Pairings | Rioja reserva

The best food pairings for rioja

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on October 24 2024 at 09:02

Rioja - and by that I mean red rioja - is one of the UK’s best-loved wines and one of the easiest ones to match with food too.

As you’d expect it pairs particularly well with Spanish food especially lamb and pork and recipes that contain red peppers, pimenton, garlic and saffron.

The main thing to bear in mind is the style of the wine - whether it’s a young (joven) rioja which can handle quite robust, even spicy dishes, or an older (reserva or gran reserva) one which would benefit from more simply prepared food.

Riojas that are made in a more modern style can also handle more spice than more traditional ones. Modern Indian food with rioja is a surprising hit.

These dishes will generally work with most riojas:

* Almost any kind of lamb dish from roast lamb to tender lamb cutlets grilled over vine clippings (a local favourite in the region) to slow braised lamb shanks or even a rogan josh. Shepherds pie, Lancashire hotpot, merguez, moussaka . . . It’s hard to think of a lamb dish that doesn’t work with rioja.

To gain full access to this article and other premium content you need to purchase a bundle of credits which you can do as a one-off purchase or - and this is better value if you consult the site regularly - on an ongoing subscription basis. (1 credit = 1 article)

To buy credits you need to register an account, which which is easy to do here. Or just sign in to your account if you already have one.

If you’d like be able to check out all the food and wine pairings on the site you can buy a bundle of credits here to access my premium content.

And/or for regular updates on what and where I’ve been eating, drinking and travelling sign up for my weekly newsletter Eat This, Drink That, Live Well.