Somm's Table

Recanati Marawi with Black Cod and Papaya-Cucumber Salad. Photo by Greg Hudson

The 2016 Recanati Marawi. Note: the wine was given to me as a sample.

In my last post I shared a bit about 2016 Recanati Marawi Judean Hills. Marawi has a fascinating story, so I recommend going back and giving that post a quick read. As a very quick recap, Marawi (aka Hamdani) is a really ancient grape that has only recently been rediscovered as wine producing variety.

Recanati Winery was started in 2000 by Lenny Recanati and Uri Shaked with the idea of produce elegant Israeli wines that express the region’s unique terroir. This wine fits right in with this ethos as they see this indigenous grape as a deep reflection of the land, moving beyond any political affiliations. They were actually the first to produce it as a single varietal wine.

THE PAIRING

Let’s finally move on to how it tastes. On the day Greg and I opened the wine, we got notes of lime pith, saline, white flowers, and green tropical fruits on the nose. We got similar notes on the palate with lemon and grapefruit, apples, underripe pineapple and green melon. That sea spray brought a savory edge, along with fresh, soft green herbs. This wine was dry, had a rounded body, had medium + acidity, and very moderate alcohol (12%).

Quick note: This wine was gifted to me as a sample at the winery when I visited it as part of press trip. Please note no other monetary compensation was received and all opinions, as always, are my own.

To start off, Greg was feeling more of the green tropical notes, while the saline and savory notes were speaking to me. As I sat with it and the wine warmed up a bit, the tropical notes developed more in glass for me as well.

I was torn for a while on what to prepare for this wine. We’d just had some Laotian and Thai take-out earlier in the day, and Greg noted this would have been a good match. Agreed. We also considered calamari with herbs or salsa verde, boquerones in a Spanish pintxos, and chicken or pork in chili verde with tomatillos. I think these would have all been solid matches.

Nonetheless, I really wanted to play with the combination of slightly underripe tropical fruit, saltiness, and green herbal notes. It seemed fitting to flip through Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem cookbook for inspiration. While I didn’t end up making this dish, an image of his Panfried Mackerel with Golden Beets and Orange Salsa helped to focus ideas chaotically floating around in my mind.

Flipping through Jerusalem: A Cookbook was great inspiration.

What I ultimately came up with was kind of a mash-up of a green papaya salad and tabouli without the grains. This might seem weird at first, but these two dishes actually have a few flavor components in common. If you’re unfamiliar with working with papaya, check out this helpful post from Viet World Kitchen, but it’s pretty similar to working with a melon or squash. Peel, scoop out seeds, then dice. Mine was just starting to ripen (it was yellowy to light orange) and I found that to be nice as it added just a hint of sweetness. That said, I think this would work at any ripeness level, from green to fully ripe, depending on your preference.

I served the salad with lightly marinated black cod, also known as sablefish. The fish has a buttery texture that seemed like it would be a wonderful match with the texture of the wine–it was! The final flourish was a little Greek yogurt, which also worked with the wine’s mouthfeel.

This pairing worked beautifully. The food brought out both the green herbs and the tangy tropical notes in the wine, as I’d hoped. Such a delicious match! I’d definitely make this dish again, particularly during warmer weather.

Bonus points–the leftover Papaya-Cucumber salad and Greek yogurt topped with nuts makes a delicious sweet-savory breakfast

THE GEEKY DETAILS

Here’s a bit more info taken from the tech sheets on Recanati and Palm Bay Import’s site:

GRAPE VARIETIES 100% Marawi

REGION: Judean Hills

VITICULTURE: Grapes are dry-farmed (no irrigation) at 750 m above sea level from a very small vineyard of only 0.6 ha from 30- year-old vines from a leased vineyard in Palestine. The vineyard has a limestone-clay soil base. Grapes are hand harvested in the early morning in mid-September. Grape are grown using the traditional trellising method known as “Hebron Overhead Arbor.”

PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES: After careful hand harvesting, the grapes are de-stemmed and fermented for 10 days at approximately 78°F. There is no malolactic fermentation. The wine is transferred to French oak barrels where it matures for 6 months. The wine is further aged in bottle for 5 months before release.

ANALYSIS Alch: 12.5% (Bottle says 12%) TA: 5.1g/L pH: 3.4

MONEY TALK:

This one might hard to find at this point, although it is brought to the US by Palm Bay Imports. The SRP is about $30, so while it’s not cheap, it’s not incredibly expensive either. I’d say it’s an Attainable Indulgence and a really Cool Find.

OTHER POSSIBILITIES

In addition to some of the other options I mentioned above, I think this wine would pair really well with any number of fish, chicken, and pork dishes with lighter sauces, as well as veggies and soft cheeses.

Since this wine is likely to be difficult to find, look for other white wines with a combination of herb notes and bright, bouncy fruits as alternatives. While very different, the combo of flavors in a New Zealand Sauv Blanc should pair nicely.

It’s a bright, sunny day outside in the Bay Area as I look out my window while writing this post. Sure, you still need a jacket on hand most of the time–but that’s true most of the year here. Spring is in full swing and has been for a while. These lovely sunshiny days calls for lighter fare and crisper wines. Cue: enter Picpoul Blanc.

This is a bright, zippy white grape that hails from the south of France. One can see right away how this grape would match perfectly with the coastal, Mediterranean cuisine of the region–it tends to have vibrant citrus flavors, sometimes laced with pretty floral notes. Its natural mouthwatering acidity gives the grape its name which translates as “stings the lip." Alongside that acid, these wines still tend to have body, with a roundness that gives them a tangy quality. It’s absolutely perfect for quenching your thirst on a hot day, not the least because Picpoul wines (also spelled Piquepoul) tend to be available at extremely wallet friendly prices.

The AOC Picpoul de Pinet is devoted entirely to this grape and is the largest white wine appellation in the Languedoc. I’ve covered several other wines from the Languedoc (like this one on Corbières and Minervois) but this appellation runs along the coast, separated from the Mediterranean Sea only by the Bassin de Thau, an 11 mile long lagoon. The area is not all that large but it has varied topography that grows more jagged and hilly as you travel north, and rolls more gently as you approach the sea. Apparently, the climate here is so mild and lovely that flamingos happily make it there home–some don’t even bother traveling during the winter months.

It would seem that Picpoul seems content with the region as well, since it’s been a resident for quite a long time. According to Jancis Robinson’s Wine Grapes, the earliest mention of Picpoul Blanc was in 1667. (Mentions of other versions of Picpoul go back further.) The soils in the area tend toward limestone and alluvial soils, with some significant sandy patches. It’s a good thing too that Picpoul likes the sand–this helped it survive the devastation of phylloxera, as this little bug does not care for sand at all.

Picpoul does also come in Noir and Gris varieties as well. The Gris version is nearly extinct, but the Noir is commonly used in blends. (I briefly mentioned a really fun varietal Picpoul Noir bottling in this post.)