The best wine pairings for Spanish tapas
How do you pair a meal that consists of a dozen little dishes? Here’s Libby’s guide to the best wine to serve alongside sensational Spanish produce
Pairing wine to food is all very well but what about tapas, when dinner is a dozen or more little dishes? A wine that suits whitebait is not necessarily going to work with patatas bravas.
I joined a friend for a tapas lunch last week at El Pirata of Mayfair, which purports to have one of the largest selections of Spanish wine in London at over 140 bottles. In a sea of slick modern restaurants, El Pirata is deliciously nostalgic.
Painted in black and white, with a long black bar, black waxy tablecloths and framed posters of Picasso and Miro, it feels like Withnail (and I) opened a restaurant with Black Sabbath. A Narnia-esque lamp post stands incongruously inside the door as you enter. Arty, eccentric, cool in how little it cares about being so – it feels like London from its late 80s to early 90s heyday. I was delighted by it and the multiple plates of tapas were fantastic, too.
The best wine to pair with Spanish tapas: from Cava to fruity reds
An Albarino was suggested to go with creamy croquettes and prawns (“Albarino should always be first choice for seafood”). A small bottle of excellent, chilled La Goya Manzanilla sherry was served with salty slivers of jamon that melted on the tongue. My pairing of the meal.
I asked the general manager which wine he would choose if he could only have one and, after expressing a personal preference for the balanced wines of Ribera del Douro, he suggested either a refreshing but complex Cava or a rosé which could temper the spice of some dishes but not dominate any of the more delicate ones.
We bumped into Jose Vicente Pacheco too, managing director of C&D Wines who supply El Pirata – he agreed about rosé. “Provence rosés are made to be drunk easily, without complexity, but Spanish rosé is made to be had with food. They are usually two or three percent more alcoholic and traditionally have a more beautiful complexity”.
He advised us to also try an entire meal with different styles of sherry as they would do in Madrid or Southern Spain. A Fino or Manzanilla is the aperitif of choice with anything salty like olives, nuts, seafood and slices of jamon and the deeper Oloroso styles go with venison, lambs and rich stews.
If you are not ready to take the plunge and go “full sherry” then here are a few general guidelines to help picks some wines for your tapas.
• Match the food and wine’s intensity. Light bites with lighter wines, heartier tapas dishes with fuller-bodied wines.
• Go for the region’s own wines, after all they were all created to go together. If you are enjoying Spanish tapas, check out the Riojas and Ruedas.
• Suit the spice. Those drying tannins you find in reds can enflame the heat of spices, so go for that if you like to feel the burn but in general fruitier reds, such as a Garnacha or a softer white like Godello, are good options.
• If in doubt, go sparkling. Bubbles are a blessing when it comes to food pairing. The acidity in the wines and the bubbles themselves act as palate cleansers to refresh the fat, salt and creaminess of a variety of dishes. Traditional method sparkling, such as Cava, also offers enough complexity to match food too. And let’s face it, they scream celebratory fun.
• Tapas is meant to be relaxed and enjoyable, the coming together to informally share various dishes. Order by the glass or carafe in a restaurant to have a drinks selection as diverse as the dinner and if hosting at home the best bet is to offer a couple of different bottles to suit your guest’s preferences.
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