different aspects of sherry production and marketing.
To conclude let’s simply say that afterwards I spent three days without a proper meal, living on orange-colored Aquarius in the midst of an American Literature conference.
I want to—indeed I must—say THANKS to everyone involved in the Granada event, from the fathers of the creature to the last waiter. Many, many years from now, when I raise the parting glass, the memory of these days will put a smile on my lips and doubtless a frown on St. Peter’s face… | | | |
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