Drinks advice

Braised veal cheek with González Byass Del Duque Amontillado V.O.R.S. 30Y

On the plate are veal cheeks that have been braised for an hour and a half with carrot, onion and dry sherry, in a sauce that has been passed through a fine sieve and then reduced. The amontillado sets against that a wine of an average thirty years that is just as concentrated as the sauce.

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Photo: reivax, CC BY-SA 2.0

From the shelf

The bottle

Del Duque comes from González Byass in Jerez de la Frontera and is an amontillado with the designation V.O.R.S., which stands for an average age of at least thirty years. The wine is one hundred percent palomino fino and matures in American oak botas in the solera y criaderas system; the solera goes back to 1835. As an amontillado the wine began biologically under the velo de flor and then switched to oxidative ageing with air contact, during which evaporation through the wood has concentrated it further for decades. That shows in the strength: the bottle is at 21.5 percent alcohol, high within the 16 to 22 percent that the Consejo Regulador names for this style, and we sell it in 37 centilitres.

González Byass Del Duque Amontillado V.O.R.S. 30Y

The combination

Why this works together

A veal cheek is connective tissue cooked for hours: the collagen becomes gelatine, and what lies on the plate after reducing is a sauce with a sticky, concentrated savouriness that few dishes achieve. A wine of an average thirty years is the counterweight to it, and for the same reason: it too has been concentrated by decades of evaporation through the wood to 21.5 percent alcohol, so weight against weight, and that is the first condition. In addition there is no sweetness in the way: the sauce is savoury and the wine is dry, so that neither flattens the other. The aromatic bridge lies in the ageing: from the years under flor comes acetaldehyde, measured in amontillado at almost 150 milligrams per litre, and from the decades with air contact comes the dark, almost toasted layer that connects with the browned bits of the braising pan. The Consejo names soups and consommés with amontillado, and with the closely related palo cortado expressly stews and gelatinous meat such as cheek.

At the table

The dish

  • For 4 people
  • Ready in 1 hour and 50 minutes
  • Type main course

What you need

  • 2 veal cheeks (about 800 g)
  • 200 g onion, finely chopped
  • 2 carrots, sliced
  • 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
  • 200 ml dry sherry
  • 450 ml beef stock
  • 100 ml extra virgin olive oil
  • wheat flour for dredging
  • 1 bay leaf
  • salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • mashed potatoes or roasted potatoes, to serve alongside

How to make it

  1. Clean the cheeks and cut off the skin. Season them with salt and pepper, dredge them in the flour and sear them all over in a braising pan over high heat in the olive oil. Scoop them out of the pan.
  2. Add the onion, carrot, garlic and bay leaf to the same pan and fry them in the fat left behind.
  3. Put the cheeks back on the vegetables, pour in the dry sherry and let it boil for ten minutes so the alcohol evaporates.
  4. Add the meat stock, put the lid on the pan and braise everything for thirty minutes.
  5. Turn the cheeks over and braise them for another twenty minutes.
  6. Check that the meat is tender. Remove the lid and let the sauce reduce for fifteen minutes.
  7. Take the cheeks out of the pan and press the sauce through a fine sieve so that it becomes smooth.
  8. Cut the cheeks into thick slices, pour the sauce over them and serve with mashed potatoes or roast potatoes.

In the glass

Serving

Pour this amontillado at between 12 and 14 degrees; for wines labelled V.O.R.S., the Consejo itself uses about 15 degrees in its own guide, so a little warmer is fine here. Use a white wine glass or catavinos of about 200 millilitres, filled by a third, and keep the portion small: at 21.5 percent alcohol this is not a wine of which you empty half a bottle with the main course. According to the Consejo, an opened V.O.R.S. keeps for about three months, with the bottle closed and stored cool.

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