Wines to Pair with Puerto Rican Food with Pedro Rodriguez, co-founder of Grand Cata Wine

Hi this is Jessica with Dining Traveler and I'm here with my friend Pedro who's the owner of Gran Cata which is a wine bar and shop that specializes on Latin American wines and he's going to give us some tips on wines to have with our Puerto Rican food. So take it away Pedro. Absolutely thank you Jessica. Super happy to be collaborating in this video with uh to show the beautiful cuisine of the island. We have our goal here is to always complement the wines with the food and the food with the wine so we're always looking for balance when we're pairing wines. Our main theme is Latin American wines so we have wines from Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, a little bit of Bolivia and Peru and then Mexico and then we travel to heritage nations in Europe specialized in Spain, Italy and Portugal. Today we pick a few that we really love. These are for traditional dishes from Puerto Rican Christmas Navidad We have the Polygonos Zuccardi. It's one of our favorite projects in Argentina from the Zuccardi family. Sebastian Zuccardi took over winemaking duties almost a decade ago. Family winery, third generation and then he they planted a beautiful array of different varieties that we love. In this case we picked an Albarino. As you know it's an Albarino. It's a native variety from the Iberian Peninsula, Galicia and northern Portugal. Spelled differently but kind of the genetic composition of the variety and then this is high elevation in Argentina. Zuccardi was one of the actually one of the first to plant Albarino and Tempranillo in Argentina so there's a lot of beautiful wines being made from those Iberian varieties. As you know in Puerto Rico we love Spanish wine so people know Albarino. We drink Albarino like water and we love it with all types of cuisines that we have like fried food. If you do a little bit of salads in the beginning but this is more for the arroz con gandules that we love. The rice with pigeon peas that we love. It's super traditional that we always enjoy during the holiday season but throughout the year if you're like really stuck to your roots of Puerto Rico people love to eat their arroz con gandules consistently. So why does the Albarino pair so well with arroz con gandules? So you get you get a little bit of flavor that's a sazon that has a little bit as you know garlic you have you know the pimientos the peppers a little bit the saltiness component and then the Albarino because high elevation has very nice intensity on the grape so you get more texture on the wine so it cleans your palate really nicely. It has the mouth-watering effect with the acidity that you want to enjoy another spoon or fork of your rice while you're eating the traditional dishes from Christmas. So if I have pasteles with my arroz con gandules what do you recommend we have with that? So with the pasteles as you know it's the traditional ones so it's an array of different ingredients from and you're the the cooking expert here. So yeah so it's a root vegetable so we have jautia, green bananas, plátano, everybody has their own recipe calabaza I like to put in mine so everybody has absolutely then you have pasteles de yuca which that's my favorite too yes yeah I feel like why do we put like so many people like that's their favorite I'm like why am I working so hard exactly so pasteles as you know it's our take on a of a tamal but we don't use the corn we use a root vegetable that we grew up eating in the island and then you always make them for Christmas as part of your main Christmas plate so the idea is that you have a it could be pork in the middle like the the inside of the pastel before it could be chicken I don't care I love them both and you get a little bit of the umami flavor so you want like a flexible red that can actually go both ways if you go back to the arroz con gandule or you go back to the guineito and cabeche you can always have something to sip on that it will complement the the wine here we have uh it's uh uva pais it's the first variety planted in chile in the 1500s it's patrimonial in chile uh this uh producer louis anton newt he's a frenchman from um from burgundy and he kind of revived the the tradition of artists in chile when he went and visited in uh in 2009-10 and fell in love with the chilean landscape all the potential so he started working with a lot of ancestral vineyards ranging from 100 to 150 year old vines so you make a beautiful delicious uh two red liter bottle so you can share plenty more with your guests and this is going to be a little more layer you get minerality you get like a kind of dusty red fruit composition and you got a little bit herbal qualities think about it it's like a pinot noir misa grenache to give you a context if you never have pais and if you like that variety you should also try the ones from argentina it's called criolla chica and the mission grape that's grown in mexico as well so kind of off the beaten path style to complement this is translated into because we cannot have christmas without lechon so what do you recommend for a nice cut of pernil so a very nice cut of pernil that you get the skin a very nice crackling skin of the the pork you get obviously a little bit of the grease and then the richness of the meat you want a red that has a little more body but it's not too rich because you know the meal is already kind of dense so you want to do the complement and balance uh the array of food that you're enjoying uh i picked a very nice uruguayan uh uruguay uruguay tanet so i love love that that's one of my favorite latin american grapes yeah so it's a it's a beautiful that grows with the atlantic ocean influence here it's a different style because this is partially carbonic macerated so it's adding more fleshy softer on the tannins really nice dark fruit profile medium plus body so it will kind of again cleanse your palate as you're enjoying the the richness of the pork with the garlic so it always kind of blend out really well with your meal and then pedro um now i'm gonna i'm gonna throw you a curveball for those that don't drink red wine i have a few friends that don't drink red wine what would you recommend always think about rosé rosé it's always your friend where you are in a dinner party or going you know hosting or going to a friend's house family member's house rosé is the best style that you can pair with an array of foods it will be a crowd pleaser as well but you can also make sure that people are going to enjoy with different types of appetizers main dishes so it's super fail you can pair it with fish you can pair it with animal proteins and then super super elegant polished rosé has the acidity the freshness so it's always complements really well uh your meal i i love rosé throughout the throughout the year but for the holiday season it's always good to have a few roses around because um you know you don't know what people are bringing are you going to be eating so it's a good flexible wine to have on hand meets everybody at the middle correct yes and do you have any of the latin american wines that you recommend because i know that when a lot of folks think rosé they think like provence they think french um but also latin america has some great roses absolutely uh high elevation rosé made of malbec they're really nice they're a little more deeper color uh if you're familiar with your french rosettes from tavel that's a light more darker skin contact rosé those are beautiful to pair for the holiday season and also actually in ottawa there the garcon producer makes a really nice pinot noir rosettes a little more brighter like a provence rosette so that that also works really well and don't skip on the bubbles uh one of our favorite producers uh uh sparkling wine in in the region of latin america is uh from brazil you heard it right brazil they make amazing wines traditional method they make a beautiful pinot noir rosé uh the drinks are a little bit like a champagne cava uh really great value for the price point uh and that also uh works really well again with a lot of the array of dishes that you enjoy during the holiday season so don't forget about the bubbles as well i'm just visualizing the guarito with a glass of bubbles oh yeah you get the richness and then the very nice acidity to cut down the grease and your palate it sounds like the ultimate party well thank you so much for these tips not only am i hungry but i'm thirsty oh yeah if you guys are in the dc area go and check out gran cata they have three locations so you have the one here and mosaic and where are the other two so we have a mosaic district here in in fairfax county in virginia uh just just a little bit outside of the byway so it's ample parking so come and visit we have a wine bar wine store market and then our flagship is in the shaw neighborhood in dc that's our first baby uh we've been there almost nine years and then nine years already yes yeah time flies wow and then we have a la cosecha that's part of a latin market beautiful environment energy and we have a little wine bar bodega uh for all your hosting needs uh for the holiday season so come and visit open every day we're here for you to enjoy good wine good company and create new memories together thank you