Rioja Paired | Episode 1: Marti | Basque Markets, Cuisine, and the Best Rioja Wines

There's no place quite like Spain's Rioja region. Sleek modern buildings elegantly juxtaposed with thousands of years of history. The people brim with passion and over each rolling hill you'll find yet another breathtaking vista, even better than the last. It's no surprise tourists travel from all over the world to visit, but how does a native of Birmingham, Alabama like me end up living here? Two words. Food and wine. I'm Marti Buckley, an award-winning author, chef and expert on Spanish and Basque cuisine, but I wasn't always. Yeah, it was kind of rough and it is rough coming into a James Beard award-winning restaurant on your first night and on a busy night and trying to prove yourself. Well, afterwards I remember Marti thinking that she was not coming back. We went and talked about the night and I said, let's give it another try. Let's see what we can do tomorrow. And she was more than happy to come back. And that was kind of just the beginning of something great. It was super fun to see her in the kitchen for the next year. During that year and towards the end of that year, we had constantly been talking about what she was really wanting to do as the next step. And having that dream of going to Spain was really still in the forefront of her mind. She had been on a previous trip and really wanted to revisit that. And she was scared. She was kind of, you know, timid about taking that next step. We really cheered her on and told her like, just, you got to go. Don't look back. Here we are in the old part of San Sebastian, the heart of the city that I have called my home for the last 14 years. If I'm telling you guys the truth, San Sebastian is probably the most perfect place in the world, an amazing place to live. There are mountains on one side, ocean on the other, and most importantly for me, amazing food, amazing wine, all in this tiny, tiny city. Being so close to the water provides an incredible opportunity for fresh seafood. Today, I'm going to meet my friend to see what looks good at the market. Spoiler alert, it's everything. How are you? Fine. Wow, this looks amazing. Beautiful. Yeah, what are you going to get today? It could not be any fresher. It looks amazing. Yeah, yeah. You see? Look at his eyes. Very, very, very beautiful fish. Yeah, perfect. In perfect condition. Oh, look at the hook. The hook from when he got caught this morning. I mean, that is top quality. In San Sebastian, the menu doesn't just change by the season, it changes by the day. The best restaurants source only the freshest ingredients from the land and the sea around them, which is why the market is such a vital link between the kitchens of the city and the local fishermen. In mid-July, we started the Bonito campaign. In November, we had a little bit of sardines, fish, salmon, linguados, pescadillas, abacantos, lobsters, from time to time, and that type of varied fish, which is what often surprises the restaurants we have. And that means that today we are lucky that the restaurants have a raw material from El Guía. Sustainable, best quality. Yeah. But is that all you're getting of all this? When you have a good ingredient, it's all you need for a good dish. And we have our secret sauce. Oh, I like the sound of that. Before cooking and having lunch, I'm going to indulge in a quintessential Spanish tradition, enjoying a pincho with a glass of wine. These small, flavorful bites are the perfect prelude to a meal, offering a taste of authentic Spanish culture. So here we are in the old part of San Sebastian, which is the birthplace of the pincho, the birthplace of this style of eating that is so special to Basque country and that I love. Coming into a bar, all the food on the counter, picking what you want, having a bite and having a wine to go with it, and of course, talking with your friends and hopping onto the next bar. When people think of Spain, the first food that comes to mind is tapas, but that is not what we're going to eat today. I love coming to this restaurant because it's always a surprise. I'm excited to see this. Okay, very simple, very easy when you're an amazing chef. This is very simple. This is vinegar with a little bit of white wine, salt, a little bit of garlic. This is the secret sauce. Yeah. Looks like a window cleaner, but it's really delicious. Natural. Then you want to finish with a beurre blanc and keep it simple. Firstly, when I was 15 years old, I'm a very bad student and I didn't want to study anything. And my mom put me to, I didn't want to study. I didn't want to finish the school. My mom put me into work, put me to work in a restaurant when I was 15 years old. And I started cleaning dishes. I was cleaning dishes one year and a half in this restaurant. And then I was evolving in the restaurant and it started like this. And after that, then I came to here. I developed my passion in the food like this way. What wine are you opening for us? So this is Valenciso Rioja 2022. Very good wine. We sell a lot here in the restaurant. It's fermentado in barrica. So have this like a berry of flavor that I like so much in, in white wines. And it's mostly Viura grapes, a little bit of Garnaccia Blanca and it's very, very cool wine. So a Viura white with a little bit of barrel aging and perfect, I guess, to pair with the food. