El Mundo's awards

[vserna]

...according to the jury of food writers for Metrópoli, El Mundo's entertainment and leisure supplement, are:

Restaurant of the year: La Broche. Finalists: El Mesón de Doña Filo (Colmenar de Arroyo) and Casa José (Aranjuez)

Newcomer of the year (ex aequo): El Antojo and Zaranda. Finalists: Asiana and El Patio de Leo.

Traditional restaurant of the year: Asador Imanol. Finalists: La Lonja (Pozuelo de Alarcón) and Asturianos.

Foreign restaurant of the year: Yuan. Finalists: Boccondivino and Le Petit Bistrot.

Restaurant outside the city limits (ex aequo): El Mesón de Doña Filo (Colmenar de Arroyo) and Casa José (Aranjuez).

Up-and-coming chef: Ricardo Sanz (Kabuki). Finalists: Fernando del Cerro (Casa José) and César Rodríguez (El Antojo).

Maître d' of the year: Leoncio González (Mesón Txistu). Finalists: Fernando González Ortiz (Yuan) and Angeles Giménez (Nicolás).

Sommelier of the year: Juan Antonio Herrero (Lágrimas Negras). Finalists: Manuel Rosell (Bodegas Rosell) and Gerardo Giménez (Gaztelupe).

'More than a restaurant': Nueva Fontana. Finalists: Asiana and Lavinia Espacio Gastronómico.

Best interior decoration: Lágrimas Negras. Finalists: Arola Madrid and Europa Decó.

Tapas and wine bars of the year: El Quinto Vino. Finalists: El Fogón de Trifón and El Gorro Blanco.

Food and wine shops: Raza Nostra. Finalists: Pastelería Internacional and Supermercados Nativo.

[pedro]

Good for Antojo and its chef and owner, César! And for La Broche too, of course. I was there just ten days ago and I had an excellent dinner.

The interior decor of Lágrimas Negras could be worth the award, but the lack of glasses with their proper stem . . .

[vserna]

I think they received the glasses now. Come to think of it - we should have a stemware award, shouldn't we?

[vserna]

Quickly now, to complement the restaurant awards, the just-announced El Mundo awards to the top Spanish wines of the year (2005, that is):

Red: L'Ermita 2003, Alvaro Palacios (DOC Priorat)

White: As Sortes 2004, Rafael Palacios (DO Valdeorras)

Other: Amontillado Solera Fundacional 1905, Pérez-Barquero (DO Montilla-Moriles)

Honorable mention:

Doix VV 2003, Mas Doix (DOC Priorat)

Clos Erasmus 2003, Clos i Terrasses (DOC Priorat)

Único 1994, Vega Sicilia (DO Ribera del Duero)

PS 2001, Aalto (DO Ribera del Duero)

Malleolus de Sanchomartín 2002, Emilio Moro (DO Ribera del Duero)

Tilenus Pagos de Posada 2001, Estefanía (DO Bierzo)

Belondrade y Lurton 2003 (DO Rueda)

José Pariente Verdejo 2004 Dos Victorias (DO Rueda)

1583 Albariño de Fefiñanes 2003 (DO Rías Baixas)

Mas La Plana 1999 Torres (DO Penedès)

L'Avi Arrufí 2002 Vinos Piñol (DO Terra Alta)

Clio 2002 El Nido (DO Jumilla)

[filipe]

I just can't understand the "best somellier" award to Lagrimas Negras. I had one of the worst wine experiences of my life there about one month ago. They've just refused - yes, refused - to warm up a really cold wine, based on the argument that the room temperature will do it for itself! Which even if it was true - and it wasn't - sounds really bad to ear...

[vserna]

They've just refused - yes, refused - to warm up a really cold wine

←

They saved your wine. Warming up a wine (how? on a stove? dipping the bottle in a 'bain marie'?) will always cause grievous harm to a wine. One doesn't warm a wine up by artificial means - ever.

(I am a wine writer and also a winemaker, in case you were wandering what made me so sure of myself on this point.)

Juan Antonio Herrero, a young, courteous, extremely knowledgeable sommelier, joined Lágrimas Negras last summer from London's The Greenhouse, a Wine Spectator Grand Award winner.

[filipe]

They saved your wine. Warming up a wine (how? on a stove? dipping the bottle in a 'bain marie'?) will always cause grievous harm to a wine. One doesn't warm a wine up by artificial means - ever.

←

Yes, dropping it out of its bottle into a previously warmed (boiling water, take if off and then dry it) decanter.

That's what one do to a red wine which was not more than 10 degress (Celsius)

Beat me if i am wrong ehehe but I allways saw that being nicelly done

[vserna]

Their cellar is at 14º C. Where the heck was this red wine, out in the street on a freezing day?

[filipe]

Their cellar is at 14º C. Where the heck was this red wine, out in the street on a freezing day?

←

Ok, put it 14º C. Do you take it as a good temperature for a red wine to be drinked? I don't.

[vserna]

Wine serving 101:

A red wine should be cellared at 14º C, in order to be drunk at 16-17º - a temperature it will reach within minutes in a heated dining room, and which is the ideal drinking temperature for reds, certainly much better than the 22º C erroneously proposed years ago by proponents of 'chambrage'. If a wine is served at 16-17º, by the second course of the meal it'll be just too warm.

[podolski]

Do you take it as a good temperature for a red wine to be drinked? I don't.

←

Which temperature you think is the appropiate one?.

[pedro]

This kind of general discussion about wine would be better placed in the Wine forum.

[PauloR]

Last year I went to La Broche, and Sant Celoni.

My experience at S. Celoni, was much better than La Broche. Probably a bad day at La Broche??

I just can't understand the "best somellier" award to Lagrimas Negras. I had one of the worst wine experiences of my life there about one month ago. They've just refused - yes, refused - to warm up a really cold wine.

I agree with vserna, they saved his wine.

I had dinner at Lágrimas Negras, last November.

The meal was good, and the sommelier choices of wines, matched with the food very well. All temperatures of wines , withe and reds, was correct.

Edited January 11, 2006 by PauloR (log)