Last evening Daniel Hall and his lovely wife Robanna stopped by for dinner on their way home from Taos. We started around the coffee table in the living room with two 2004 Spanish reds from Ribera del Duero - a Flor de Pingus and a Marîa from Alonso del Yerro: The María was light, fruity and very nice; the Flor de Pingus was complex with good fruit. We had Spanish appetizers with the wines: mussels in a paprika sauce, squid in a Marinara sauce, olives stuffed with garlic, almonds, and anchovies, and three kinds of small sausages - Chorizo de Bilbao, chorizo de Catalunya, and a generic Spanish chorizo. The wines were very good with the appetizers.
When we were finished with the appetizers, we moved to the dining table for a rich lamb stew - made with 2 lbs of Shepherd’s lamb stew meat, rich lamb stock, two brown onions cut into eighths, one head of garlic with cloves cut into quarters. 1/4 cup of sweet Smoked Spanish paprika, 2 Tbs each of Agridulce and Hot Smoked Spanish paprika were added with two hours to go. The wines with the stew were also Ribera del Dueros - A 2003 Flor de Pingus and a 2004 Alonso del Yerro - both were nicely rich, complex, fruity and very good with the stew. Daniel had seconds of the stew and we were all full enough that we didn’t have cheese or dessert.