Match of the week

Fried acedias and Hidalgo Pastrana Manzanilla Pasada

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on January 21 2013 at 16:43

Last week I was in Sanlucar, the Spanish town in the south of Spain where they make manzanilla, so what else could my match of the week be but a sherry?

We visited Bodega Hidalgo to select a sherry for Sam and Eddie Hart’s restaurant Fino which celebrates its 10th anniversary this March (about which more in due course). Afterwards we went to a tapas bar with the owner Javier Hidalgo and tucked into an amazing array of incredibly fresh fish and shellfish.

We drank Hidalgo’s basic La Gitana manzanilla with the cold dishes then the slightly more complex, textured manzanilla pasada from the Pastrana vineyard which was particularly good with the fried and grilled fish tapas especially some small fried soles called acedias, some grilled corvina, a similar fish to sea bass, which was served with a crunchy cabbage salad and skate in a seville orange sauce.

I love sherry on almost any occasion but there’s absolutely nothing to compare with drinking it on the spot with the local produce.

Both sherries are really good value - La Gitana is about £5.49 a half bottle and the manzanilla pasada pastrana around £13.75 though just £9.99 a bottle if you’re smart enough to be a member of the Wine Society.

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