By Compiled by CHRIS SHERMAN
Published November 16, 2005
Nuts, sure. But what else tastes great with sherry? Almost anything: Sherry has a wide spectrum, from crisp clean finos to thick rich creams. The easy route with any wine is food from the same neighborhood.
When Tampa's Columbia restaurant hosted Emilio Lustau of the fabled sherry house as part of its year of Spanish wine dinners, the menu was a handy guide of tapas and other Spanish foods to match with various sherries.
Fino: The driest of sherries goes with Serrano ham, Manchego cheese, olives.
Manzanilla: The salty edge is perfectfor shrimp grilled with olive oil.
Amontillado: A smooth, nutty style matched spicy crab croquettes, octopus in olive oil and paprika. A rich, raisiny amontillado was served with meat empanadas.
Oloroso: Its rich taste and big aroma were paired with barbecued lamb ribs.
Cream: A sweet dark style made from an oloroso complemented veal shank in red wine glaze.
East India Solera: A rich, figgy cream sherry was served with apples and cabrales, the Spanish bleu cheese.
MERLOT CHALLENGE
New York wineries think they've found their niche with merlot, the blending grape of Bordeaux and the soft-spoken star of the Right Bank. Merlot has been the most successful French grape at the tip of Long Island, where 33 wineries now make merlot. (New York's other promising red is cabernet franc.)
The new alliance of merlot partisans has a logo (a la the East Fork) and an upcoming wine that blends grapes from five of them. They contend that their merlot, ripe and with more acid, beats California's.
A fun contest and not a bad idea, merlot of any nationality has always been a good match with duck, another pride of Long Island.
CALIFORNIA BRAGGIN'
By the numbers, the Wine Institute says California now has 513,000 acres of vineyards in 93 recognized districts. It has 1,300 physical wineries making wine under 60,000 labels. They attracted 14.8-million visitors (even before Sideways), second only to Disneyland.
Fact sheet from the WI's number crunchers also answered this stumper: How many grapes in a bottle of wine? Six to eight clusters of about 100 berries each.
One statistic we doubt: A bottle of sparkling wine contains 44-million bubbles. Who's counting?
And how?
A FOOL'S GOLD RUSH?
Every year the flood of fresh wine and hype from France over the latest vintage brings fresh whining too. The nouveaux go on sale at midnight and stores and restaurants will start pouring the nouveau from more than a half dozen importers. Expect prices to be around $10.
Is it worth it?
Chris Sherman will start sampling Thursday and post his opinions on the Stir Crazy blog this weekend. Read them at www.sptimes.com/blogs/food
Compiled by Chris Sherman. He can be reached at 727 893-8585 or sherman@sptimes.com
