Spanish Snack Board. Surprise your guests!

It´s Friday afternoon and you have some friends coming home by surprise… WHAT TO DO NOW? You can amaze them with a simple but delicious board with some of the most typical snacks from Spain.

Easy, classy and yummy!

What are the ingredients that we´ll need?

The Spanish snacking culture or “tapeo” is based on 4 main pillars. These are; cold meat, cheese, bread & wine.

From here your imagination has no limit, but sometimes the simpler, the better a snack board will be.

We propose the following one:

• Cold meat:
• Spanish “jamón” (cured ham) must never be missing.
• “Chorizo” (hard pork sausage).
• “Salchichón” (salami-type cured sausage).
• Cheese: all kinds of cheese can be used. A number of 4-6 different types would be great. We recommend start eating the softest one. From there keep on tasting a stronger cheese than the previous one. This way people can fully enjoy the flavour of each cheese.
• Bread & Wine – Wine & Bread: The order is not important because both are the perfect and irreplaceable accompaniments. They will be the finishing touch of a perfect cycle of Spanish gastronomy.
• You can also add some nuts and quince jelly to surpass the senses, but that´s an option.

Source: Flickr of Gonmi 

There is one last ingredient that will turn this simple dish into the perfect one in your house: a good conversation with good friends. It makes everything ten times better.

Our cheese offer comprises many different kinds; from creamy to hard ewe cheese, going through goat cheese, wine cheese and more. All of them are rich in flavour and texture.

We encourage you to visit our website and see the entire world that surrounds the production of our cheese. Then you will understand why we are so proud of what we do and also of how we do it.

ENJOY!

The "marriage" between Cheese and Wine

Wines have been growing in popularity over the last few years, partially because people are starting to realize the pairing potential of wine with many food types, specially with cheeses, since they have all the aromas and flavours to be combined with different kinds of wine.

Wine and cheese behave a little like people. They are as varied as the regions they hail from and are both products of their environment. They also respond to each other in relationship, bringing out the best attributes in one another, and, like people, once in awhile you find that magical combination.

So, how to match cheese and wine? It´s not an exact science, and personal preference plays a big role.

If the cheese is going to be the focus of interest, it’s best to use less complex wines to allow the personality of the cheese shine. If you want to try with white wine: Sparkling wines, Pinot Gris (or Grigio), Riesling, and Gewürztraminer. For the red wines, fruit forward Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, and Syrah (or Shiraz) pair well with many cheeses. Good acidity and fruit create a more cheese-friendly wine.

You can follow a couple of tips to know how to match your wines with cheeses: The combinations Like Cheese/ Like Wine; a young cheese works well with a young wine, a full-flavored cheese with a full-bodied wine, and an aged cheese with an aged wine.

Opposites can attract as well. The saltiness of one cheese is balanced by the sweetness of a wine. Blue cheeses are typically paired with dessert wines very effectively for this reason. Another pair of opposites to look for is creamy, fatty cheeses, and acidic wines.

Regional pairings work naturally well together. A Spanish Rioja works well with many of the local goat’s and sheep’s milk cheeses as our Cheese from Albarracín.

Once the cheese and wine are selected, what now? According to Max McCalman, one of the most famous experts on cheese; it is important to first taste the cheeses and wines separately, to help us understand the individual character of each. The next step is to take a bite of cheese, and a sip of wine, creating a little sauce in your mouth. Let it swish around, pause to savor the flavour, then swallow. When it starts to work as a complimentary match that suddenly head south in your mouth, congratulations. That happens when you find a combination that works, the flavours blend beautifully and one partner amplifies the finest qualities of the other.

If you want to go further in experiences we have the perfect combination for you: Try our wine cheese in our online store, you will not regret.

Keep experimenting and enjoy the journey!