Recommendations

Apple pie and cinnamon with Graham’s 10 Years Old Tawny Port

On the dish stands a double apple pie with a lid of shortbread pastry, filled with thinly sliced Bramley apples, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. The port sets a ten-year-old tawny against it, a combination that the house itself recommends.

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From the shelf

The bottle

Graham’s is a port house from the Douro, founded in 1820. This is a tawny with a ten-year age statement, whose wines come mainly from five of its own quintas, including Quinta dos Malvedos, Quinta do Tua and Quinta das Lages. It ages for ten years in oak casks, where the oxygen turns the fresh fruit into nut, caramel and dried fruit. The bottle is at 19.5 percent alcohol and comes in 75 centilitres. The house serves it lightly chilled and itself pairs it with sweet pastries and in particular with apple pie with cinnamon; the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto specifies 10 to 14 degrees for tawny.

Graham’s 10 Years Old Tawny Port

The combination

Why this works together

This pairing is on the house's own technical sheet for a reason: Graham’s names apple pie with cinnamon as the matching course for this ten-year-old tawny. The mechanism is twofold. Ten years in cask turn the fruit of the port into nut, caramel and dried fruit, and an apple pie that has been in the oven brings exactly that caramel layer with it: the apple sugars turn brown under the lid of pastry, and the cinnamon, nutmeg and clove in the filling put the spice note next to the one the glass already has. The second is the acidity. Bramley apples are distinctly tart and break down when baked into a purée that leaves a lot of malic acid behind. That acidity cuts through the residual sugar of the port and cleans the mouth after every bite, so that a sweet course and a sweet glass do not pile up on each other.

At the table

The dish

  • For 4 people
  • Ready in 1 hour and 45 minutes, plus an hour of cooling
  • Type dessert

What you need

  • 300 g flour, plus extra for rolling out
  • a pinch of salt
  • 150 g cold unsalted butter, cubed
  • 2 tablespoons caster sugar for the dough
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • 2 to 3 tablespoons ice-cold water
  • 750 g Bramley apples, about 3 large ones
  • 500 g regular apples, about 4 medium
  • 75 g fine caster sugar, plus 2 teaspoons extra
  • half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon
  • a good grating of nutmeg
  • 8 whole cloves
  • 1 tablespoon milk
  • a 25 cm metal cake tin

How to make it

  1. Sift the flour into the food processor, add the salt and butter and pulse until the mixture is crumbly. Add the 2 tablespoons of sugar and pulse briefly again.
  2. Put the mixture in a bowl, make a well, add the egg yolk and the water and mix with a flat knife until a soft dough forms. Knead briefly, press it into a disc, wrap it in cling film and let it rest in the fridge for 1 hour.
  3. Peel the apples, remove the cores and cut the quarters into thin slices of about 5 millimetres. Mix them in a bowl with the 75 g sugar, the cinnamon, the nutmeg and the cloves. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees, or 180 degrees fan, with a baking tray inside.
  4. Divide the dough into two pieces, one slightly larger. Roll out the smaller one into a disc of 30 to 35 centimetres and press it into the base and up the sides of the tin. Spoon in the apple firmly and brush the edge of the dough with water.
  5. Roll out the larger piece into a disc of 45 centimetres. Lay it over the apple, cut away the excess and pinch the edges together.
  6. Roll out the leftover dough and cut leaves from it to decorate the pie. Brush the pie with the milk, sprinkle the 2 teaspoons of sugar over it and cut a small hole in the middle for the steam.
  7. Slide the tart onto the hot baking tray and turn the oven back to 180 degrees, or 160 degrees fan. Bake the tart for about 45 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown and the apple is soft.
  8. Let the pie cool slightly and serve it lukewarm.

In the glass

Serving

Pour this ten-year-old tawny lightly chilled, as the house advises, at 10 to 14 degrees; half an hour in the fridge usually brings a bottle at room temperature there. Use a tulip-shaped glass and fill it no more than a third. Decanting is not necessary, because the wine was fined in cask. An opened bottle of tawny with an age statement keeps well for one to four months according to the institute; store it upright in a cool place.

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Wij verkopen geen alcohol aan personen onder de 18 jaar. NIX18