Drinks advice

Tuna on stewed onion with Valdespino Fino Inocente Single Vineyard

On the plate is a bed of slowly braised onion with sherry vinegar and smoked paprika, with cubes of tuna that have cooked in it for just three minutes. Set against it, the Inocente is a fino with more body than usual, which sets acidity and salt against the sweetness of the onion.

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Briefly seared tuna with sesame
Photo: hindyg, CC BY 2.0

From the shelf

The bottle

Inocente comes from Valdespino and is a fino from a single vineyard: pago Macharnudo Alto near Jerez de la Frontera, on white chalk soil called albariza. The grape is one hundred percent palomino and the must does not ferment in steel but in barrels of American oak, which is unusual for a fino and gives the wine more fullness. It then ages biologically, well over eight years under the velo de flor, in a solera with ten criaderas; at bottling the wine is about ten years old. The bottle is at 15 percent alcohol and comes in 75 centilitres.

Valdespino Fino Inocente Single Vineyard

The combination

Why this works together

Atun encebollado is a dish from Cadiz in which the onion stews long enough to turn sweet and the sherry vinegar pushes that sweetness back again. That is exactly the balance in which a fino can be placed: it has no sweetness of its own, so it does not echo the onion's sweetness back, but it does bring the acidity and the saltiness that keep the dish in balance. At the same time, tuna is a hearty fish with fat in the flesh, and an ordinary, light fino struggles with that. The Inocente can handle it, because it is fermented in cask, has aged for ten years and therefore has more filling and a rounder mouthfeel than a young fino. The smoked paprika also calls for that extra body, because smoke overwhelms a wine that is too light. For fino, the Consejo Regulador explicitly mentions sour dishes with vinegar and marinade, and this is the warm example of that.

At the table

The dish

  • For 4 people
  • Ready in 45 minutes
  • Type main course

What you need

  • 1 kg onions, in thin half-rings
  • 1 bulb of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
  • 600 g tuna, in cubes of about 3 cm
  • 50 ml sherry vinegar
  • 500 ml fish stock
  • 3 bay leaves
  • 1 small bunch of oregano, leaves chopped
  • 2 g smoked paprika powder
  • olive oil
  • coarse sea salt

How to make it

  1. Bring the fish stock to the boil in a pan and keep it warm over a low heat.
  2. Heat a generous layer of olive oil in a roomy pan and add the garlic, the onions, the oregano and the bay leaves.
  3. Simmer this over medium heat for about 25 minutes, until the onions are translucent but not yet coloured.
  4. Stir in the smoked paprika and the sherry vinegar and let the vinegar evaporate for a minute.
  5. Spoon a few ladles of fish stock into the pan, put the blocks of tuna in it and sprinkle them with coarse sea salt.
  6. Let the tuna cook along for about three minutes, so that it stays just pink inside, and serve the dish with bread.

In the glass

Serving

Serve the Inocente slightly less cold than a regular fino: Valdespino keeps to 8 to 10 degrees, which brings out the cask ageing and the fullness of this wine better. Use a white wine glass or a catavinos of about 200 millilitres, filled one third. This fino also keeps only briefly after opening: count on about a week in the fridge with the bottle tightly closed, and do not leave it standing on the counter once poured.

Everything about Valdespino Fino Inocente Single VineyardBack to Drinks advice from ’t Bockje

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