Dinner at Home: 16th March 2009.

Yesterday was my mom's 1st death anniversary (coincidentally also the 3rd of Mrs. Doc's father, who is my wife's uncle). We keep things simple in my family, so we were to just attend mass in the evening and my immediate family would have dinner at the house. This meant leaving the office early as my wife had to be back to prepare our paella, so, after two meetings, we headed back southward. The dinner menu my father wanted was Spanish inspired:

Paella

Grilled Prawns

Lengua Estofado

Callos á la Madrileña

Paella

Grilled Prawns with Lemon Butter Sauce

Lengua Estofado (I failed to get a close up of the Callos)

With the paella and grilled prawns, I served an old reliable rosado:

2007 Homenaje Rosado (Bodegas Marco Real, Navarra) - I've mentioned this old reliable rosado many times throughout my blog, and it is as consistent as it is good. I "discovered" it sometime in early 2008 while having a multi-tapas lunch with my wife and kids at Terry's Segundo Piso and have gone through so many bottles of it I've long lost count.

As you can see, it is a clear, translucent celebratory cherry-red. Served properly chilled, this simple, honest, straightforward rosé will easily charm you with its fresh, clean, dry, virtually crisp, well-focused dominant flavors of (in order of prominence) ripe strawberry, raspberry, light hint of cherry. Definitely dangerously drinkable.

I really should stock up on a lot of this stuff for the summer - before my foodie and wino friends beat me to it and Terry's runs out of it again.

With the heavier lengua and callos dishes, I served...

2001 Beronia Rioja Reserva - I quickly grabbed a couple of bottles of this off the shelf of Terry's last I was there, thinking it was the 2001 Grand Reserva I so enjoyed from Johnny R a few weeks ago at our first kokotxas dinner. It was only when I got home that I realized that what I grabbed was the Reserva instead of the Gran Reserva. No matter, thought I, it just meant (assumedly) comparatively shorter oak ageing (a good thing for me) and, likely, earlier maturing (which I have no problem with at all).

After approximately 30 minutes in a decanter and another 15 minutes in my glass, this displayed aromas of dark fruit with trace nuances of meat, balsamico, leather and licorice, cedar, slightly toasty oak/vanilla, hint of cinammon, slight topnotes of strawberry and cherry. Could use just a touch more of acidity, but, in all, I enjoyed it a lot. At approximately P1400 per bottle before discount, it's a great deal.

In the mouth, it was entertainingly rounded, supple, warm and comforting, with healthy extraction and concentration (not anywhere near over-the-top). Good, plumpish middle, admirable mouthfeel and heft in its just-over-medium body. Moderately ripe dark fruit, plum, bit of tobacco and licorice, well-integrated vanilla/oak dominate with highlights of black cherry and strawberry.

My brother and sis-in-law felt that it paired exceptionally well with the callos.

Dessert was a bunch of some sort of over-sized profiteroles that my sister brought. My kids seemed to like them well enough, but, then, most kids will tend to like any dessert involving cream and chocolate. Mine do, anyway.


We didn't linger long after a few double espressos since it was a work/school day the next day. It was good to get together in Mom's memory.