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So let's see if I like it. More complexity. Amazing. Yeah. If you have a little bit barrel. The color is like a little bit darker than your typical. Yeah. Cheers. Thank you. This looks so good. It looks so fresh. Yeah. You see, you see the meat is like, it's just like flaking apart perfectly. I can't believe, you know, we were at the market this morning. We got these vegetables, this fish, and now we're eating it so simple, but so delicious. Oh my God. Okay. That's really good. Yeah. This is so succulent and juicy. Yeah. That's, that's, that's the thing about the dish. Like I say, very, very, very simple dish. And the fish, you know, it's just. It's all about, it's all about the product in the charcoal and that's it. The fish could not be fresher. I mean, you can taste it. This is not like any fish I've ever had. It's so fresh. We are not from here, but we choose to stay here because it's for something. Yeah. No, it's a beautiful place. Beautiful place. Amazing food. Amazing products. The city of Bilbao might as well be its own country. Each neighborhood has its own unique style, personality, and flavor. And I am all about the flavor. One of my favorite things to do is make the rounds for pinchas. So I'm at Barra de Lobo, one of my favorite spots. And with one of my favorite pinchas. This is the salmon marinado. Thinly sliced salmon, ground around a potato salad with tartar sauce. And it actually won the very first pincha competition in Bilbao in 1998. And I love to eat it every time I'm in town. This is perfection. Even better paired with this wine. This is a white Rioja wine made with and hand-harvested, fermented in concrete tanks, hand-harvested grapes, and made pincha with working escarole. Just like the Rioja region, Chef Yulin Vaz of Garena is known for juxtaposing rich tradition with modern innovation. Using only freshly harvested ingredients, Chef Vaz transports his guests through 500 years of history with farmhouse cuisine that feels both authentic and original. Garena's secret ingredient is its link to the land. Fresh organic produce, some of it from their very own garden, brings exceptional quality to their timeless dishes. Yulin, what are we going to make today? Well, we have a dish we call huerta. Huerta and legado, both ways. We call it huerta because the protagonists are the vegetables in our garden. It's crazy because every single thing you see here is just from like right outside, right down the street. Beautiful. Yeah, it didn't have anything that you wouldn't have in your own kitchen, but it put it together. It's super elegant. So good. The drive up here is almost amazing as the destination. I'm ending my day with some fireworks, both literal and figurative. We're here in the paella contest in Semana Grande in San Sebastian. We're going to go taste some paella. The paella contest is an explosion for the taste buds and competition is fierce. There's a lot of debate over where this iconic Spanish dish originated and who makes it the best. Okay, so this is like a basque paella. Simple, not that many ingredients. I'm smart enough not to take sides on such a heated topic. Sometimes the best thing to do is just shut up and eat, or in this case, drink some Rioja wine. Smells really good. So good. Oh, you see how I did? It's so good! It's amazing. Super bueno. I mean, this is really like the perfect pair. The rice with the rabbit and the beans and this fresh water. Thank you for bringing the awesome wine. Before I venture into the Rioja wine region, I'm stopping by Recondo for some advice from the best. Recondo has one of the top wine cellars in the world. You heard that right, the world. I think they'll be able to point me in the right direction. So this is heaven on earth. This is the wine cellar of the Recondo restaurant. My father, it's as simple as he fell in love with the wine and he started buying wines in Rioja. His best friends were from Rioja and nobody thinks that the Rioja wines, like Borgogna wines, will be kept in the years, in the 50s and 60s. Recondo's wine cellar is the best wine cellar in the world about Rioja wines. Such a treasure, look at this. So here we have the white wines and it's something like a jewellery. Yeah, like a jewellery store. And then now in the second room we have the very, very old wines. The oldest one we have from Rioja is Marqués de Riscal, 1880. Oh my gosh. Yeah, be careful. Okay, I don't want to touch it, I don't want to touch it. That is true, right, so. This is like a piece of history. Yeah, it's a history, Recondo history. Here, our oldest room is full of Rioja wines, right? And you can see that we don't have anything right over there because they are a collection. My father wanted to keep that because it's really a great treasure. So they are not for sale, they are going to keep it for himself and maybe one day we can sell them, but nowadays we keep to be here in Recondo for... Like a museum. Yeah, and we have around 80,000 bottles. Yeah. More or less. I cannot believe this, I cannot, my mind is exploding. This was amazing. Thank you very much. After this I'm headed to the Rioja, so where do you think I should start? I think you cannot miss and you have to start from La Rioja Alta. Okay. Because the years after years they show us that is the best wines they have improved after 30, 40, 60, 80 years. So I think that you have to go there straight away. Okay. Join me next week as we travel to the wine region of Rioja, resting along the river Ebro, as I explore the food and wines of Rioja Alta. Salud!