Match of the week

Beef cheek arancini with a (very special) Spanish garnacha

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on July 13 2020 at 14:27

In some cases it doesn’t matter what form an ingredient takes, if it’s present in a dish it dominates the match. So Claire Thomson of 5 o’clock apron’s innovative beef cheek and black rice arancini which she brought to a (very soggy) outdoor picnic last week hosted outside by wine importer Carte Blanche was just as good a pairing with a grenache as braised beef cheek would have been. In fact the dark nutty rice added an extra dimension which made it even more interesting.

The wine - a 2018 Spanish garnacha from called Camino de Otsaka was admittedly a bit special though - almost more like a red burgundy than a grenache and quite thrillingly intense. It’s from Aseginolaza & Leunda in Navarra who make their wines in microscopic quantities with a minimum of sulphur and without fining or filtering. Only 365 bottles of the Osaka were produced of which only 60 bottles made their way into the UK. That’s reflected in the price of between £40-45 a bottle - you are literally paying for a wine almost nobody gets to drink. You can buy it from Element Wines in Scotland, Chesters of Abergavenney and Bin Two in Padstow who are also selling it as part of their Wine Car Boot case.

You can find some of Claire’s other recipes on this website and in the Telegraph for which she writes regularly.

I attended the tasting as a guest of Carte Blanche Wines.

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