Cigales rosé with Tandoori chicken
Cigales rosé
Winery CRDO
www.do-cigales.es
D.O.: Cigales
Grapes: Tinto fino / Tinto del país
Ageing: No
Price: 4/6 €
Excerpt from the book “Pairings of spanish wines with exotic cuisines”.
Click to see the preparation of these dishes, in Asian recipes.
Spanish winemakers seem to have fallen into the apathy of losers and have given up on rosé wines. I find this attitude incomprehensible on the basis that these wines are certainly perfect to go with exotic cuisines, with the added benefit of their excellent price and a quality that has reached maximum levels over recent decades.
This wine has no commercial trade mark; it is the one that has been chosen by the Regulatory Council for its promotional events. We must thank them for their good work, otherwise we would not have had a rosé wine in this book.
They are fresh, fruity, young, clean wines that invite to chatting and good mood, and can be paired with the most difficult dishes, including asparagus and artichokes.
Tandoori chicken
“Tandoori” means “clay oven”, but also all the dishes cooked in it, so this is basically a roasted chicken.
When you see the ingredients list in the recipe you will understand that it has nothing to do with those roasted chickens we buy in the supermarket. This one requires a long marinating process in yoghurt with lemon juice and spices, but, as it usually happens in India, there are a thousand variations according to the composition of the “Garam Masala”, that is, the blend of spices used.
It is a very popular dish in India and in other nearby countries, such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, even Thailand, Singapore or Malaysia, but with different features in each of them
Pairing
I have chosen this dish, so common in the Indo-Asian area, not only for how well these wines go with those spices, but also as a point of reference in a kind of cooking characterized by flavours so strong that very few wines can withstand.
Curry, spiced rice, salads with spicy and exotic fruits, a variety of presentations that seem to have been designed to spoil the best wines... it is not surprising that wine had not been consumed in these countries until the Western costumes arrived.
These wines have primary fruity, sometimes flowery, flavours, but with an acidity structure that is capable of cleaning and restoring balance in our mouths after such hot bites.