Priorat: Part 2 (black wine, pineapple carpaccio and salt cod tripe)

On our second day, we visited one of the finest wineries of the Montsant denominación de origen, Joan d'Anguera in Darmós. The young and disarmingly charming winemakers, brothers Joan and Josep, greeted us and led us on a tour and tasting of their goods. One of their wines, El Bugader, was recently called one of the best wines in all of Spain by the influential Robert Parker (I'll save my Parker rant for another post, because in this case he is right). One look at the 2002 vintage of this wine and you understand why the Catalan term for red wine is vi negre (black wine). Mostly Syrah, with some garnacha and cabernet sauvignon, this spicy monster needs about 5 more years before it will fully open up and achieve its glory. I also loved their sweet red dessert wine, which had notes of cacao, almonds and orage peel and cried out for a rich chocolate dessert, but alas it is not exported.

After a visit to a local ceramic shop to pick up a beautiful new mortar and pestle (my third), we lunched at an adorable bistro in Falset with just 20 seats. Run by a husband and wife, El Cairat (C/Nou, 3, Falset, tel. 34-977-830481) served modern interpretations on traditional Caltalonian food. We started with my favorite sardines, lightly marinated and served with olive oil, lemon confit, pimenton and dried poppy seed flowers. Scrumptious. Our second course was a lovely fresh fettucine with a light tomato sauce, oregano and mozzarella. Catalonia, being near Italy, is the only region of Spain that serves pasta. Cannaloni are especially popular. Our main course was loin of my other favorite, pork. But this was not just any pork, but the king of pigs, the acorn-fed Iberian black-hoofed pig. After an intermezzo of watermelon sorbet, dessert was a show stopper: paper-thin slices of pineapple carpaccio with crema catalana, similar to crème brulée, spooned in the middle. This was a lovely contrast flavors and textures, creamy, tangy, smooth and crunchy.

After a siesta, we were ready for our second cooking class. Our starter was a sopa de peix de roca, a brothy rock-fish soup laced with saffron and garlic. The base was the tiny crabs, eels and shrimp-like critters that make Mediterranean fish soups so impossible to reproduce anywhere else. Locally they refer to these animals as rock-fish, because they are found amongst the rocks along the shore.

Our main course was incredible and equally challenging to recreate. My desription will probably make you cringe, but the result was complex and savory. It was a stew of tripa de bacallá, the salted tripe of the cod (who knew cod had tripe?), and sípia, cuttlefish. After a long cooking of almost 2 hours, the cuttlefish was tender and the tripe was meltingly gelatinous. The dish took on an incredible complexity of flavor with the addition of anise liquor, sweet muscat and, hold onto your seats, chocolate. The flavors magically tamed the tannins of the bold Montsant red that we tasted earlier in the day, El Bugader.

Dessert was a refreshing martini glass full of local berries macerated in a local dessert wine, the perfect ending to a uniquely Catalonian meal.

Comments

[souver]

"Catalonia, being near Italy, is the only region of Spain that serves pasta. "

??? Maybe here in Catalonia we traditionally eat more pasta than the rest of Spain...but pasta dishes are very popular all over Spain !!!

[Brett]

Hi souver, thanks for stopping by. Pasta dishes are popular everywhere, including here in the US. What I suppose I was referring to was that your lovely region is the only Spanish region that I am aware of that has its own indigenous pasta, fideus.