Match of the week

Octopus and albarino

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on October 25 2018 at 10:50

Octopus is a bit of a cult ingredient on restaurant menus at the moment. I’ve already noted two good wine pairings for it - with Baga and orange wine but this weekend I found another at the Sabor pop-up Polperia at the Dartmouth Food Festival.

Chef Nieves Barragan was serving it very simply - boiled in a huge vat of boiling salted water and dressed with good olive oil and a sprinkling of pimenton - and offering a glass of Mar de Frades albarino from Rias Baixas on the side. The clean slightly saline wine was just perfect with the octopus, offsetting the richness of the oil and accentuating the spicy pimenton.

Given I’ve now shown it goes with white wine, red wine and orange or amber wine it actually turns out to be a really easy ingredient to match! I suspect it would work well with a dry rosé too.

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