What to cook with Tempranillo? A Spanish feast for Rioja, Ribera and Toro.

One grape, many names and styles

Tempranillo goes by many names: Tinto Fino or Tinta del País in Ribera del Duero, Tinta de Toro in Toro, Aragonez in southern Portugal and Tinta Roriz in the Douro. The two hosts even test each other on the list.

Altitude helps explain the styles. The top vineyards of Ribera del Duero sit at around 800 to 1,000 meters, and the wines can be dark, fiery and tannic. Rioja is a little lower and its classic wines are lighter, more red-fruited and often released with some maturity. Toro is lower still, giving riper, warmer and richer wines that can be rustic but charming when well made.

Ribera del Duero with duck confit and lentils

Andreas brings a wine from his own cellar: Valbuena 5º from Vega Sicilia, one of Spain’s most legendary producers, from the 2013 vintage and now showing beautiful maturity. He describes it as powerful yet elegant. His philosophy: a truly great wine deserves fairly straightforward, honest flavors.

He cooks duck confit-style in its own fat with chorizo, then serves it with black Beluga lentils cooked with a bouquet garni and finished in the chorizo-scented duck fat, plus roasted piquillo peppers. Rich, deep flavors meet a wine with dark fruit and real structure. He also shares a useful tip: salt anything with skin in advance to dry it out and make it crisper. Beluga lentils need no soaking and cook in about 10 minutes, and Andreas calls lentils the caviar of vegetarian heaven.

Classic Rioja with Manchego croquetas

Fredrik picks one of the great traditional Riojas, Viña Tondonia from López de Heredia, vintage 2010. It is old school in the best way: released already mature, slightly oxidative, lighter, red-fruited and delicate, with clear oak character.

His dish is a tapas bar classic: croquetas made from a very thick béchamel filled with Manchego cheese, breaded and deep-fried at about 180°C. Andreas teases him for going vegetarian, until some Serrano ham finds its way into the mix. Fatty, salty and creamy, the croquetas soften beautifully against the wine’s mature, savory notes. Fredrik also adds a splash of Tempranillo to the cooking, a simple way to build a bridge between dish and glass. His method is easy to copy: make the béchamel extra thick, chill it so it holds its shape, then coat the balls in flour, egg and breadcrumbs before frying them for a minute or two.

Toro, jamón and the oak question

A third wine arrives from Toro, served with Serrano and Bellota ham. The fat and salt of great cured ham call for a ripe, powerful red, and Andreas calls Bellota pata negra the best ham in the world.

The hosts also debate oak, a hot topic in Spain. Andreas once joked that the three challenges of Spanish wine were oak, oak and oak, yet he argues that a responsible touch of American oak, with its vanilla and sweet spice, is part of the classic Rioja style. Fredrik adds that the quality of the oak and the winemaking matters more than the time in barrel. They also share their love of Spanish gastronomy, tapas hopping and the rule of thumb they keep coming back to: what grows together goes together.

Duck or croquetas?

With a new AI poster, a nap in the middle of cooking and plenty of teasing, it is a lively episode. Watch to see whether Andreas’ rich duck with lentils stands strong against Fredrik’s croquetas when the crew comes down to taste. Fredrik feels confident, since he knows the crew loves anything deep-fried.