Drinks advice

Roasted almonds and rosemary with Sandeman Tawny Port

On the table is a dish of warm almonds from the oven, coloured and glossy, with finely chopped rosemary, salt and a hint of chilli. Opposite, the port is a glass that after years in wood smells of nuts itself, with residual sugar that softens the salt.

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Smoked almonds
Photo: PincasPhoto, CC BY 2.0

From the shelf

The bottle

Sandeman is a port house that began in London in 1790 and has its lodges in Vila Nova de Gaia. This is the tawny from the standard range: a blend of wines of different years with an average age of about four years, matured in oak casks. That maturation in wood lets in oxygen and turns the wine from red to amber, with a scent of vanilla and raisin. The bottle is 19.5 percent alcohol and holds 75 centilitres. For tawny, the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto recommends a serving temperature of 10 to 14 degrees.

Sandeman Tawny Port

The combination

Why this works together

Roasted almonds and a tawny come from the same corner. In roasting, the almond gets a toasty, almost caramel-like top layer, and in cask ageing the port gets exactly such notes of nut and vanilla from the oxygen: the two go along with each other instead of against each other. In addition, these almonds are quite salty, and sweet dampens salt more strongly than the other way round; Green and colleagues saw the perception of salt in a mixture with sucrose come out well over eighty percent lower. The residual sugar of the tawny does the same with the salt of the nuts. The fat also helps: almonds are fatty, and the alcohol of the port clears that fat away, so that the next handful tastes sharp again.

At the table

The dish

  • For 4 people
  • Ready in 25 minutes
  • Type starter

What you need

  • 200 g almonds
  • 1 tablespoon finely chopped rosemary leaves
  • half a tablespoon of light brown sugar
  • a pinch of dried chilli flakes
  • a pinch of salt
  • 1 teaspoon butter
  • half a tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

How to make it

  1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees, or 180 degrees fan. In a small bowl, mix the rosemary, the soft brown sugar, the chilli flakes and the salt.
  2. Stir the butter and the olive oil into this herb mixture.
  3. Spread the almonds out on a baking tray and roast them for 8 minutes.
  4. Take the tray out of the oven and toss the almonds with the spice mixture until evenly coated and the butter has melted. Spread them out again and roast them for another 8 minutes.
  5. Let them cool briefly and serve them warm or at room temperature.

In the glass

Serving

Serve this tawny at 10 to 14 degrees, so cooler than room temperature but not cold; half an hour in the fridge usually does it. Use a tulip-shaped glass and fill it no more than a third, so the nutty aroma stays in the glass. Decanting is not necessary, as this style is clarified in cask. According to the institute, an opened bottle of tawny keeps for three to four weeks; store it upright in a cool place or in the fridge.

Everything about Sandeman Tawny PortBack to Drinks advice from ’t Bockje

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