Recommendations · Wine and food

Moussaka with Cavino Nemea Agiorgitiko Red

Moussaka with fried aubergine, lamb mince with cinnamon and a thick layer of béchamel over the top. Agiorgitiko from Nemea is the Greek red grape that belongs exactly with this dish.

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Bottle of Cavino Nemea Agiorgitiko Red, wine

From the shelf

The bottle

Cavino Nemea Agiorgitiko Red comes from Nemea in Greece and is made from agiorgitiko. The wine is at 13 percent by volume and the bottle holds 75 centilitres. The colour is deep red with lively red-purple hues, with red fruit, lavender and butterscotch on the nose. The taste is soft with velvety tannins.

Cavino Nemea Agiorgitiko Red

The combination

Why this works together

Moussaka stacks three things on top of each other: aubergine that has soaked up oil, fatty minced lamb and a béchamel of butter, milk and cheese. That is a lot of fat, and tannin is needed for that. At the same time there is cinnamon and nutmeg in the mince, and hard tannin would turn bitter next to that. Agiorgitiko solves this with tannin that is there but feels velvety soft: enough to bind the fat, too soft to disturb the spices. The red fruit sits alongside the tomato in the mince, and the sweet butterscotch tone finds the cinnamon.

At the table

The dish

  • Before 4 people
  • Ready in 2 hours
  • Type main course

What you need

  • 2 aubergines
  • 600 grams of minced lamb
  • 600 grams waxy potatoes
  • 2 onions
  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • 400 grams canned diced tomatoes
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 6 tablespoons olive oil
  • 60 grams of butter
  • 60 grams flour
  • 700 milliliters whole milk
  • 100 grams grated mature cheese
  • 1 pinch of nutmeg
  • salt and freshly ground black pepper

How to make it

  1. Cut the aubergines into slices a centimetre thick, sprinkle them with salt and leave them to drain in a colander for twenty minutes. Then pat them dry; that way they absorb less oil.
  2. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Brush the slices with three tablespoons of olive oil, lay them on a baking tray and roast them for twenty minutes until golden brown.
  3. Peel the potatoes, cut them into slices of half a centimetre and parboil them for six minutes. Let them drain.
  4. Chop the onions and garlic. Fry the lamb mince crumbly and brown in two tablespoons of oil, scoop it out and sweat the onion soft in the fat left behind.
  5. Add the garlic, cinnamon and oregano, return the mince to the pan and pour in the diced tomatoes. Let everything reduce for twenty minutes until barely any liquid is left.
  6. Melt the butter in a saucepan, stir in the flour and let it cook for two minutes. Pour in the milk in portions and stir to a thick béchamel. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg and stir in half of the cheese.
  7. In an ovenproof dish, layer potato, then aubergine on that, and the mince on that. Pour the béchamel over it and sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top.
  8. Bake the moussaka for 40 minutes until the top is golden brown and let it stand for fifteen minutes before you cut it.

In the glass

Serving

Pour the wine at 16 degrees into a generous red wine glass. Half an hour of breathing is enough; this wine is not meant to be decanted for long. Slightly below room temperature keeps it fresh alongside a heavy oven dish.

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