GOURMET INTERNATIONAL | REVIEWS OF FINE FOOD AND WINE RESTAURANTS Join our international membership and submit your review of a gourmet restaurant

Wines and their drinkers are a rich mixture of different palates and different tastes so that individual preference come into play early on in the encounter.
To say there are no bad wines would be an exaggeration unless you have an alcohol problem,  in which case this post is hardly likely to be of any interest to you.

Matching wines to different food dishes so that the wine and the food being consumed help to enhance the overall experience is certainly something worthy of a little time investment, and although I would never pretend to be a wine buff nor for that matter would I pretend to know everything about food and the huge variety of dishes that modern day restaurants or even private parties might provide I do, however,  have a deep interst in maximising dining and drinking experiences to achieve the best experience.

I am sure that you too have had dining experiences which because of the company, the party or the restaurant, have remained in your memory as a pleasant or even outstanding experience that you treasure.  It is to this quest to have even more good experiences to remember that I offer some guidance as to the ideal mix that I offer this article.

In times gone past, the basic rules were white wine with fish or poultry and red wine with red meats and cheese with sherry to start and port to finish.  With the increased globalization of cuisine this simple fomula has changed somewhat and the choices of dishes available and the changes in dining, the rules as once was have become a little more sophisticated and therefore some guidance, rather than hard and fast rules, are more helpful.

Let us start with the pre-dinner nibbles that occur primarily for the host to provide a welcome and provide the time for those last minute adjustments that we all find necessary to make.

Pre-dinner nibbles are best when they are accompanied by a manzanilla sherry or a chilled fino.  The two classics and best appetite whetters are sparkling wine and dry sherry.  A light, non-vintage champagne or a lighter Californian or New Zealand sparklers is a good choice.  However, if serving highly seasoned canape´s , then a good dry sherry is to be preferred.

A cautionary note – always serve modest amounts of appetizers.

Posted under Featured Articles

Where wine producers are constrained by quotas, the producer has to limit the number of bottles of wine that they are allowed to produce in any one year.  It does not matter that it has been a particularly good year for wine production, the limit is the limit and the producer must not exceed his quota.  In European countries where this regulation is enforced, it can mean that some of the best wine would go to waste.   This quota can however work in your favour because some of the surplus wine is sold to enterprising bodegas where you can have the wine in bottles with your own label.  I don’t know about you, but the label has never been that important to me but the wine is.  You can’t drink a label!

There is such a bodega in Torre del Mar near Velez Malaga, where a charming and very knowledgeable lady sells such wine and at the most affordable prices.  If you buy wine according to price and not taste then you can probably buy a decent wine for just a little over a Euro.  However, my advice would be to ask the lady.  Her knowledge of wine is almost inexhaustible and you might just as well benefit from the advice which has been gathered over a large number of years.

Describe the wine that you like and she will undoubtedly find just what you are looking for.  If you like wine and most people do, even if they are not drinking it all the time, why not treat yourself to a real experience where you can explore using someone else’s knowledge to your benefit and to the benefit of your pocket.  After all, it makes sense to buy the best but it also makes sense to not pay full whack for what you enjoy.

You could also design your own label and have your own HOUSE RED OR WHITE.  It might also be a unique present for friends who have a birthday or some other celebration.

Open Monday to Friday 10 -2 and 5.30 to 8 pm and 10 to 2 on Saturdays
Telephone:  952 545 804
Vinomar can be found at Calle Piscis Bajo 1B, Torre de Mar
For those with a GPS   36°44’48.20″N  4° 5’23.63″W

Posted under Featured Articles

My friends had called upon me unexpectedly and said they wanted to go for tapas and drink, and asked me if I would like to join them.  Of course unless you are actually on your death bed you should leap at every opportunity to avail yourself of the excellent food available in Andalucia, so I immediately accepted the invitation.  Walking down to the Capri tapas restaurant we were disappointed to find that they were closed, but I had a brainwave and suggested that we walk a little further down to the terminus of the new railway/tram station to the Meson Iberico la Estacion Restaurant Bar that another friend, viz.,  Pilar, had told me about.  Tom was with us in his wheelchair so we were a little circumspect about the proposed visit to this restaurant as none of us had visited before.  We need not have been anxious as entry was easy and the owner cleared a way for us and simply re-arranged the tables.

What was intended to be just a simple snack turned out to be a full-blown meal with entertainment thrown in.  We had asked for a selection of fish and had a massive plate of salad and a plate of prawns as a starter, with all four of us tucking in with gusto.  Later a plate of calamari and a plate of grilled fish were served with beautiful fresh bread.  As a compliment to the food we were served an excellent house wine which was delicious and left a delightful flavour in the mouth.  We had really only anticipated stopping for thirty minutes or so, but the time rushed by as we sat and chatted to the owner in Spanish with one of his companions talking to us in excellent English. Read More…

Posted under Restaurant Reviews

One of my pet hates is to have a cork-in-the-bottle disaster where the cork disintegrates and you end up with bits of cork in your wine and when somehow, a few little bits of cork always manage to avoid your most careful examination. A good bottle opener that overcomes this problem is always worthy of inclusion in your kitchen armory and these are just a few of my favourites, although I no longer have all of them and rely upon a couple of reliable types that I have around my home.

One of the easiest openers to use and which is the very same as most waiters carry about their person, i.e. the pen knife with a lever arrangement with a short blade to cut through the foil at the top of the bottle. Although it is quite a common bottle opener I don´t think it is necessarily the easiest to use.

I no longer wish to have a problem extracting a cork by trying to hold onto the bottle whilst a particularly stubborn specimen of a cork tries to resolutely maintain its position in the neck of the bottle, refusing to budge, in spite of my very best efforts. Thus, the traditional pull type of cork extractor that historically clutters the kitchen drawer has slowly died out and is used as a very last resort when your favourite cork screw has mysteriously hidden itself since the last dinner party. You will probably locate it later during a spring clean, hiding itself beneath a sofa trying to avoid detection. Read More…

Posted under Featured Articles